**1. Introduction**

In recent years, the introduction of electric vehicles, and in particular electric passenger cars, has been seen as a great opportunity to reduce both urban air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector [1]. In particular, for what concerns urban air quality, the absence of tailpipe emissions from electric vehicles (EVs) justify this idea, confirmed by a recent study that estimates 500,000 premature deaths every year due to pollutants in the European Union, where transportation represents the main air pollutants source, especially in urban areas [2]. Regarding the reduction of greenhouse gases, EVs can rely on an overall higher efficiency [3] and, in countries where it is relevant, on the penetration of renewable energy sources in the national electric generation mix [4]. However, these considerations do not allow us to state that electric vehicles are better than Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles (ICE Vehicles), since it is not possible to compare EVs and ICE Vehicles considering only emissions that occur during vehicles use phase. In order to properly compare ICE vehicles and EVs, researchers should consider impacts related to electric energy production, fossil fuels production, vehicle and battery production and end of life phases in the LCA of EVs. In other words, an LCA approach, which allows analyzing of the environmental impacts occurring during vehicles entire life cycle, should be adopted [5]. Of course, many comparative LCAs of EVs vs. ICE Vehicles and also some literature reviews on the topics have been published in the last decade [3], but in this paper, we want to focus our attention on a particular component of the EVs: the battery. Batteries in fact are a central element in electric vehicles, and one of the most relevant distinctive elements (together with the powertrain) between EVs and ICE Vehicles. Moreover, batteries' production generates energy

consumption and environmental impacts which have the potential to negatively affect the electric vehicles' benefits due to the use phase, with particular reference to climate change emissions. In order to investigate this issue and also to support researchers that are going to perform new LCA studies on EVs batteries with methodological suggestions, a review of recent LCA studies is presented in this paper. Far from being comprehensive and exhaustive, our study focuses its attention on studies performed in the last decade, since the traction battery sector is characterized by a continuous and rapid technological evolution [6]. The analysis of the selected studies has been carried out following the scheme of an ISO 14040 compliant LCA study: Goal and Scope, Inventory (Life Cycle Inventory—LCI), Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), Conclusions as summarized in Table 1, where the description of each section is reported in italic. In the following paragraphs, besides a brief description of the selected studies, for each of the LCA steps recommended in ISO 14040 standard, we analyze the main methodological differences among the studies, trying to draw useful conclusions for future traction batteries LCA studies.


**Table 1.** Analysis scheme considered to evaluate literature review documents.
