A Pareto Trade-Off Analysis of Cost Versus Greenhouse Gas Emissions for a Model of a Mid-Sized Vehicle With Various Powertrains

Abstract

This paper presents a simulation-based analysis of a model of a mid-sized vehicle while exploring powertrains of interest. In addition to a baseline conventional vehicle (CV), the explored powertrain architectures include: hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), plugin hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and batterW2Wy-only electric vehicle (BEV). The modeling also considers several different all electric driving range (AER) of the PHEVs and BEVs. Fuel economy/energy-efficiency assessment is conducted by with open source software (FASTSim), and by analyzing a large set of real-world driving trips from California Household Travel Survey (CHTS-2013), which contains a record of more than 65 thousand trips with one second interval recording of the vehicle seed. Gas and/or electric energy usage from the analyzed trips are then used to generate greenhouse gas (GHG) statistical distributions (in units of gm-CO2/mile) for a modelled vehicle powertrain. Gas and/or electric energy usage are also utilized in the calculation of the running cost, and ultimately the net average cost (in units of $/mile) for the modelled powertrains. Pareto trade-off analysis (Cost vs GHG) is then conducted for four sub-population segments of CHTS vehicle samples in a baseline scenario as well as four future-looking scenarios where carbon intensity in electric power generation gets lower, gas gets more expensive and batteries get less expensive. While noting limitations of the conducted analysis, key findings suggest that: i) mix of PHEVs and BEVs with various AER that is properly matched to driver needs would be better than one single powertrain design for all drivers, and ii) electrified powertrains do not become cost-competitive in their own right (without incentives or subsidies) until some of the future battery technology goals are attained.