The anthropogenic pressure on the Earth system already overshoots safe limits for climate change, so there is an urgent need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by transportation. Electric propulsion technology is a promising solution that can decouple fossil fuel use from road vehicle traffic. Additional benefits include removed tailpipe exhaust gas emissions, which currently damage human health and the environment, both locally and regionally.

However, electrification of vehicles could lead to problem shifts, e.g. from the use of fossil fuels to the generation of fossil electricity. Even when combined with renewable energy, there are trade-offs between benefits in operation and added environmental load during manufacturing, shifting from airborne emissions to resource related impacts. This is because electric powertrain components require new materials and more advanced processing compared to conventional vehicle parts.

The environmental impacts of vehicle electrification can be analyzed using life cycle assessment (LCA). This is a holistic systems tool, where all life cycle stages, from raw material acquisition to disposal, are investigated for potential contribution to environmental problems. For LCA of vehicles, a well-to-wheels study examines the life cycle of the energy carrier, i.e. a fuel or electricity, whereas complete LCA includes the production, use and disposal of the vehicle as such. A thorough review of the research field exposed short-comings in both methodology and inventory data.

This thesis aims to discuss in what ways LCA support the development of electrified road vehicles, and present contributions on how the methodology can advance to provide better support, with the goal to minimize environmental impact of vehicles in the long term.