Total cost of ownership of electric cars compared to diesel and gasoline cars in Belgium

We compare the TCO of fully electric cars (BEV) with those of diesel and gasoline cars. In the size class “small”, BEV only have a lower TCO for an expected lifetime that exceeds most estimates of the planning horizon people use when purchasing cars. In the size class “medium”, BEVs have a lower TCO than conventional cars if their expected lifetime mileage is high enough. “Big” electric cars have higher TCO than their conventional counterparts for any reasonable assumption regarding their use profiles. 

Perspectives de la demande de transport en Belgique à l’horizon 2040
Vooruitzichten van de transportvraag in België tegen 2040

Within the framework of a cooperation agreement between the Federal Planning Bureau and the Federal Public Service Mobility and Transport, the Federal Planning Bureau produces, every three years, long-term projections of transport demand in Belgium. This exercise is the fourth of its kind so far. It aims to make a projection of no change in policy, indicating general long-term trends and allowing elements on which transport policy should be based to be identified and the impact of transport policy measures to be studied.

Future evolution of the car stock in Belgium: CASMO, the new satellite of PLANET

The new Belgian CAr Stock MOdel, which is linked to the national transport demand model PLANET, is structured as follows: (a) The total desired car stock in each future year is a function of the country’s population and GDP per capita. (b) The probability that a car is scrapped is modelled as a function of its age and accumulated mileage. The desired car stock is then confronted with the remaining car stock to determine total car purchases. (c) Total sales are allocated to individual emission classes, using the parameter values of a Stated Preference discrete choice model. The model is then calibrated in order to reflect the current market and policy context in Belgium (d) The results are mapped into an inventory that is aggregated according to the EURO emission class. (e) In order to represent that the non-price barriers to electrified cars will decrease over time, we have implemented an alternative approach where the perceived acquisition costs decrease over time. Alternatively, this approach can be used to explore what would be the required decrease in subjective costs to reach a given future market share.

Description et utilisation du modèle PLANET
Beschrijving en gebruik van het PLANET-model

Vehicle stock modelling in long term projections - Survey of the literature

Transport models used for long-term projections should reflect the impact of shared, automated and electric mobility modes. The objective of the current paper is to derive lessons from the existing literature on vehicle ownership modelling to find options to further improve the PLANET model, which is used for projections of transport demand in Belgium.

PLANET is already well equipped to represent the impacts of shared and automated cars on the opportunity cost of travel time, the load factors and the annual mileage of cars.