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Evidence map

Total cost of ownership: what the evidence base looks like

14 publications, 0 of them trials and 0 syntheses. This page describes the shape of that literature rather than summarising its conclusions.

Updated 4 min read 14 citations

What the evidence on total cost of ownership is made of Of 14 publications on this topic, the breakdown by study type: 14 other. 14other (14)
14 publications, by study type. Volume is not strength — the same count can be a settled question or a pile of commentary, and which one it is depends almost entirely on this breakdown. Harvested from PubMed and Crossref; publication type as recorded by the source.

What this literature is made of

A reasonable volume of literature, but weighted towards reviews and observational work rather than trials. That is enough to describe a phenomenon and rarely enough to establish that an intervention works.

The distinction that matters most is between synthesis and primary research. A meta-analysis pools trials and is the closest thing to a settled answer a field produces. A narrative review is one group's reading of the same material and can be selective without being dishonest. Counting them together, which most citation counts do, obscures exactly the thing you want to know.

When the total cost of ownership literature was published Publication years for the 14 papers on this topic, grouped into bands from before 2015 through to 2023 onwards. 2023 onwards8 papers2015-20192 papers2020-20222 papersBefore 20152 papers
Still active. The most recent paper here is from 2026, so this is a field where an answer written today may not hold for long. Publication years as recorded by PubMed and Crossref.

How this page is built

Everything above is computed from the citations this site harvested from PubMed and Crossref, not written by hand. When the weekly harvest finds a new paper on this topic, these counts change and the characterisation changes with them. That is the point: a hand-written claim about how strong an evidence base is starts decaying the day it is written.

Publication type is taken as the source records it. That is imperfect — journals label inconsistently, and a paper indexed as a "review" may be a systematic one — so treat the bands as approximate. They are accurate enough to distinguish a trial literature from a commentary literature, which is the distinction that matters.

The strongest work on this topic

Ordered by study design first, then recency. The full set is listed in the references below.

  1. How to Improve the Total Cost of Ownership of Electric Vehicles: An Analysis of the Light Commercial Vehicle Segment — Lebeau P, Macharis C, Van Mierlo J, 2019, journal article
  2. Ownership Levies and Electric Vehicle Adoption: A Total Cost of Ownership and Legal Analysis of Ukraine’s Fiscal Reversal — Vovk Y, Vovk I, Martsenko N et al., 2026, journal article
  3. Route-Specific Total Cost of Ownership for Electric Trucks: A Danish Distribution Case Study — Iversen L, Rehmeier C, 2026, journal article
  4. Total cost of ownership of electric and gasoline used vehicles — Woody M, Yin S, Green A et al., 2026, journal article
  5. Total Cost of Ownership of Electric Buses in Europe — Ghotge R, van Rooij D, van Breukelen S, 2025, journal article
  6. Study of the Total Ownership Cost of Electric Vehicles in Romania — Dulău L, 2024, journal article
  7. Total Cost of Ownership of Electric Car and Internal Combustion Engine Car with Performance Normalization — Santoso A, Priyono B, 2024, journal article
  8. Techno-Economic Comparison of Total Cost Ownership of Electric and Combustion Light Commercial Vehicles — Taborda-Ospina L, Ortiz-Castrillón R, Jaramillo-Duque Á et al., 2024, journal article
  9. The Comparison between the Total Aggregate Sustainability of Electric Vehicles and Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles, Evidence from Montreal — Ren R, 2023, journal article
  10. Vehicle to Grid Impacts on the Total Cost of Ownership for Electric Vehicle Drivers — Huber D, De Clerck Q, De Cauwer C et al., 2021, journal article
How much research is there on total cost of ownership?
14 publications are indexed here, of which 0 are trials and 0 are syntheses.
Does more research mean a stronger conclusion?
No. Composition matters more than volume — five randomised trials support a claim far better than fifty commentaries, and citation counts do not distinguish between them.
How current is this?
The most recent paper indexed here is from 2026. The set is refreshed weekly from PubMed and Crossref.
Why does this page not tell me the answer?
Because summarising a literature into a conclusion requires reading it, and doing that automatically is how confident nonsense gets published. This page tells you how much weight a conclusion could bear; the articles on this site do the interpreting.

References

Every citation below links to the original peer-reviewed record on PubMed or via DOI. Nothing here is a substitute for medical advice.

  1. How to Improve the Total Cost of Ownership of Electric Vehicles: An Analysis of the Light Commercial Vehicle Segment Lebeau P, Macharis C, Van Mierlo J · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2019 · Journal article DOI
  2. Total cost of ownership of electric and gasoline used vehicles Woody M, Yin S, Green A, et al. · Environmental Research Letters · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  3. Ownership Levies and Electric Vehicle Adoption: A Total Cost of Ownership and Legal Analysis of Ukraine’s Fiscal Reversal Vovk Y, Vovk I, Martsenko N, et al. · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  4. Route-Specific Total Cost of Ownership for Electric Trucks: A Danish Distribution Case Study Iversen L, Rehmeier C · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  5. Total Cost of Ownership of Electric Buses in Europe Ghotge R, van Rooij D, van Breukelen S · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2025 · Journal article DOI
  6. Techno-Economic Comparison of Total Cost Ownership of Electric and Combustion Light Commercial Vehicles Taborda-Ospina L, Ortiz-Castrillón R, Jaramillo-Duque Á, et al. · Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental · 2024 · Journal article DOI
  7. Study of the Total Ownership Cost of Electric Vehicles in Romania Dulău L · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2024 · Journal article DOI
  8. Total Cost of Ownership of Electric Car and Internal Combustion Engine Car with Performance Normalization Santoso A, Priyono B · International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology (IJISRT) · 2024 · Journal article DOI
  9. The Comparison between the Total Aggregate Sustainability of Electric Vehicles and Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles, Evidence from Montreal Ren R · Journal of Innovation and Development · 2023 · Journal article DOI
  10. Vehicle to Grid Impacts on the Total Cost of Ownership for Electric Vehicle Drivers Huber D, De Clerck Q, De Cauwer C, et al. · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2021 · Journal article DOI
  11. Analyzing Factors of Hybrid Electric Vehicle Adoption Using Total Cost of Ownership Lee J, Kwon Y · The Journal of Social Sciences Research · 2020 · Journal article DOI
  12. How Total is a Total Cost of Ownership? De Clerck Q, Van Lier T, Lebeau P, et al. · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2016 · Journal article DOI
  13. Electric versus conventional vehicles for logistics: A total cost of ownership Macharis C, Lebeau P, Van Mierlo J, et al. · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2013 · Journal article DOI
  14. How expensive are electric vehicles? A total cost of ownership analysis. Lebeau K, Lebeau P, Macharis C, et al. · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2013 · Journal article DOI