Reviewed 2026-10-05 · 3 min read · 3 original sources
ICCT's 2025 EU analysis includes production, energy supply, maintenance and recycling. Its modeled medium-size BEV emits 63 gCO2e/km over its lifetime, versus 235 for a gasoline car: approximately 73% less.
The EU model includes battery manufacture for a 2025 sale cohort; the IEA scenario uses first-year-of-use 2023. Neither tracks named cars through a completed lifetime.
We separate vehicles from before 2023 and 2023 onward. A report’s publication date does not establish a vehicle’s model year or a battery’s manufacturing date.
“Not reported” means the source does not disclose it. Model year, first registration, vehicle assembly and battery manufacture are different dates. Unmatched studies cannot establish how much newer batteries improved.
ICCT compares sales-weighted average medium-segment vehicles sold in Europe, with no named manufacturer or model as the representative vehicle. This is a matched powertrain lifecycle scenario, not a model-by-model or brand-level emissions comparison.
All manufacturers are OEMs. These groups describe brand focus, not a quality ranking or country of origin. EV-focused brands can also sell plug-in hybrids. Results apply to the identified models, batteries and conditions.
Making a vehicle requires energy and materials before anyone drives it. An EV comparison must include its battery; omitting that stage would create an incomplete answer. But identifying an extra production burden does not establish the final ranking. The question is what happens when both vehicles provide comparable transport over their service lives, including the energy supplied to each.
A study that includes the battery should say so prominently beside the result. Readers should not need to infer the system boundary from a green label or a vehicle photograph. Clear boundaries make it possible to challenge the assumptions while still understanding what the study actually calculated.
ICCT compared medium-segment cars sold in the European Union in 2025. Its model includes vehicle and battery production, recycling, fuel or electricity supply, use and maintenance. The modeled BEV total is 63 g CO₂e per kilometre, compared with 235 for gasoline: approximately 73% lower. Battery production is inside the smaller total, not a missing term that can be added later to reverse the result. [1]
Think of a household budget: a larger upfront payment does not necessarily make the lifetime total larger if subsequent payments are sufficiently smaller. The same arithmetic applies to emissions. Compare production with production, use with use, and finally the sum with the sum. Do not compare EV production alone with gasoline tailpipe emissions alone, or combine values calculated for different lifetime distances without converting them consistently.
For a chart, emissions per kilometre divide a modeled lifetime total by the modeled distance. They are not the rate measured at the moment a car leaves its factory. Readers should be able to distinguish that allocation from a tailpipe measurement taken during a road test. Similarly, buying a used vehicle raises a decision question about future choices; it does not remove the original manufacturing emissions from the historical inventory. Specify which question is being answered before attaching a verdict.
The ICCT estimate uses the projected average EU electricity mix over 2025–2044. It models sales-weighted cars sold in 2025, not completed vehicle lives, and does not identify manufacturer model years or individual battery-build dates. The IEA’s 2024 calculator lets readers change vehicle size, annual driving, lifetime and energy assumptions. That is a useful way to ask whether a conclusion survives a reasonable change in inputs, rather than demand one number that describes every owner. [1][2]
The blanket claim that battery manufacturing cancels the EU climate benefit is contradicted by this model. That does not demonstrate that all environmental impacts are lower in every category, that mining causes no harm, or that any oversized EV is preferable to any small combustion car. The defensible conclusion is about greenhouse gases, comparable medium-segment vehicles and stated EU conditions. Questions about air pollution, material sourcing and land use deserve their own evidence.
Data period: Modeled EU sale year 2025; projected 2025–2044 electricity mix; manufacturer model year and pack-build year not specified.
Includes production, energy supply, maintenance and recycling. BEV uses the projected average EU electricity mix for 2025–2044. These are modeled lifecycle figures, not observed annual emissions.
The 2025 EU lifecycle model already includes battery production and still finds a large greenhouse-gas advantage. The result is a scoped projection, not zero pollution.
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