| Abstract |
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contracted with FEV, Inc. to determine incremental direct manufacturing costs for a set of advanced light-duty vehicle technologies. The technologies selected are on the leading edge for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in the future, primarily in the form of tailpipe carbon dioxide (CO2). In contrast to comparable cost analyses done in the past, which rely heavily on supplier price quotes for key components, this study is based to a large degree on teardowns of vehicles or vehicle systems that employ the new technologies, and of similar vehicles or systems without the new technologies. Analysts with expertise in automotive design, materials, and manufacturing then compare the teardown components and evaluate the differences. Using databases for materials, labor, manufacturing overhead, and mark-up costs, the overall cost to manufacture individual parts are calculated and summed into final results. A model consisting of an extensive set of linked spreadsheets and associated macros has been developed to perform the calculations, to track the input data, identify sources of information, describe assumptions used in the case study, and provide analysis tools. |
