Techno-Economic Comparison of Total Cost of Ownership of Electric and Diesel Vehicles

Despite their low environmental impact, electrical vehicles have low penetration in the automotive market. Consumers are reluctant for technical reasons (limited driving range and long charging time) but also for an economic reason (high investment costs). Electric vehicle total cost of ownership (TCO) is often perceived as higher than for a thermal car, especially in Europe where diesel cars have a lower TCO than gasoline cars. Accurate TCO estimations are critical, but most of the techno-economic studies of electrified vehicles are based on very simplified energy models. In this paper, a techno-economic model is developed using an accurate technical model of an electric vehicle and a diesel car of the same segment. These technical models are validated by experimental measurements on real cars using real driving cycles. These models are then coupled to economic models to calculate TCO for a French case study. The total cost of ownership of the studied electric car is lower than for the equivalent diesel car by about 1000€ for a 5-year ownership period. Of particular importance is the finding that using real driving cycles instead of standard driving cycles decreases the TCO of electric cars while simultaneously increasing the TCO of diesel vehicles. This has implications for techno-economic models, suggesting that the typical TCO approach that uses manufacturer-reported standard cycle data may be systemically biased towards thermal vehicles. In order to understand how TCO may change in different locations, a sensitivity analysis varies different technical and economic factors. Government subsidy, ownership duration, and vehicle depreciation are the most important factors for the TCO of electric vehicles. However, TCO of the electric cars can be lower than the TCO of equivalent diesel cars under a wide range of reasonable inputs.