Carbon Calculation Tool

This tool can be used as a quick and easy utility to calculate the carbon footprint of a conventional powered vehicle and that of a replacement electric vehicle. This tool is limited to the types of electric vehicles that we currently provide to the various market sectors and not to automobile "hybrids" or to "Hypercars" as such.

It is important to note that, strictly on a per-litre-of-fuel-consumed basis, diesel emits the most carbon dioxide, or CO2. On average for every litre of diesel burned, about 2.7 kilograms of CO2 is emitted. Petrol performs slightly better in this regard: about 2.3 kilograms of CO2 emitted per litre consumed. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is cleaner again, emitting about 1.5 kilograms of CO2 per litre. However, LPG also has a lower energy content.

To work out the CO2 emissions of a conventionally powered vehicle, we factor in fuel consumption along with the distance travelled on average per day, allowing for petrol, diesel and LPG.

In calculating the carbon footprint of an electric vehicle in comparing "apples to apples" although an electric vehicle has no tailpipe emissions they still attract a carbon footprint penalty. They produce no local pollution or carbon dioxide, but they aren’t entirely pollution-free, especially as they are recharged from an electric power grid that burns significant quantities of fossil fuels like coal. The unit of measure for power consumed from power stations is kilowatt hours and 1 kWh produced has an attributable CO2 emission of between 0.02 kilograms(nuclear only) compared to the national Eskom rating of between 1.015 to 1.08 kilograms. This is based on the mix of coal burning, nuclear, oil fired, hydro and other power stations making up our grid. For South Africa 92% of the total power produced is coal based so we have applied a worse case factor of 1.08 kilograms of CO2 for our calculation tool.

To work out the "attributable" CO2 emissions for an electric vehicle we factor in power consumption based on watt hours/km, along with the distance travelled as we would with a conventional vehicle. The average rate of consumption for our electric vehicles is at a rate of 269 watt hours/mile or 167.18 watt hours/km.

Please fill in the GREEN fields then press calculate at the bottom.

Vehicle	Measure	CO² (kg/Measure)
Petrol	1 litre	2.30
Diesel	1 litre	2.70
LPG	1 litre	1.50
Electric	1kWh	1.08

Vehicle	Avg Dist/Day (km)	Consumption (L/100km)	Consumption (L/km)	Consumed (L or kWh)	CO² (kg/L)	CO² Emmission (kg)
Petrol
Diesel
Electric

Above: Remember to fill in the electric distance too, as we are comparing with it

Daily CO² kg Saving
	Daily carbon footprint saving (CO² kg) for replacement of Petrol vehicle
	Daily carbon footprint saving (CO² kg) for replacement of Diesel vehicle

Days used per month
	Number of days per month Petrol vehicle used
	Number of days per month Diesel vehicle used

Monthly CO² kg Saving
	Monthly carbon footprint saving (CO² kg) for replacement of Petrol vehicle
	Monthly carbon footprint saving (CO² kg) for replacement of Diesel vehicle

Download the Carbon Footprint Tool excel spreadsheet here.

As stated the above tool is limited to only calculating comparison carbon footprints of different vehicles to assist customers in understanding the carbon footprint impact of replacing a particular vehicle with one of our electric vehicles, such as wine producers and fruit producers with a strong focus on the European/UK export market. Increasing Eco-compliance pressure is being applied to UK/Euro retailers to the extent where companies such as Tescos are moving to electric vehicle delivery fleets as part their compliance strategy.

To help understand the economic benefits we have provided a similar tool which examines the cost of ownership factors over a 3 year period, again comparing conventional with electric and including fuel costs, maintenance costs, insurance costs, battery costs etc.

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