Abstract for: Modeling the Impact of Alternative-Fuel Vehicles Adoption on Economic Growth through 2040

Our client was seeking to understand how the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles would impact energy security, and was searching for robust strategies to maximize adoption under a vast range of uncertain future scenarios. PwC developed an integrated set of models to estimate the total cost of ownership for the major alternative-fuel vehicle platforms under different technological scenarios (TCO module), the adoption of alternative-fuel vehicle platforms by consumers under different political, social, economic, and TCO scenarios (Consumer module), and how the adoption of alternative-fuel vehicles impacts oil prices and economic growth (Oil and Economic module). We run simulations between 2013 and 2040, and found that four of the five major alternative-fuel vehicle platforms have the potential to emerge as the dominate technological-platform in the marketplace (under the right set of conditions), but only hybrid and plug-in hybrids were likely to build significant markets across the majority of scenarios.