Dr David Bothe, Associate Director at Frontier’s Cologne office, contributed to an article published by the online portal Automobil Industrie.

In their article, authors Thomas Günnel and Claus-Peter Körth stress the importance of lifecycle analyses when it comes to finding out how "green" a vehicle really is. According to the authors, there is not “one” solution for a climate neutral mobility of tomorrow.

David, who led the first meta study commissioned by FVV analysing more than 80  individual studiessaid the study had shown that “total emissions” where “very close” and that none of the technologies compared had been “clearly superior”. "Choosing the best drive technology strongly depends on the individual situation”, David was quoted. But above all, he said, the meta-study “had shown a considerable degree of uncertainty in available life cycle analyses in general”. For example, none of the studies had taken into account the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the expansion of the energy infrastructure to individual vehicles.

While almost all studies had considered vehicles with a pure electric drive and those with conventional combustion engines, only a quarter of all studies contained statements on the overall balance of plug-in hybrids, whose market share was likely to increase considerably in the 2020s, David said. Fuel cell cars had only been included in 22 of the studies while reliable results for the use of synthetic fuels were almost completely missing. "Nobody has yet investigated where mobility contributes to climate protection, despite causing emissions”, David was quoted.  “Transporting rotor blades for a wind power plant on fossil-fuelled heavy transporters will avoid emissions in the electricity sector”, David said and argued that there were “numerous examples of such cross-sectoral effects that “could be “found throughout the economy”.

Frontier regularly advises on green fuels and contributes to publications in trade journals.

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