The Comparing Study between Electric Scooter and
Gasoline-Fueled Scooter by Life Cycle Assessment
Abstract
To improve the air quality in urban area, Environmental Protection
Administration has established and actively promoted a program of “The
development of Electric Scooter” since 1998. However, people still doubted
about whether electric scooter is really more environmental friendly than
gasoline-fueled scooter. Therefore in this study, an objective and effective
analysis of “life cycle assessment” was performed to compare electric scooter
and gasoline-fueled scooter to obtain a comprehensive evaluation and
suggestion.
The main study subjects were an electric scooter named “Dancing in the
Air” and a tetra-stroke and gasoline-fueled scooter named “Easy 50”, both were
produced by Kymco Company. The reasons to choose these 2 subjects were as
follow. First of all, the tetra-stroke scooter will be the main stream in the future
market. Secondly, the designs, including frame and cases, of electric scooter
“Dancing in the Air” was slightly modified from a model of 50 c.c. with
identical parts except battery and motor. Furthermore, the body of a 50 c.c.
scooter was also adopted by the electric scooter to be the main body. In this
study, the aspects including energy utilization efficiency, resources
consumption, air pollution, costs for purchase and usage, and policy for energy
price, were analyzed and compared followed by an actual disjointing and
inventory. A software for life cycle assessment, SimaPro 5.0 was then used to
analyze the impacts of these 2 types of scooters on the environment
The discovery from results:
For pollutions including noise, granular pollutants, CO release, HC+NOx
release, and CO2 release, electric scooter indeed cause less problems and is
more environmental friendly than the traditional gasoline-fueled scooter and is
better for the improvement of air quality in urban area. In a same mileage,
electric scooters could save the energy for 44.32% more than that of
gasoline-fueled scooter. Furthermore, the energy resources for electric scooters
are more diversified, which is beneficial for the energy resources sustainability.
With subsidization, the cost for purchasing an electric scooter was just as
the same as a gasoline-fueled scooter, however, the price of a electric scooter
with no subsidization was 21,000 higher than a gasoline-fueled scooter. Under
an ideal usage (that is a mileage of 60,000 km and a battery with a normal life),
the total cost for gasoline-fueled scooter was 16,500 higher with subsidization
but 4,500 lower without subsidization, than that of electric scooter. As for the
energy cost, a gasoline-fueled scooter have to pay 10,245 more for the
commodity tax since gasoline is double taxed (with commodity tax and 5% of
business tax, but only 5% business tax for electricity). After the deduction of
commodity tax and subsidization, the total cost for gasoline-fueled scooter was
14,745 less than that of electric scooter.
In the analysis with a life cycle assessment software, SimaPro5, it was
found that at the product stage, the environment impact unit of electric scooter
was 37.5Pt, which is higher than 10.8Pt of gasoline-fueled scooter. This
different impact was mainly caused by Lead-Acid battery. At the usage stage,
with a same mileage of 60,000 km, the total environment impact was 361 pt for
gasoline-fueled scooter and 167 Pt for electric scooter. The environment impact
of gasoline-fueled scooter was 194 Pt much higher than that of electric scooter.
As for gasoline-fueled scooter, it was mainly cause by using gasoline, which
was 344 Pt. As for electric scooter, it was caused by electricity and Lead-Acid
battery, which was 88.9Pt and 78.08Pt, respectively. At the stage of disposal,
with a complete recycling, the environment impact was -4.69 Pt for electric
scooter and -6.54 Pt for gasoline-fueled scooter, which was slightly higher. As
for the whole life cycle, the total environment impact was 199.81Pt for electric
scooter and 365.26 for gasoline-fueled scooter. The gasoline-fueled scooter had
a total environment impact higher than that of electric scooter for as many as
165.45Pt. That is, electric scooter was more environmental friendly than
gasoline-fueled scooter. As for the 3 major impact aspects to the environment
during the whole life cycle, the biggest difference between these 2 types of
scooters was in the aspect of resources since that of gasoline-fueled scooter was
186.56 Pt higher than that of electric scooter. The second was in the aspect of
human health, electric scooter was 19.4 Pt higher than that of gasoline-fueled
scooter. As for 11 characterized results, electric scooter was 1883.2 MJ surplus
higher than that of gasoline-fueled scooter in the aspect of minerals
requirement. It was thus evident that electric scooter has consumed more
materials . In the aspect of fossil fuels requirement, gasoline-fueled scooter was
7058.3 MJ surplus than that of electric scooter. This was due to that the fossil
fuel used by electric scooter was less. In the aspect of land, electric scooter was
43.74 PDF＊m2yr higher than that of gasoline-fueled scooter. However, in the
aspect of ecotoxicity, gasoline-fueled scooter was 182.402 PAF＊m2yr higher
than that of electric scooter.
With a life less than expected, the cost for electric scooter would be
greatly increased. While the life was reduced to 30,000 km and 20,000 km, the
cost for every kilometer would be 1.74 and 2.23 with subsidization and 2.44
and 3.28 without subsidization. These were all higher than 1.43 of
gasoline-fueled scooter, no matter if with subsidization. In addition, while
electric scooter could last for 60,000 kilometer as expected, the battery life was
greatly affected by the riding habit and manner. If the usage of a set of battery
was less than 4,616 km, the total environment impact during the whole life
cycle would be higher than that of gasoline-fueled scooter.
Keywords: life cycle assessment, electric scooter, gasoline-fueled scooter,
SimaPro, resources, energy