Value per kilometre driven
0.186kgCO₂e/km
Fossil only · GWP100 · AR6
One value, for any year
EPA Hub sets no date window, so there is no year to pick.
Reference year 2026
Derived by open-climate.ai
- LoadHow full the vehicle runs. EPA Hub does not say which load this factor assumes.
- Not stated
- Vehicle sizeThe vehicle's class, by weight or capacity. EPA Hub does not say which size this factor assumes.
- Not stated
- Distance bandFlights are priced by distance band, because take-off and climb burn a large share of a short flight's fuel. Road, rail and sea factors apply to a trip of any length.
- Any distance, not banded
- Cabin classA business seat takes more of the cabin than an economy one, so it carries more of the flight's emissions. First class on a long-haul flight counts four times economy.
- Not applicable on the road
- Region
- United States US
- Boundary
- Combustion
- Data quality
- MediumRated by us, not by the source
- Licence
- Open · CC BY 4.0
Where 0.186 comes from
open-climate.ai adds up the gases EPA Hub publishes, each weighted by its warming potential.
Reporting this kilometre under the GHG Protocol
Scope 3, category 4 0.186
You pay a carrier to bring goods in, or to move them between your own sites. All of it goes in upstream transport.
The factor, standardised
Every factor on open-climate.ai answers the same questions in the same words, whatever the publisher. Open any ⓘ for the definition.
Transport › Road freight · United States · per km · Average
Combustion · Fossil only · AR6
- BoundaryCombustionDirect emissions from burning the fuel at the point of use, in a boiler, furnace, engine or vehicle (for a vehicle, tank-to-wheel). Learn more
- Combustion
- Fuel combustion
- GWP methodWhich IPCC assessment report's warming potentials convert each gas to CO₂e, and over how many years the warming is counted (GWP100: 100 years). Learn more
- IPCC AR6, 100-year horizon
- As printed by EPA Hub
- CO₂e basisWhich carbon the CO₂e counts. Fossil only leaves out biogenic CO₂ and land use; net total counts every pool, net of removals. The same activity on two bases is two different numbers. Learn more
- Fossil only
- Split by gas
Medium quality · Open licence · Any year
What this number covers
The path of one vehicle-kilometre, from the oil well to the end of the trip.
Vehicle operation
Burning the fuel on the road, spread over the average load
Included0.186Effect at altitude
Contrails and other warming from burning fuel high up. Flights only.
Not applicable on the roadYour trip
1 km driven. The factor is per vehicle-kilometre.
= 0.186
Outside this boundary
- Upstream fuel (well-to-tank)
- Building the vehicle
- Roads and depots
This factor counts the fuel the vehicle burns, not the vehicle itself or the infrastructure it runs on. Some libraries price building the vehicle as a factor of its own.
Gases in vehicle operation
Basis: Fossil onlyFossil carbon only: biogenic CO₂, methane from biogenic sources and land-use change are left out. Learn more
- Carbon dioxide (CO₂)0.18599.5%
- Nitrous oxide (N₂O)0.0008990.5%
- Methane (CH₄)0.000109
Σ 0.185 + 0.000109 + 0.000899 = 0.186.
Each gas is converted to CO₂e with AR6 100-year warming potentials; only fossil carbon counts, so biogenic CO₂, biogenic methane and land-use carbon are left out.
From EPA Hub's record to a comparable factor
EPA Hub publishes the inputs; open-climate.ai computed this value from them. Here is each field as printed and what open-climate.ai made of it.
About this factor
EPA Hub gives no description for this factor. Filed under Scope 3 Category 4: Upstream Transportation and Distribution and Category 9: Downstream Transportation and Distribution.
Source and licence
- Value
- Computed by open-climate.ai from the gas values in this record
- Publisher
- U.S. EPA GHG Emission Factors Hub (Cornerstone Sustainability Data Initiative)
- Library
- EPA Hub 2026.01
- Record
- transport//Passenger Car//vehicle-mile
- Published
- 26 May 2026
The values and their metadata are served in full and may be reused with credit to the publisher.
Cite this factor
Emission factors: U.S. EPA GHG Emission Factors Hub (2026 edition), published by the Cornerstone Sustainability Data Initiative, CC BY 4.0. Underlying data is public-domain U.S. EPA. Normalised by open-climate.ai, https://open-climate.ai/factors/libraries/epa/ (CC BY 4.0). https://open-climate.ai/factors/ef-epa-passenger_car-us-km-combustion-00835b14/?v=efv1-d60504446bc1e3918c77c96028d29427
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