Explore the same great tools and calculators of the Green Vehicle Guide with a new look and feel.
Learn about total vehicle emissions produced during production, operation and disposal of a vehicle.
Emissions produced during a vehicle’s production, operation and disposal are often collectively called “lifecycle emissions”.
These include emissions produced during:
Data on this website does not represent the total picture in terms of a vehicle’s environmental impact, though it reflects the majority of impacts for petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles.
Like any product, the production and disposal of a motor vehicle has environmental impacts. These include:
Estimates of these impacts are not reported on this website because the data required is not available at an individual model level.
Environmental impacts occur during the extraction, production, refining , transport and combustion of the fuels used by petrol and diesel vehicles.
To help you estimate the emissions from the production and combustion of fuel for your vehicle, this website provides an estimate of ‘Fuel lifecycle emissions’ which you can see when you search and compare vehicles. These are based on emission factors from the National Greenhouse Accounts.
An electric vehicle can produce zero emissions from vehicle use by using 100% renewable energy. Many emerging public charging infrastructure providers in Australia have also committed to using renewable energy.
If you recharge an electric vehicle using electricity from the grid , your electricity emissions will depend on how this electricity is generated. Electricity in places with less renewable energy will produce higher emissions than places with more renewable energy.
The National Greenhouse Accounts Factors (NGAF) published by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, can help you estimate electricity generation emissions for each state and territory. Default estimates on the Green Vehicle Guide website use a national average.
Calculations for fuel lifecycle emissions estimates on this website are based on the National Greenhouse Accounts Factors:
This website uses tailpipe emissions to rank vehicles. This is because vehicles with zero tailpipe emissions are capable of zero emissions from vehicle use. A petrol or diesel vehicle cannot produce zero emissions from vehicle use, as petrol and diesel fuels contain carbon.