TCO calculation of hydrogen light duty vehicles and forecast up to 2050.

The key role that has been assigned to the mobility sector in the decarbonization goals in place both on a European and National level, makes crucial the introduction of no-emission technologies inside the light-duty vehicles market. In recent years, we are observing an important increase in battery-powered electric cars sales but, the long recharge times and the low autonomy of these vehicles make it necessary to consider the introduction of hydrogen-powered vehicles on the market, characterized by higher performance in terms of autonomy and recharging times but, at the same time, by a cost that is still too high and that does not allow their diffusion in the automotive market. The objective of this work is to develop a tool to calculate the Total Cost of Ownership of the main technologies with a role in the light-duty vehicles market and predict their evolution up to 2050. On this regard, a review of the state of the art of the components which form the powertrain of the reference technologies of interest for zero-emissions mobility is presented. Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles and Battery Electric Vehicles are compared with Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles, their main competitor under the economic aspect. Subsequently, the methodology to calculate the TCO of the vehicles mentioned has been selected, defining a quantitative model for all the expenses the owner must deal with, during the lifetime of the vehicle. Defined the methodology and implemented the tool, the data from real models of different sizes and technology have been inserted to prove its reliability. The tool turned out to be reliable in approximating their sale price with an accuracy of 10% when the assumptions underlying the tool are respected. Subsequently, four case studies for different sizes and specifications have been defined for each technology, trying to simulate the average vehicles in common use today. The results obtained show an important reduction in the cost of ownership of FCEVs and BEVs, respectively of 40% and 29% by 2050. On the contrary, the ownership cost of ICEVs is expected to remain the same, leading the FCEVs to potentially be the technology with the lowest cost of ownership starting from 2035, followed by the BEVs.