Consumer total ownership cost model of plug-in hybrid vehicle in China

Abstract

This paper used Advisor to define structures and power trains of parallel plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), made two PHEV models that have different battery electric ranges of 20 km and 60 km, established consumer total ownership cost models based on purchase, and used cost and compared with a conventional vehicle (CV) and conventional hybrid vehicles. Then three scenarios were defined – government subsidy (US$2571 for PHEV20 and US$7143 for PHEV60 according to Chinese policy, where in this paper 1 US$ = 7.00 RMB), high oil price (10 per cent annual growth rate), and government subsidy and high oil price – and PHEV market competitiveness was analysed during a 15 year nominal lifecycle. The results show that in the government subsidy scenario a PHEV’s total ownership cost will be lower than that of a CV after 5 years without a battery replacement and 7 years with a battery replacement; in the high oil price scenario it separately needs 6 years and 8 years to show an advantage; in the government subsidy and high oil price, which is the most optimistic scenario, it only respectively needs 4 years and 5 years. It is shown that the government subsidy has a much more obvious effect during the first industrialization stage, but the high oil price has a long time function during the nominal lifecycle and the battery replacement cost is not a sensible factor to include in the PHEV’s total ownership cost.