Life Cycle Assessment of Electric Vehicles and Their Role in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Greece

Transport electrification can reduce climate impacts, but its environmental performance depends on vehicle production, energy supply, operation, and end-of-life treatment. This study compares battery electric vehicles (BEVs), non-plug-in gasoline hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), and gasoline internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) using model parameters relevant to Greece. A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment was implemented in openLCA using ReCiPe 2016 Endpoint (H), with a functional unit of 150,000 vehicle-kilometres. Both electrified configurations exhibited lower impacts than the ICEV across all 18 indicators with positive results. The BEV achieved reductions of 43.2% in global-warming damage to human health, 44.8% in fine particulate matter formation, and 45.1% in terrestrial acidification relative to the ICEV. The HEV achieved reductions of 51.5% and 55.8% in fossil and mineral resource scarcity, respectively. Each electrified technology recorded the lowest value in nine positive indicators. The BEV–HEV ranking-margin analysis identified equal-impact thresholds of 9.05% for global-warming damage to human health and 4.25% for human carcinogenic toxicity. Negative water-consumption indicators were retained without interpretation as physical water savings. The findings identify category-specific trade-offs and support coordinated vehicle-efficiency and electricity-decarbonization measures without establishing overall environmental superiority.