Abstract
The development of electric delivery trucks has attracted much attention in recent years. The purpose of this study is to assess the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the total cost of ownership (TCO) of light-duty and medium-duty diesel trucks (DTs), plug-in electric trucks (ETs), and battery-swap ETs. A simplified life cycle assessment (LCA) method and a TCO assessment method are used. Numerical results show that the average GHG emission of light-duty ETs is 69% lower than that of light-duty DTs, while that of medium-duty ETs is 9.8% higher than that of medium-duty DTs. As regards TCO, those of plug-in ETs and battery-swap ETs are 37.8% lower and 21% higher than that of light-duty DTs, while for medium-duty trucks, the TCO of plug-in and battery-swap ETs are 6.7% lower and 18.9% higher than that of medium-duty DTs. The main conclusion of this paper is that light-duty plug-in ETs exhibit the best performance in terms of cost saving and GHG emission reduction. Moreover, ETs show more advantages than DTs when the frequency of use is higher or when the driving environment is more congested.
Highlights
More than 90% of the transport sector is powered by fuel derived from oil
As the results of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and total cost of ownership (TCO) are limited to the Chinese context, sensitivity analysis is conducted to analyze the influence of several parameters on the average GHG emissions and the TCO
Because of the uncertainties of many parameters of the simplified life cycle assessment (LCA) model and the TCO model in the future, this study tests the different assumptions of some parameters, including fuel economy, battery and charging/swapping infrastructure cost, diesel and electricity prices, coal-fired power generation rate, use frequency, and profit margin, to evaluate the sensitivity of the average GHG emissions and the TCO
Summary
More than 90% of the transport sector is powered by fuel derived from oil. The consumption of oil is deemed problematic owing to the cost and the generated greenhouse gas (GHG) or air pollutants emissions [1]. With the number of cars in the world projected to increase more than fourfold by 2050 to three billion [3,4], fuel consumption and GHG emissions may become more serious problems than they are today. To reduce dependence on oil and ease environmental pollution problems, electric vehicles are considered a viable alternative and have been advocated for decades [7,8]. Since 2015, the State Council of China has insisted on the development of new energy vehicles, electric vehicles, and prioritized the construction of charging infrastructure [9]
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