Development of a Transport Application based Cost Model for the assessment of future commercial vehicle concepts

Kurzfassung

The Total Cost of Ownership and the payback period are main purchase criterions of fleet operators regarding the acquisition of new commercial vehicles. Therefore, critical success factors are purchase and operating costs. However, purchase and operating costs are highly individual depending on transport task, vehicle size and powertrain technology. In order to perform a comparable and transparent evaluation of competing powertrain technologies a development of a systemic and consistent evaluation model which considers the transport task, specific vehicle configuration and related costs is required. Within this study, a techno-economic evaluation approach for the assessment of future commercial vehicle concepts coping with the complexity of the road freight transportation sector is introduced which supports strategic decisions of fleet operators and manufacturers relating to investments in alternative commercial vehicle powertrain technologies considering specific requirements as to payload, volumetric load, driving range, vehicle cost and payback period. Furthermore, by the use of the transport application based cost model information to policy makers to what circumstances alternative commercial vehicle powertrain technologies reach competitiveness are generated. For demonstration reason exemplary use case and different powertrain concepts for a tractor-trailer combination with 40 tonnes of gross vehicle weight is analysed.