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How Many Electric Vehicles Are Needed to Reach CO 2 Emissions Goals? A Case Study from Montreal, Canada

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  • Pierre Laffont

    (Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, 2500 Chemin de Polytechnique, Montreal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada)

  • E. Owen D. Waygood

    (Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, 2500 Chemin de Polytechnique, Montreal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada)

  • Zachary Patterson

    (Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering, Concordia University, 1515 Ste-Catherine St. W., EV 7.640, Montreal, QC H3G 2W1, Canada)

Abstract

In the province of Quebec, Canada where the electricity is nearly carbon-free, the road transport sector represents 35.6% of all emissions. As such, electric vehicles (EVs) have been proposed as a means to reduce such emissions. However, it is not clear how many conventional vehicles (CVs) would need to change to electric in order to meet the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target of reducing 1990 CO 2 emissions by 37.5% by 2030 in the province. In fact, various considerations exist such as which vehicles will change and how those vehicles are used. This articleaddresses this issue in the case of Montreal, Canada. First, to create a baseline, direct emissions by all personal vehicles in Montreal in 2018 are calculated using data from the 2018 origin-destination (OD) survey and provincial vehicle registration. Next, five scenarios are studied to calculate the variations in the number of EVs needed in the fleet in order to achieve provincial targets. The most optimistic scenario shows that roughly 49% of the fleet would need to change. The most pessimistic scenario estimates that almost 73% of the fleet would need to be converted to EVs. It can be concluded that the strategy used can have a great impact on how many vehicles need to be replaced in the fleet. However, all simulations show that the necessary replacements are far from negligible. It must surely be coupled with other actions such as reducing veh.km travelled (vkmt) or increasing public transport use.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Laffont & E. Owen D. Waygood & Zachary Patterson, 2022. "How Many Electric Vehicles Are Needed to Reach CO 2 Emissions Goals? A Case Study from Montreal, Canada," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-24, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:1441-:d:735195
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Hill, Graeme & Heidrich, Oliver & Creutzig, Felix & Blythe, Phil, 2019. "The role of electric vehicles in near-term mitigation pathways and achieving the UK’s carbon budget," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C), pages 1-1.
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