Solar electric vehicles (SEVs) with integrated photovoltaic (PV) cells have the potential to decrease the related greenhouse gas emissions of regular BEV charging from the electricity grid. However, the environmental impacts and potential areas of improvement of such SEVs is yet under-explored. The aim of this study is to assess the environmental impacts of the vehicle integrated photovoltaics (VIPV) and to assess whether an SEV could act as a sustainable substitute for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) without VIPV. A life cycle assessment is performed to assess the environmental impacts from the cradle-to-grave life cycle, where an SEV is compared to a BEV without VIPV. Several environmental impact categories have been assessed: climate change (CC), acification (AC), energy resources (ER), fossil depletion (FD) and metal depletion (MD). A scenario LCA and sensitivity analysis have been performed to assess the influence of changing parameters on the CC impacts. The sensitivity analysis included different modelling decisions on vehicle efficiency, global horizontal irradiation and driving behavior. With a functional unit of 200,000 vehicle kilometers (vkm) the SEV resulted in lower CC impacts (compared to a BEV). Other impact categories show lower results for the SEV compared to the BEV after a use-phase of 200,000 vkm. The total functional unit of 200,000 vkm resulted in 3,300 kg CO2-eq less CC impacts for the SEV compared to the BEV without VIPV with similar vehicle characteristics. However, environmental impacts related to VIPV production were higher than the production of a regular vehicle exterior which means that the production phase of an SEV causes more impacts than the production of a BEV. In the reference case LCA, results showed that the break-even point of CC impacts between the SEV and BEV occurs at a distance driven of 79,000 vkm (6.1 years of operation in the Netherlands). Sensitivity analyses showed that the CC impacts are influenced by factors such as vehicle efficiency, global horizontal irradiation (GHI) and driving behavior. This study concludes that increasing vehicle efficiency seems to effectively decrease CC impacts similar to the effect that VIPV can have on a vehicle and improving vehicle efficiency can potentially even contribute more to use-phase CC impact savings than substituting a regular exterior by VIPV. Second, the GHI influences CC impacts of the SEV as the ratio of VIPV-electricity to grid-electricity depends on the amount of solar energy that is converted into electricity by the VIPV. Third, a driving behavior that enables the SEV to maximise its share of electricity powered by the VIPV showed the least CC impacts. Importantly, the lower CC impacts from SEVs compared to BEVs does not imply that SEVs are the most sustainable mode of transportation whereas there exist other less carbon-intensive alternatives (e.g. bikes and public transportation).