E-cars overtake gasoline: 73% fewer emissions according to the new study!

E-cars overtake gasoline: 73% fewer emissions according to the new study!

A current study by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), published on July 9, 2025, proves that fully electric vehicles have a significantly better climate balance than conventional petrol engines. According to the examination, e-cars over its entire life cycle emerge 73% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than comparable vehicles with an incinerated engine. These findings show an improvement of 24 percentage points compared to previous calculations from 2021.

Despite the initially higher emissions from the production, which are around 40% above the values of petrol engines in fully electric vehicles, this deficit is up to around 17,000 kilometers. However, the climate balance of e-cars increasingly benefits from a higher proportion of renewable energies in the electricity mix, which further reduces emissions.

comparison with hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles

Compared to fully electric cars, hybrid vehicles with only 20% fewer emissions cut off, while plug-in hybrids only achieve a saving rate of 30%. However, practical operation in plug-in hybrids often does not focus on the electrical drive, which reduces the savings. The progress in these vehicle genera has hardly been significant in recent years.

Current discussions about the future of combustion cars show that in regions such as China and the USA, fossil fuels will continue to be used. In Europe, there are efforts to question for new combustion engines from 2035. During the automotive industry, demands for the support of hybrid vehicles and e-fuel are loud, although there are doubts about the climate locations.

The role of hydrogen vehicles

The analysis of the ICCT also places the performance of hydrogen vehicles in the room, although the climate balance depends heavily on the source of hydrogen. In theory, hydrogen -powered fuel cell vehicles could achieve an emission reduction of up to 79%, provided the hydrogen comes from renewable sources. However, green hydrogen is currently rare, and the mostly available hydrogen is obtained from gas, which limits emission reduction to around 26%.

The results of the ICCT study are underpinned by criticism of previous analyzes that were often affected by selective data use. The use of more realistic consumption data from millions of on -board computers enables a differentiated assessment of the ecological effects of various drive types.

Overall, the ICCT study shows that the possibility of reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the transition to fully electric vehicles is realistic and the effort to improve the climate balance of electric cars should be further strengthened. Further information on the environmental aspects of electromobility can be found on the website of the Federal Environment Ministry.

For further details on the study and the associated results, we refer to sueddeutsche.de [vienna.at] (https://www.vienna.at/klimabilanz-von-e-autos-dutlich-verbesert