Plug-ins – a viable efficiency option?

Sten Karlsson and Angel Ramírez, Division of Physical Resource Theory, Department of Energy and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Keywords

car transportation, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, cost-efficiency, energy savings, CO2 emissions, Sweden

Abstract

Transportation accounts for around one third of CO2 emissions in Sweden. Personal cars in Sweden have one of the highest specific fuel uses in Europe. Mitigation strategies involve mandatory biofuel shares together with high taxation on gasoline and diesel fuels. From the current situation, one possible step to further increase car fuel efficiency is adoption of hybrid drivelines, which could be especially interesting with high pump prices. Furthermore Swedish electricity share is highly carbon neutral, therefore it could be desirable to use electricity from the grid to power personal vehicles.

Here we investigate under what circumstances plug-in extensions of hybrid electric vehicles with different all-electric range are cost-effective options for energy and fuel savings. The result is dependent on vehicle specification and applied cost methods. It is shown that a plug-in designed with a reasonably small all-electric range (30-40 km) for a wide range of circumstances could become an economically viable option in comparison to conventional and hybrid vehicles.

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