Economic evaluation of electric bus charging infrastructure

Electric bus is one of the important demonstration types in the “Ten Cities, Thousand Vehicles” program of China. The total life cycle cost (TLCC) of electric bus was compared with traditional fuel bus. In the given year, the TLCC of electric bus and traditional fuel bus was made equaled to obtain the corresponding charging/swapping price. The price was put into the cost calculation model of the charging station and battery-swapping station to calculate the cumulative costs and break-even condition. Then the economy of charging infrastructure operation was analyzed and evaluated. The results indicated that the payback period of the charging infrastructure investment is still very long. The charging mode is more suitable for the electric bus. If the government provides electricity subsidies and battery swapping subsidies for infrastructure operators, the infrastructure economy will be significantly improved. As the electricity consumption of electric bus is large, there will be profit margins in the long run. Currently, the infrastructure subsidy is very small and its role is very limited. The policy of land rent exemption is more effective.