Assessing the Total Cost of Ownership of Electric Vehicles in the Costa Rican Market

Abstract

This article aims to describe how the electric vehicle market operates in Costa Rica. Different government policies have been defined in order to promote the insertion of electric vehicles. With the existing public charging infrastructure is possible to travel to any desire destination in the country, and this type of vehicle are gaining popularity every day. However, there is still something that constrains a quicker change in the existing vehicle fleet, related to the initial cost of electric vehicles when compared to conventional internal combustion cars. For that reason this article analyzes the associated costs to several electric vehicles found in the Costa Rican market, and the costs of similar conventional cars to illustrate the user, which alternative can better suit their needs. The obtained results show that even though the higher initial cost, the electric vehicles are a better alternative in the long term due to a lower total cost of ownership.