*2.3. Acquisition Costs, Environmental E*ff*ects, and Additional Simulation Parameters*

If the user selected number of iterations is not met (step D), then the vehicle acquisition costs from the user interface including, tax credits and home charging station costs are estimated. These are user-entered parameters for the simulation. In addition, production emissions, a value derived from a previous study [42], are calculated based on vehicle selection type, a user parameter (step E, Table 2).


**Table 2.** Vehicle Emissions Analysis from Previous Study.

2015 vehicle after 150 k KM with 10% ethanol blend and 500 g/kWh grid electricity.

Step F evaluates whether the vehicle is a BEV or PHEV. Residential grid electric charging (step G), residential solar charging (step H), and the residential natural gas charging (step I) are pulled from the user interface. Solar charging is used to estimate solar acquisition costs for the panels necessary to charge the vehicle. Step J estimates the associated solar acquisition cost per panel watt required for the percent solar charging specified in the user interface. Cost per solar panel watt was user parameter with values between \$2 and \$5, representative of the range \$3.10 and \$4.50 found in [43] with the possibility of growth and shrinkage provided. Total cost of solar acquisition to charge a BEV or PHEV is then calculated by Equation (1) (author-proposed). In this equation, solar acquisition cost is estimated based on and indicator variable for a BEV or PHEV (*EV*) times an indicator variable for solar charging (*Solar*) times a state-based geographic system-sizing multiplier [44] times the miles driven (*Miles*) times the BEV kWh per mile (*kWh*/*Mile*) (from the user interface, defaulted to 0.34 based on a Nissan Leaf [28]) times the dollars per kWh (*\$*/*kWh*) times the percentage of power provided by the battery (*% Battery*, which is 100% for BEV but less than 100% for PHEVs). Tax credits, if any, are assigned 12 months after vehicle acquisition:

$$\begin{aligned} \text{Solar Acquisition Cost} &= EV \times \text{Solar} \times \text{Gocographic Photolatic Size} \times \text{Miles} \times k \text{M} \% \text{M} \times \% \text{Battery.} \end{aligned} \tag{1}$$

After estimating the acquisition costs in steps E through J, the month of the simulation is then incremented (step K). Driving distance per month is based on user interface (step L), with a default value of the average monthly driving distance of 1123 miles based on the United States Department of Transportation [45].

## *2.4. Operations and Maintenance Costs*/*Solar Acquisition Costs (If Needed)*
