The electrification trend is accelerating and is driven by legislation to achieve European CO2 emissions fleet targets (electrified vehicle shares 35% to 45% will be required in 2030). Over the next 10 years, all the cities will face these challenges developing smart mobility and green transport solutions, forcing the politicians to diversify and re-mixing the investment. Besides Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), propulsion types will include Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), fully Battery-powered Electric Vehicles (BEVs), and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs). OEMs need to make strategic decisions today regarding their powertrains and fuel options.
This paper develops a bottom-up cost methodology to evaluate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a 12-Meter city BUS, that can be applied to different Hardware/Powertrain/Fuel/Market combinations. This methodology may be used to compare Diesel BEV and FCEV Powertrains for different BUS applications (Urban, Extra Urban and GT) too. The analysis compares the economic factors in terms of (TCO) for each of the above-mentioned powertrains, in a timespan from 2023 to 2030. The calculation is based on features such as price of fuel (electricity, hydrogen and Diesel), technology cost (batteries and fuel cell stack), mileage requirements, efficiency improvements, depreciation, maintenance (without external funding and CO2 incentives).
Depending on the specific Bus application, the TCO results for BEV shows a variable cost decrease until the 2030, that is not compensated by conventional Diesel Bus. In fact, technological advances in batteries (in terms of power density), will make BEVs increasingly competitive. The TCO results for FCEV show instead, a similar trend compared to BEVs but with slower cost decrease until the year 2030.
The competitiveness of FCEVs is strongly influenced by the H2 price at the pump (linked to green electricity cost and electrolyzers efficiency) and by the vehicle range that will provide a positive TCO for longer mileage applications.