Literature Context for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles

To contextualize the Transportation Annual Technology Baseline (ATB) vehicle data, this page presents projections of medium- and heavy-duty (MDHD) vehicle cost and fuel economy from recent, publicly available literature sources. MDHD vehicles are addressed in relatively few literature sources compared to light-duty vehicles. More information about the reviewed literature and methods for processing estimates for alignment with ATB data is included in the Methodology and Reviewed Literature section (next).

Methodology and Reviewed Literature

Literature Overview

Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) (EIA, 2023): Produced and monitored by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), AEO is a yearly report that integrates relevant laws and potential regulations to project the long-term progress of the U.S. energy sector. The source used was the most recent iteration of AEO, which uses the underlying National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) to estimate vehicle attributes based on fuel economy regulations, technology cost-effectiveness, and consumer preference.

Transportation Technology Total Cost of Ownership (T3CO) (Hunter et al., 2021): T3CO is a National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) model that assesses MDHD vehicle lifetime costs, including quantification of indirect costs posed by new technologies—such as dwell time to charge/fuel and cargo capacity impacts associated with powertrain and energy storage mass. Integrated with NREL's vehicle simulation tool, FASTSim, this comprehensive model can provide consistent comparisons across vehicle powertrains such as battery electric, fuel cell electric, and traditional diesel as well as comparisons across drive cycles and vocations. Values presented in this literature review are based on the total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis performed for the U.S. Department of Energy-funded Transportation Decarbonization Analysis.

Mapping Literature to ATB Vehicles

To make direct comparisons across vehicle classes, powertrains, and fuel economy information in the literature to ATB data, the following processing was required for data mapping:

The following table details how vehicles classes from the literature ("Source Vehicle Class") are mapping to ATB classes ("T-ATB Class") and for which sources the mapping is relevant. In some cases, additional calculations were required, as noted in the table. Vehicle classes outside the ATB scope (e.g., two-seaters, mini compact, crossover vehicles) were excluded from the literature review dataset.

References

The following references are specific to this page; for all references in this ATB, see References.

EIA. “Annual Energy Outlook 2023.” Washington D.C.: U.S. Energy Information Administration, March 16, 2023. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/.

Hunter, Chad, Michael Penev, Evan Reznicek, Jason Lustbader, Alicia Birky, and Chen Zhang. “Spatial and Temporal Analysis of the Total Cost of Ownership for Class 8 Tractors and Class 4 Parcel Delivery Trucks,” September 16, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2172/1821615.