3. Existing technologies#

This section details data and assumptions on technical parameters of existing transport technologies, such as capital costs, efficiency, etc

3.1. Capital and operating costs#

3.1.1. Road transport#

Capital (CAPEX) and fixed operating and maintenance (FIXOM) costs for light vehicles in the model are primarily derived from EECA’s Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Tool[1] using a curated list of top-selling models across multiple technology types and vehicle categories. Vehicles are classified by category (e.g. car, SUV, ute, van, bus, motorcycle, truck), use type (e.g. LPV, LCV, bus, motorcycle, light, medium, heavy truck), and technology (e.g. petrol ICE, diesel ICE, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, battery electric vehicle, and hydrogen fuel cell). For each representative model, key cost components are recorded, including purchase price (capital cost), servicing costs, tyre costs, and a combined per-kilometre operating cost. Truck costs are sourced from publicly available sales data where possible, as well as aggregated internal EECA data. Dual fuel heavy trucks are determined by the price of the diesel truck plus $150,000 for the dual fuel system[2]. Operating costs were assumed the same as a diesel truck.

If vehicle cost data was not available in the TCO tool, we used proxy figures from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory[3] or the Argonne National Laboratory[4]. These costs do not include battery or fuel cell replacements, which may become significant in the cost of these vehicles given we are modelling their entire lifespan.

Table 59 Vehicle capital costs (2023 NZD)#
Vehicle Type	Diesel	Diesel Hybrid	Diesel/Hydrogen	BEV	Hydrogen	LPG	Petrol	Petrol Hybrid	PHEV
LPV	53,565			48,087	69,630	60,836	37,907	42,201	52,065
LCV	56,728	54,283		70,913	148,676	70,364	60,645	62,141	75,193
Light Truck	78,244	89,981		126,271	211,896				238,692
Medium Truck	175,680	193,429		381,808	447,231				364,301
Heavy Truck	344,470	270,081	492,100	677,130	876,923				690,526
Bus	393,680	425,166		576,413	875,939	393,680	393,680		669,042
Motorcycle				8,110			4,890

Table 60 Vehicle operating and maintenance costs (2023 NZD/km)#
Vehicle Type	Diesel	Diesel Hybrid	BEV	Hydrogen	LPG	Petrol	Petrol Hybrid	PHEV
LPV	0.09		0.06	0.1	0.16	0.07	0.07	0.08
LCV	0.08	0.09	0.05	0.13	0.15	0.05	0.14	0.1
Light Truck	0.14	0.14	0.09	0.14				0.14
Medium Truck	0.18	0.18	0.11	0.18				0.18
Heavy Truck	0.18	0.18	0.11	0.18				0.18
Bus	0.18	0.18	0.11	0.18	0.85	0.85		0.18
Motorcycle

3.1.2. Shipping#

TIMES-NZ 2.0 did not include the cost of domestic and international shipping. For the 3.0 update we have used CAPEX and OPEX figures used in the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center TCO tool[5]. TIMES-NZ shipping technologies are based on Heavy fuel oil, so the most relevant category is Vessel 1 - ICE – LSFO (Low Sulfur Fuel Oil). Little reliable data has been found for alternative technologies.

Table 61 Shipping technology costs#
Vessel	2020	2025	2030	2035	2040	2045	2050
CAPEX (USD/Vessel)	4,255,140	4,255,140	4,255,140	4,255,140	4,255,140	4,255,140	4,255,140
OPEX (USD/vessel/year)	23,169,449	21,576,516	21,187,545	21,187,545	21,187,545	21,187,545	21,187,545

3.1.3. Rail#

There is also limited publicly available data for rail costs. Currently, we use data from media releases relating to the Stadler and KiwiRail contract for 57 mainline locomotives[6].

Table 62 Cost of rail (Million euros)#
Type	Fuel type	No. of locomotives	Contracted amount (million euros)	Per unit cost (million euros)
Mainline locomotives	Low-emission diesel	57	228	4
Hybrid yard shunt locomotives	Hybrid battery-diesel	24	No data publicly available

3.2. Fuel efficiency#

Fuel efficiencies for base year technologies were determined based on historical information on actual fuel consumption, from the EEUD and vehicle travel data as described above. This is described in Equation (6) and the results are listed in Table 63.

