On the economic prospects of alternative powertrains in car transport

Passenger cars are one of the largest producers of carbon dioxide. These emissions could be significantly reduced with the increasing use of alternative powertrains. However, alternative technologies especially battery electric vehicles and fuel cell cars are currently very expensive and not competitive with conventional cars. This paper investigates the long-term prospects of environmental friendly alternative powertrains in a dynamic framework up to 2050 for average conditions of EU-15 countries. We conduct a dynamic technical and economic analysis and investigate when in the future these vehicles could become under favorable conditions economically competitive. To evaluate the economics we calculate the transport service costs per 100 kilometers driven. The major conclusions of this analysis are: With respect to the economic competitiveness of alternative powertrains compared to conventional vehicles in the most favorable case (long distance driven cars) battery electric vehicles will enter the market by about 2025. Fuel cell vehicles powered by hydrogen will become competitive later, by about 2040. However, the major uncertainty is technological learning especially in the case of batteries and fuel cells.