A Comprehensive Study for Multi-Criteria Comparison of EV, ICEV, and HEV

Abstract: Electric vehicles (EVs) are increasingly becoming popular as a viable means of transportation for the future. The use of EVs may help to provide better climatic conditions in urban areas with a pocket friendly cost for transportation to the consumers throughout its life. EVs enact as a boon to the society by providing zero tailpipe emissions, better comfort, low lifecycle cost and higher connectivity. The article aims to provide scientific information through the literature across various aspects of EVs in their lifetime and thus, assist the scholarly community and various organisations to understand the impact of EVs. In this study we have gathered information from the articles published in SCOPUS database and through grey literature with the focus of information post 2009. After identification of various factors while purchasing the vehicle, the total cost of ownership (TCO) for vehicles is calculated and their average TCO for each segment is considered for the study. Following that, we investigate the ranking of EVs, vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (ICEVs), and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) in a variety of price segments by employing a combination of two different multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques. Initially, best-worst method (BWM) is used to determine the weights of each of the identified criterion, which is thereafter, used in conjunction with the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to compute the rank of the available alternatives using BWM. The ranking obtained clearly indicates that EVs should be first purchase choice of the consumers, followed by HEVs and ICEVs respectively. Thus, the results help us conclude that EVs enact as a sustainable means of transport for the future.