Technological, ecological and economic perspectives for alternative automotive technologies up to 2050

Alternative fuels and corresponding alternative automotive technologies have been seen in recent years as major potential contributors to head towards a sustainable transport system. The core objective of this paper is to investigate the perspectives of different alternative automotive technologies in a dynamic framework till 2050 in comparison to fossil fuel driven conventional cars from a technical, ecological and economic point-of-view. The technologies considered in this paper are: conventional and hybrid internal combustion engine, compressed natural gas-, flex-fuel-, battery electric- and fuel cell-vehicles. The most important results and conclusions of this analysis are: (i) The energetic improvements up to 2050 will lead to substantial reduction of energetic losses mainly in Tank-to-Wheel part of the energy service provision chain; (ii) By 2050 the total driving costs of all analyzed fuels and powertrains could almost even out; (iii) The major uncertainty regarding battery electric- and fuel cell- vehicles is how fast technological learning will take place especially for the battery and the fuel cells.