IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0073.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Costs and Benefits of Electric Vehicles - A 2010 Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Carlsson, Fredrik

    (Department of Economics, School of Economics and Commercial Law, Göteborg University)

  • Johansson-Stenman, Olof

    (Department of Economics, School of Economics and Commercial Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

This paper undertakes a social cost-benefit analysis regarding an increase in the number of electric vehicles in the Swedish transport sector by year 2010. Battery cars are generally found to be socially unprofitable, even though their private life-cycle costs and external costs are lower than those of petrol cars. One important reason for this is that electric vehicles are heavily ‘subsidised’ by having, in comparison with taxes on fossil fuel, a very low electricity tax. ‘Hybrid’ cars are more likely to be socially profitable, especially for city-based delivery trucks, which may be both privately and socially profitable without subsidies.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2002. "Costs and Benefits of Electric Vehicles - A 2010 Perspective," Working Papers in Economics 73, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0073
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/2873
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fredrik Carlsson & Olof Johansson-Stenman, 2003. "Costs and Benefits of Electric Vehicles," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 37(1), pages 1-28, January.
    2. de Bovenberg, A Lans & Mooij, Ruud A, 1994. "Environmental Levies and Distortionary Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 1085-1089, September.
    3. Azar, Christian & Sterner, Thomas, 1996. "Discounting and distributional considerations in the context of global warming," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 169-184, November.
    4. Fredrik Carlsson & Olof Johansson-Stenman, 2000. "Willingness to pay for improved air quality in Sweden," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(6), pages 661-669.
    5. Brownstone, David & Train, Kenneth, 1998. "Forecasting new product penetration with flexible substitution patterns," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1-2), pages 109-129, November.
    6. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    7. Robert W. Hahn, 1995. "Choosing among fuels and technologies for cleaning up the air," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(4), pages 532-554.
    8. Brownstone, David & Bunch, David S. & Train, Kenneth, 2000. "Joint mixed logit models of stated and revealed preferences for alternative-fuel vehicles," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 315-338, June.
    9. Boadway, Robin & Keen, Michael, 1993. "Public Goods, Self-Selection and Optimal Income Taxation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 34(3), pages 463-478, August.
    10. Vidar Christiansen, 1981. "Evaluation of Public Projects under Optimal Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(3), pages 447-457.
    11. Kazimi, Camilla, 1997. "Evaluating the Environmental Impact of Alternative-Fuel Vehicles," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 163-185, June.
    12. Schimek, Paul, 2001. "Reducing emissions from transit buses," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 433-451, July.
    13. A. B. Atkinson & N. H. Stern, 1974. "Pigou, Taxation and Public Goods," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(1), pages 119-128.
    14. Kazimi, Camilla, 1997. "Valuing Alternative-Fuel Vehicles in Southern California," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 265-271, May.
    15. DeLuchi, Mark A., 1993. "Greenhouse-gas emissions from the use of new fuels for transportation and electricity," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 187-191, May.
    16. Bovenberg, A Lans & de Mooij, Ruud A, 1997. "Environmental Levies and Distortionary Taxation: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 252-253, March.
    17. Delucchi, Mark & Lipman, Timothy, 2001. "An Analysis of the Retail and Lifecycle Cost of Battery-Powered Electric Vehicles," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt50q9060k, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elisabeth Windisch & Fabien Leurent, 2012. "L'acceptabilité potentielle des voitures électriques : Quelle profitabilité financière pour l'usager privé en Ile-de-France?," Post-Print hal-00680973, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bovenberg, A. Lans & Goulder, Lawrence H., 2002. "Environmental taxation and regulation," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1471-1545, Elsevier.
    2. Hirte, Georg & Tscharaktschiew, Stefan, 2013. "The optimal subsidy on electric vehicles in German metropolitan areas: A spatial general equilibrium analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 515-528.
    3. Hoel, Michael, 2008. "Environmental Taxes in an Economy with Distorting Taxes and a Heterogeneous Population," Memorandum 04/2008, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    4. Bas Jacobs, 2010. "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds is One," CESifo Working Paper Series 3250, CESifo.
    5. Georg Hirte & Stefan Tscharaktschiew, 2012. "The optimal subsidy on electric vehicles in a metropolitan area - a SCGE study for Germany," ERSA conference papers ersa12p324, European Regional Science Association.
    6. Gahvari, Firouz, 2006. "On the marginal cost of public funds and the optimal provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1251-1262, August.
    7. Gaube, Thomas, 2000. "When do distortionary taxes reduce the optimal supply of public goods?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 151-180, May.
    8. Bas Jacobs, 2018. "The marginal cost of public funds is one at the optimal tax system," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(4), pages 883-912, August.
    9. Eskeland, Gunnar S., 2000. "Environmental protection and optimal taxation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2510, The World Bank.
    10. Robin Boadway, 1998. "The Mirrlees Approach to the Theory of Economic Policy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 5(1), pages 67-81, February.
    11. Inge Mayeres, 1999. "The Distributional Impacts of Policies for the Control of Transport Externalities.An Applied General Equilibrium Model," Working Papers 1999.8, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    12. Thomas Gaube, 2005. "Financing Public Goods with Income Taxation: Provision Rules vs. Provision Level," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(3), pages 319-334, May.
    13. Agell, Jonas & Persson, Mats, 2006. "Bevolent Planners, Malevolent Dictators and Democratic Voters," Research Papers in Economics 2006:6, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    14. Geir H. M. Bjertnæs, 2020. "The marginal (opportunity) cost of public funds," Discussion Papers 925, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    15. Liqun Liu, 2006. "Combining Distributional Weights and the Marginal Cost of Funds," Public Finance Review, , vol. 34(1), pages 60-79, January.
    16. Pirttila, Jukka & Tuomala, Matti, 2001. "On optimal non-linear taxation and public good provision in an overlapping generations economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 485-501, March.
    17. Massiani, Jérôme, 2015. "Cost-Benefit Analysis of policies for the development of electric vehicles in Germany: Methods and results," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 19-26.
    18. Michael Lundholm, 2008. "Decentralizing Public Goods Production," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(2), pages 259-279, April.
    19. A. Bovenberg, 1998. "Environmental Taxes and the Double Dividend," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 15-35, January.
    20. Jèrome Massiani, 2011. "Modelling and evaluation of the diffusion of electric vehicles: existing models, results, and proposal for a new model," Working Papers 1106, SIET Società Italiana di Economia dei Trasporti e della Logistica, revised 2011.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    electric vehicles;

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • R48 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government Pricing and Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0073. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ann-Christin Räätäri Nyström (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/naiguse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.