Modelling of life cycle cost of conventional and alternative vehicles

Over the past decade, the passenger transport segment has undergone significant changes, particularly in the way vehicles are propelled. These changes have been influenced by the global drive to reduce the environmental burden associated with the operation of vehicles. Although these trends are primarily focused on the environmental aspects of vehicle operation, the economic aspects inevitably associated with the operation of each vehicle are also changing. This article deals with the calculation of life cycle costs, or the return on investment for vehicles with alternative drives compared to conventional drives. In order to obtain objective outputs, a mathematical model for the calculation of the life cycle costs of passenger vehicles has been developed and applied to these vehicles. The presented mathematical model expresses the acquisition costs and mainly the ownership costs for operation and maintenance. Finally, a comparison of the whole life cycle costs of selected vehicles with different powertrains was made. The following powertrains are compared in this paper, i.e. petrol engine, diesel engine, petrol and CNG engine, mild hybrid engine, plug-in hybrid engine and electric motor. The presented findings and input values for the calculations of the individual cost components reflect the current state in terms of economic demands. Due to the high rate of development and improvement of alternative propulsion modes, especially pure electric propulsion technologies, it can be assumed that the life cycle costs will follow a decreasing trend.