Tradeoffs Between Trip Duration and Cost for Electric and Thermal Vehicles

Electric vehicles are one of the possible solutions to deal with global warming because the transport sector is a main contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. As part of the Campus University for Mobility Innovation and Neutral in carbon (CUMIN) program, the University of Lille aims to reduce thermal vehicle usage, including replacement with electric vehicles. This work compares the cost and duration of different routes that achieve the same trip (same starting and ending points) for both electric and thermal vehicles. Because of their differing technical characteristics, the vehicle types have different ranking of energy use for different routes. For the electric vehicle, there are tradeoffs between travel time and fuel cost, though under likely “value of time” metrics, the faster trip would be preferred overall.

I. Introduction

Currently, the world economy depends mainly on fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) that emit large quantities of greenhouse gases. Thus, in order to avoid a temperature increase of more than 2°C [1], the world economy must react quickly by relying on renewable energies that do not emit greenhouse gases. Other negative effects, such as acid rain and air pollution, can also be attributed to the consumption of fossil fuels [2].