Integrated life-cycle economic and environmental impact assessment for road freight transport: a case study for electric, compressed natural gas, and diesel trucks

Road freight transportation plays an important role in the growth of the national economy and the operation of road freight transportation affects the environment dramatically. The alternate solution is to switch from the internal combustion engine trucks to cleaner energy trucks namely electric trucks which are considered as zero-emission vehicles. This study aims to compare electric trucks to conventional fuel truck as diesel and compressed natural gas trucks in terms of environmental and economical to assess the potential option by using the life cycle assessment approach. The goal and scope of this study covered from raw materials acquisition to end-of-life of vehicles both vehicle cycle and fuel cycle or Cradle to Grave system boundary. The functional unit is determined as 1,110,200 kilometers and 968,720 kilometers for medium and heavy-duty trucks respectively with 10 years of service lifetime. The data used in the study is collected from various previous literature, model, and databases. The impact categories included in the study have been selected to cover all the impact of all activities which are climate change, ozone depletion, particulate matter formation, photochemical oxidant formation, human toxicity, terrestrial acidification, terrestrial ecotoxicity, freshwater ecotoxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and fossil depletion based on ReCiPe method. Including total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis to assess the economic performance of each fuel type of truck. The results show that electric truck has a high competitiveness among diesel and compressed natural gas truck, especially in terms of climate change and particulate matter formation. However, human toxicity, freshwater ecotoxicity, and freshwater eutrophication for electric trucks are the worst regarding the power generation system in Thailand. In addition, Lithium-ion batteries also play the majority in the manufacturing phase of electric trucks. Moreover, Considering TCO, medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks outperform diesel and compressed natural gas trucks although the purchase price and battery replacement cost are excessively high. The environmental impact of road freight transportation in Thailand would be significantly reduced and mitigated if further improvements to these factors, including policies and legislation to support the adaptation of electric trucks, could be implemented.