The rapid development of fuel vehicles (FVs) exacerbated greenhouse gas emissions. The Chinese government launched a series of policies to promote battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to slow down the greenhouse effect. Zero emissions of BEVs have been achieved in the driving phase but not in the charging phase. Whether BEVs can achieve emission reduction needs to be further verified compared with FVs.

The paper considered evaluating the CO₂ emission reduction effects after the promotion of BEVs by the Chinese government, which adopted the Well-to-Wheel (WTW) approach. Furthermore, the CO₂ emission reduction impact factors of BEVs would be verified by sensitivity analysis with the number of BEVs and the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS).

The results show that BEV emission reductions can reach 4.15 million tons by 2020, the CO₂ emission reductions are mainly distributed in the areas with a high RPS ratio, such as East China, and the emission reduction of battery electric buses (BEBs) is better than private battery electric cars (PBECs) and battery electric taxis (BETs). The emission reduction of the three categories of BEVs is affected by the number of BEVs and the RPS.