Abstract

Shared cars will likely have larger annual vehicle driving distances than individually owned cars. This may accelerate passenger car retirement. Here we develop a semi-empirical lifetime-driving intensity model using statistics on Swedish vehicle retirement. This semi-empirical model is integrated with a carbon footprint model, which considers future decarbonization pathways. In this work, we show that the carbon footprint depends on the cumulative driving distance, which depends on both driving intensity and calendar aging. Higher driving intensities generally result in lower carbon footprints due to increased cumulative driving distance over the vehicle’s lifetime. Shared cars could decrease the carbon footprint by about 41% in 2050, if one shared vehicle replaces ten individually owned vehicles. However, potential empty travel by autonomous shared vehicles—the additional distance traveled to pick up passengers—may cause carbon footprints to increase. Hence, vehicle durability and empty travel should be considered when designing low-carbon car sharing systems.

Shared cars are driven more, which could shorten their lifetimes. This could influence carbon dioxide emissions in car manufacturing. Sharing nonetheless reduces carbon footprints. Designing cars for durability can further enhance the benefits

Details

Title
Impacts of shared mobility on vehicle lifetimes and on the carbon footprint of electric vehicles
Author
Morfeldt, Johannes 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Johansson, Daniel J. A. 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Chalmers University of Technology, Physical Resource Theory, Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Gothenburg, Sweden (GRID:grid.5371.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 0775 6028) 
Publication year
2022
Publication date
2022
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2729316645
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2022. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.