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There are many factors and great uncertainty, but calculations show that the costs of purchasing and operating electric buses are lower than for diesel buses.
Electric buses have a higher purchase price, but lower operating costs ensure that electric buses are the cheapest after 7.3 years on the road. This is the conclusion of an analysis conducted by the consulting company Stakeholders on behalf of NHO Transport and the Norwegian Public Transport Association.
The analysis assesses the costs of purchasing and operating a standard 12-15 meter bus. The starting point is that the buses travel 60,000 kilometers per year and that the battery lasts for the entire contract period, which is set at 12 years.
With these assumptions, electric buses are the most profitable choice. The net savings would then be NOK 1.33 million per bus over the 12-year period.
The consultants who prepared the analysis point to several uncertainties in the calculation, including uncertainty around energy prices and the risk of changes in public taxes. The calculation is based on the assumption that the CO2 tax will be increased in 2035. There is currently broad political agreement that the tax should be increased, but the recent turmoil in the energy market has clearly illustrated how politicians can change their minds. If the CO2 tax is not increased, electric buses will not win the calculation until the 11th year on the road.
Senior partner Svein Thompson is one of the advisors at Stakeholders who worked on the analysis. He believes the analysis clearly highlights how important climate policy is. A clear victory for electric buses requires that the CO2 tax be increased without reducing the road tax for diesel.
– Without a significant difference in operating costs per kilometer, the purchase costs are still too high for the electric bus to be profitable. This applies to both the bus and the charging system. There is a large variation in the costs of building charging systems, so here you have to calculate on a case-by-case basis, Thompson tells Yrkestrafikk.
He believes the numbers could shift in favor of electric buses in the coming years.
– An expected decrease in the price of batteries and larger production lines for electric buses will help ensure that electric buses will continue to operate from diesel buses, as long as the operation is 40,000 kilometers per year or more.
When analyzing costs over time, it is important to remember that a krone today is worth far more than a krone in 10 years. In such analyses, it is therefore common to carry out a so-called discounting of the future costs and revenues to find the present value.
When the consultants applied this technique, the high investment costs of electric buses had a greater impact, while the effect of cheaper operation – especially at the end of the period – was mitigated. This shows that it takes 9.3 years for electric buses in Southern Norway to beat diesel buses. In Northern Norway, lower electricity prices will ensure that electric buses come out on top.
Last year, Stakeholders' advisors also assessed the climate impacts of using electric buses versus fossil-based vehicles. The background was concerns related to the emissions generated by battery production.
At that time, the analysis concluded that an electric bus must drive around 40,000 kilometers a year to compensate for the emissions associated with battery production.
