Greenhouse gas emissions benefits of the lightweight vehicle fleet in China: A dynamic fleet perspective

Lightweighting is believed to be a silver bullet to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to the road transportation. However, the fleet-scale and long-term GHG emissions estimation on the light-duty passenger vehicle (LDPV) fleet in China is still underexplored. A dynamic fleet-based life cycle assessment (LCA) model is developed to predict the annual GHG emissions attributable to the lightweight LDPV fleet in China at provincial level. With the most aggressive implementation of lightweighting, the cumulative mitigation potential of lightweight LDPV fleet from 2021 to 2050 is 0.72 Gt CO₂ eq and 0.55 Gt CO₂ eq using high-strength steel (AHSS) and aluminium (Al), respectively. Sooner implementation brings a higher cumulative reduction in GHG emissions. Delaying the implementation by five years would sacrifice 0.16 Gt CO₂ eq ~0.2 Gt CO₂ eq cumulative reduction, and the loss would increase to 0.31 Gt CO₂ eq ~0.41 Gt CO₂ eq when postpone the lightweighting by ten years. © 2024 Published by Elsevier B.V.