T&E concludes that diesel cars emit more CO2 on a full lifecycle basis than gasoline cars

This non-peer review report is Eurocentric in its results.
"...due to a more energy-intensive refining of the diesel fuel..." would apply only to Europe because they need to make more diesel to meet their higher demand. In the US it is the opposite, refining gasoline is more energy intensive than diesel.
Reporting a lifetime value while giving diesels a tiny bit longer lifetime(@4350 miles), will skew the results a tiny bit in their disfavor. Most of an ICE's carbon emissions comes from the fuel burned over its lifetime. The flipside is that shorter lifecycle gas cars may start adding up their total carbon emissions by having to make replacements sooner.

 

Having experience with the original, "Dust-to-Dust" report from CNW Marketing, I'm not a fan of lifetime analysis especially when they state,"To derive the emissions figure, T&E said that it made a number of assumptions for their calculations." There in lies the path to madness.

Bob Wilson