When will electric vehicles capture the German market? And why?

Market development of electric vehicles in the coming years is a highly relevant issue for many stakeholders, e.g. automobile- and energy-industry, investors as well as policy makers and the public. The market forecasts, however, differ strongly and underlying assumptions are often hard to find. Furthermore, for stakeholders from such diverse fields it can be difficult to convey their own assumptions and views to each other. Therefore, we try to shed light on this debate in presenting a simple and clear forecast model which reduces the excessive complexity down to a coherent approach. The central aspect of this model is to work with two essential, widely accepted parameters: The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Diffusion Factors (DIF). These two parameters are easily deduced and can be evaluated by all stakeholders. Based on them, a third element, the TCO demand function, leads to a forecast of xEV volumes. The PTD-model (Prognosis on TCO and Diffusion factor) thus allows a common view of diverse stakeholders by combining scientific accuracy with a plain and intelligible design. It has been already successfully applied for different groups, which all had in common that they were heterogeneous and interdisciplinary staffed. Examples are academic seminars, commercial strategy projects, and the German National Platform for Electric Mobility (NPE). This paper mainly refers to the process and the results of the NPE in which, based on the approach presented here, the need for subsidies of xEVs was discussed. In addition, we discuss how the approach can be utilized for a classification of boundary conditions in different countries.