Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), also called "pure electric vehicles", are vehicles powered by electric motors fed by batteries. They consume noticeably less primary energy and cause significantly less
CO2 emissions than Internal Combustion Vehicles (ICVs) (see our scientific study comparing BEVs to ICVs).
Because batteries are still very expensive, most BEVs have a rather short driving range. With current battery technologies, charging BEV batteries takes a long time - typically 8h when charged on a standard plug, down to 1h when using a fast charger connected to a high-power three-phase plug. Therefore, BEVs are currently unpractical for covering long distances. Their use is essentially limited to short trips such as daily commuting.
But short trips are the majority: worldwide, about 80% of the car mileage is for trips shorter than 60km, for which BEVs are ideal. If all shorts trips were covered by BEVs, the oil consumption would diminish by about 18%, and the impact on the environment would be significant:
Urban pollution: up to 50% reduction for some pollutants.
Urban noise: drastic reduction of traffic noise in cities.
Global greenhouse gas emissions: about 6% reduction with the EU electricity mix (assuming cars are responsible for 11% of greenhouse gas emissions).
Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) are therefore the most sustainable form of motorised road vehicles available or foreseeable. Their technology, which is over 150 years old, has leaped forward in recent years. It is well mature enough for widespread commercialisation, although it will certainly further improve in the future. A growing number of BEVs are now entering the market, and many more are announced for the following years.
Promoting BEVs for short trips would be a cheap and effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while significantly improving energy security, urban noise and air quality. BEVs are undoubtedly the motorised road vehicles of the future. We fully support BEV technology.
