Environmental Impact of Charging Private Battery Electric Vehicles Starting from Real Carbon Dioxide Emissions Factors for Electricity Production in Italy

This paper analyses the environmental impact associated with battery charging in private electric vehicles. Although electric vehicles produce no tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, or particulate matter during use, they still generate indirect environmental impacts through the electricity required for battery charging. In fact, this electricity is not exclusively sourced from renewables, but largely from fossil fuel-based power plants. Using real data from the Italian national power grid in 2018, the study calculates the carbon dioxide emissions linked to different vehicle charging strategies. The analysis accounts for the temporal and geographical variability of emission factors, which depend on the dynamic composition of the power generation mix. For each charging strategy, a specific emission factor per kilometer driven was evaluated, enabling a comparative assessment of the resulting environmental impacts.