Environmental impact of electric vehicles: analysis and comparison

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Environmental impact of electric vehicles: analysis and comparison

Amoroso, S. / Salerno, S. / Zito, P.

The study will aim to evaluate the effect of electric vehicles' introduction in the Italian market, using a swot analysis for public transport evaluation and a cost-benefit analysis for the private one. The cost-benefit analysis has suggested that the electric vehicle's higher purchase price can be amortized within 9 years taking into account 10500 kilometres travelled per year for each vehicle, with a same devaluation rate for electric and internal combustion car. The actual average car fleet age for the urban area of Palermo is 9.5 years. However, as highlighted by the operating costs per kilometre, the main problem to the introduction of electric car is the high purchase price. The lower electric vehicle's performances can be overtaken considering the so called target of the 'hybrid household'. The hybrid household is a family unit which owns at least two cars, one used only within the urban area and the other for longer trips. We have to remenber that electric vehicles' performances seem to answer better to the characteristic of private tramsport's demand in urban area. In fact, as we've already said, over 80 % of urban trips are shorter than 50 km per day. The forecasted car fleet's increase, involves an estimated emission pollutant rate that in average is smaller than the actual emission rate per vehicle due to the new engine technology. But, a general decrease of air pollution rate in the urban areas will be obtained by the introduction of electric vehicle at a market penetration rate not higher than 3 % of the entire car fleet. Our next purpose is to validate the simulation proposed in this study with the data obtained by a stated preferences (SP) analysis whose purpose is to depict the choice behaviours of a particular consumers' target 'the hybrid household'.