Green Car Congress: US DOE launches cost calculator to compare emissions and operating costs for alternative fuel and conventional vehicles

The US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) recently launched a new Vehicle Cost Calculator and accompanying widget. The Vehicle Cost Calculator, an easy-to-use tool that allows users to compare emissions and lifetime operating costs of specific vehicle models, including conventional cars and trucks, as well as vehicles running on alternative fuels such as electricity, ethanol, natural gas, or biodiesel.

With the new calculator, which was developed by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), car shoppers, small business owners, and fleet managers can make side-by-side comparisons between thousands of conventional, electric drive, and alternative fuel vehicles from model year 1996 and newer.

The calculator also lets users enter information such as driving habits, local ZIP code, price of fuel, and potential tax credits to personalize their results. The tool then presents a comparison of the selected models, displaying the total lifetime ownership costs of the vehicles and the breakdown of the lifetime operating costs between fuel and maintenance costs. It also calculates the operational cost per mile and greenhouse gas emissions over time for the vehicles….