(6)#\[Fuel Efficiency = \frac{Billion Vehicle Kilometres Travelled}{PJ Fuel Used}\]

Table 63 Fuel efficiencies of existing technologies#
Type	Technology	Fuel	BVkt/PJ	L/100km	kWh/100km	kg/100km
LPV	ICE	Petrol	0.38	7.47
	ICE	Diesel	0.31	8.34
	ICE	LPG	0.06
	ICE Hybrid	Petrol	0.53	5.34
	BEV	Electricity	1.56		17.84
	PHEV	Petrol	0.53	5.34
	PHEV	Electricity	1.56		17.84
LCV	ICE	Petrol	0.26	10.92
	ICE	Diesel	0.27	9.62
	ICE	LPG	0.05
	ICE Hybrid	Petrol	0.36	7.67
	BEV	Electricity	1.19		23.32
Light Truck	ICE	Petrol	0.18	15.88
	ICE	Diesel	0.14	18.18
	BEV	Electricity	0.67		41.53
Medium truck	ICE	Diesel	0.06	44.77
	BEV	Electricity	0.3		93.79
	H2R	Hydrogen	0.11			7.75
Heavy truck	ICE	Diesel	0.05	55.2
	BEV	Electricity	0.2		141.9
	H2R	Hydrogen	0.08			10.4
Bus	ICE	Petrol	0.13	22.58
	ICE	Diesel	0.08	33.19
	ICE	LPG	0.02
	BEV	Electricity	0.31		89.56
Motorcycle	ICE	Petrol	0.69	4.12
	BEV	Electricity	2.82		9.85

Some technologies weren’t present in the data so were determined manually – for LCV Hybrids and ICE motorcycles we used the relativity in between ICE LPVs and the LPV version of their respective technology.

Hydrogen trucks used publicly claimed fuel capacities and range to determine fuel consumption. For Medium trucks the Hyundai Xcient was used[7], for Heavy trucks the GBV Semi[8].

3.3. Lifetime of transport technologies#

To reflect differences in how vehicles exit the fleet over time, we allocated the total fleet across utilisation bands, referred to as tertiles based on their initial share and their expected survival as vehicles age. Each tertile’s base share is calculated from the overall fleet and adjusted using an age-based decay factor that models the likelihood of a vehicle remaining in the fleet as it gets older. The decay factor ($\alpha$) is defined as:

Equation (7): Age-based decay factor

(7)#\[\alpha = 1- (\frac{Age}{Maximum Age})\]

This factor declines from 1 at age 0 to 0 at the maximum observed vehicle age.

We assume that vehicles which are used more regularly age faster. To allow for faster turnover in higher utilisation tertiles, the decay factor is raised to the power of the tertile index $i$, resulting in the following weighting formula:

Equation (8): Utilisation weighting

(8)#\[Weight_i = Base Share_i \cdot \alpha^i\]

These weights are then normalised within each age group to preserve total fleet size while reflecting different survival patterns across tertiles. Using this weighted distribution, the scrappage age is calculated for each vehicle type and tertile. This is defined as the age by which 70% of vehicles in that group have exited the fleet, representing a higher than median estimate of fleet turnover. It reflects differences in how quickly vehicles are typically retired across segments and provides insight into the upper range of vehicle survival patterns.

Table 64 Scrappage age in years#
Category	Low	Medium	High
LPV	28.12	27.08	20.77
LCV	20.19	18.37	12.51
Bus	37.5	20.72	16.05
Motorcycle	22.48	19.87	18.23
Light Truck	38.53	34	29.39
Medium Truck	39.32	23.86	21.18
Heavy Truck	39.32	23.86	21.18

3.4. Fuel share constraints#

We apply a few constraint assumptions to some dual-fuel technologies, exogenously limiting their fuel shares to provide more realistic fuel share modelling. The model doesn’t capture all the practical considerations faced by these technologies, so these constraints are required to enforce realistic modelled behaviour. These assumptions have been extracted from TIMES-NZ 2.0.

Table 65 Fuel share constraints#
Type	Technology	Fuel	Fuel share
LPV	PHEV	Petrol	40%
	PHEV	Electricity	60%
Heavy Truck	Dual Fuel	Diesel	70%
	Dual Fuel	Hydrogen	30%
Passenger Rail		Electricity	79%
		Diesel	21%
Freight Rail		Diesel	97%
		Electricity	3%

3.5. Emission factors#

Emissions factors for each thermal fuel are sourced from the Ministry for the Environment’s Measuring Emissions Guide 2025[9]. These are all converted to kt CO2e/PJ equivalents using gross calorific values from MfE’s data for use in modelling. The electricity supply portion of the model will handle the electricity emission factor for transport electricity. The following figures are used in the model:

Table 66 Transport fuel emission factors#
Fuel	Unit	CV MJ/Unit	kg CO2e/unit	kt CO2e/PJ
Petrol	Litre	35.18	2.42	68.79
Diesel	Litre	38.49	2.68	69.63
Fuel oil	Litre	40.74	3.07	75.36
Aviation fuel	Litre	37.19	2.52	67.76
LPG	Litre	26.54	1.62	61.04