Update Brings Latest Cost and Performance Data for Transportation Vehicle and Fuel
Technologies
vehicle categories and fuel technologies. Photo from Getty Images
The one-stop shop for the latest transportation technology cost and performance data
is back with even more data.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL),
in partnership with Argonne National Laboratory, has released the 2024 Transportation Annual Technology Baseline (ATB) Update, which provides detailed data, estimates, and assumptions for current and future
vehicle and fuel technologies in the United States through 2050. Details of the update
will be outlined in the 2024 Transportation ATB Update webinar on Dec. 4, 2024, at 9 a.m. MT, which is now open for registration.
The Transportation ATB joins the Electricity ATB in providing consistency across analysis projects and modeling, facilitating the
tracking and sourcing of input assumptions, and reducing the lead time in conducting
scenario analysis. The Electricity ATB released its 10th annual update earlier this year.
“As more analysts in the transportation community turn to the Transportation ATB for
their analyses, we want to ensure that they have access to detailed, credible data
that are keeping up with technological advancement,” ATB Lead Laura Vimmerstedt said.
“That means regularly updating the ATB to reflect the latest insights and improving
the data offerings to meet the needs of transportation analysis.”
A Tool for Your Analysis Toolbelt
The Transportation ATB provides vehicle data for a base year as well as a trajectory
out to 2050 for fuel economy, modeled vehicle price, levelized cost of driving, and
emissions. These metrics are available for a variety of vehicle classes and powertrains,
as well as for comparisons between them. In addition to the vehicle data, the Transportation
ATB provides fuels data, including cost, production characteristics, and emissions
estimates for selected fuels pathways in four categories: on-road fuels, blendstocks,
marine fuels, and aviation fuels. The assumptions used to calculate vehicle and fuel
costs are also available, promoting transparency and consistency across analyses.
To help users leverage the Transportation ATB data to meet their analysis needs, the
ATB team offers a suite of free, publicly available resources on the ATB website. This includes user guidance, a Tableau workbook with interactive charts and visualizations,
and formatted data with database-friendly summaries.
What Is New in This Update
Given the rapid pace of transportation technology improvement and market advancement,
the multilab team behind the ATB periodically releases updated cost and performance
trajectories with the support of DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,
including the Strategic Analysis Team, Bioenergy Technologies Office, Vehicle Technologies
Office, and Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office.
The 2024 Transportation ATB Update incorporates data from the latest versions of cutting-edge
energy data sources, including the latest Annual Energy Outlook, Monthly Energy Review,
and Argonne National Laboratory’s Autonomie powertrain simulation tool and Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technologies Model. The update also expands the available vehicle types and offers additional metrics
for biofuels.
In addition to general and technology-specific updates, the 2024 update features several
key changes and new features:
- Comparison with the previous assumptions: A new interactive chart shows how the assumptions in this update compare with the
previous assumptions. - New conservative trajectory to replace the constant trajectory for most vehicle scenarios: This new trajectory, featuring vehicle technology cost and performance improvements
based on the Annual Energy Outlook, replaces the old “constant” trajectory. - New literature comparison pages that show historical and projected vehicle cost and
fuel economy: ATB users can now see comparisons to other sources for vehicle base year and projected
information for light-duty and medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. - Additional biomass-to-biofuels pathways: These new pathways address those used in biofuels industry modeling in NREL’s Bioenergy Scenario Model.
- Updated recharging and hydrogen refueling costs: The source for levelized cost of charging infrastructure now relies on results from
NREL’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure – Financial Analysis Scenario Tool (EVI-FAST).
Learn More at December 3 Webinar
To learn more about the 2024 Transportation ATB Update, register for the free informational webinar hosted by the ATB team on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024, at 9 a.m. MT. Presenters will give
an overview of the Transportation ATB, describe the updates in detail, run technology-specific
demos, and answer attendee questions.
Read more about the Transportation ATB, and register for the 2024 Transportation ATB Update webinar on Dec. 3.