Switching to electric vehicles can lead to significant reductions of PM_(2.5) and NO₂ across China

Abstract

Transportation contributes to around one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, while also causing severe air pollution. The conversion to electric vehicles (EVs) represents a major path to decarbonize the transport sector, with potentially significant co-benefits for human health. However, the scale of such co-benefits largely remains an empirical question and lacks observational evidence. The full lockdown in China during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic provides an unprecedented real-world experiment to evaluate emission reduction potentials of a large-scale transition to EVs. Here, we utilize ground and satellite observations of air quality during the full lockdown to constrain predictions of a comprehensive chemical transport model and find that the substantial traffic reductions are near-linearly linked to reductions of PM_(2.5) (particles with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm) and NO₂. A further extrapolation of a full conversion to EVs shows a significant reduction of PM_(2.5) (30%–70%) and NO₂ (30%–80%) in most of China. Our findings provide fact-based evidence of potential environmental benefits generated by fully switching to EVs.