Technoeconomic Analysis and Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicle Introduction in Taxis: A Case Study of Mexico City
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is very interesting and shows a lot of engagement and work of the author.
There are some remarks from me:
The title refers to public transport – it should be precise that it includes passenger cars.
„studies have not assessed a cost-technical and environmental impact of Electric Vehicles (EVs) in public transport”
Don’t they? Further on the author refers to studies.. and there are plenty of them.
e.g. https://ec.europa.eu/clima/sites/default/files/transport/vehicles/docs/d4_en.pdf
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/3/1052
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920919302792
“Some studies have evaluated the EVs life cycle cost (LCC) being lower than ICVs in countries such as Japan, UK, USA, France, and Norway [24], [23]. Otherwise, in some countries such as Italy, Hungary, Portugal, Germany, and Austria the LCC in EVs is higher [23].”
It should be clearly explained where and which the differences come from. (Also in summary)
The author do not explain why he uses the LCC calculating method from [32] and not any other.
“In this study, the equivalent emissions of (??2) will be analyzed during three stages of the life cycle of vehicles such as production, operation, and disposal.”
Disposal was not mentioned before, eg. equation (1). In my opinion it should.
“It will be assumed that the pollutant emissions in the waste of vehicles is the same for all.”
Due to the different specifics of drive systems (and batteries), this assumption is too much of a simplification.
There are also some editorial mistakes - some graphs have numbers on curves, in some tables units are in (), others are not, and in some, there is a lack of unit at all.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1,
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper aims to carry out a cost-environmental assessment of electric cars introduction in public transport in Mexico City using the cost of life cycle (LCC) methodology and, environmentally, by the evaluation of emissions in terms of Greenhouse gases (GHG), also a sensitivity analysis was carried out to identify the key parameters with the most influence in LCC.
It is an important topic, however, the current paper is more like an experiment report with rich data and calculation, instead of research. The current paper needs a complete revision, extension and is not in the current form ready for publication.
- Please clarify the research gap of this research. Or say, what's special in Mexico compared to other countries, as mentioned by the author, similar researches have been done in other countries. For example, are there any differences in travel range and lifetime, and how do these differences affect the LCC?
- Taxis and ridesharing vehicles will clearly have longer travel distances and shorter lifetime compared to private vehicles, and thus please reevaluate the data “15,000 km per year and 10 years lifetime”
- All-electric range and battery capacity for BEV are needed in Table 1.
- Currently, China has the largest BEV market and there are also lots of related BEV cost analyses, could you please cite some related researches in your literature review? For example, try keywords TCO, cost analysis, and so on.
- 1-LCC análisis should be LCC analysis.
- What are the ?????????? ??????????? ????? and ?????????? ??????????? ?????, the authors should explain the concepts in the paper.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2,
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The quality of the paper is improved. Thank you for the revision. A few problems:
1- Data of the same parameter should have the same precision, for example, table 3. Vehicle production phase Co2 eq. emissions. You need to decide whether it is necessary to adopt 0.000001 precision.
2- Could you please illustrate the result "a battery cost reduction of at least 92.3% per kWh." Firstly. it is difficult to understand the result from Figure 11. Then 92.3% is beyond my expectation. As far as I know, it is not the case in the United States and China. And it is almost impossible for batteries to reduce 92.3% in reality. Could you please illustrate detaily？
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2,
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
1-You also need to correct your number in the conclusions: " and also a reduction of at least 92.6% in the cost of batteries per kWh. "
2-Besides, you didn't explain the "73.44% and 78.81% per kWh for Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Bolt", please illustrate this carefully by combining your functions.
3-A complete English editing is needed for your manuscript. For example, "it is needed a battery price decrease for EVs around USD$ 178.93 per kWh." It is not ready for publishing currently.
Please revise your paper carefully and completely. Don't rush to submit your revision and we are looking forward to something that improved a lot compared to this version.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2,
I have corrected and changed some things in the manuscript based on your suggestions and commentaries, I explained point by point the details of your observations. The changes and responses can be seen below. I am really grateful for your support.
Thank for the support,
Daniel Maciel.
Reply to the Review Report (REVIEWER 2)
Point 1: You also need to correct your number in the conclusions: " and also a reduction of at least 92.6% in the cost of batteries per kWh. "
Response 1: I have corrected the range number of the necessary reduction cost of batteries per kWh. Thanks for the observation.
Point 2: Besides, you didn't explain the "73.44% and 78.81% per kWh for Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Bolt", please illustrate this carefully by combining your functions.
Response 2: I explained the necessary percentage reductions given battery price reductions to overcome the high maintenance cost of EVs. I illustrated in Figure 12 the equivalences of percentage reductions and battery price reductions. For instance, the reductions in battery price from USD$193.83/kWh to USD$14.91/kWh represent a 73.44% and 78.81% per kWh for Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Bolt, respectively.
Point 3: A complete English editing is needed for your manuscript. For example, "it is needed a battery price decrease for EVs around USD$ 178.93 per kWh." It is not ready for publishing currently.
Response 3: I have corrected and edited the manuscript of some English mistakes I detected such as grammar, punctuations and editing. I hope it is suitable now for publishing. Thanks for the observations and support.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 4
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have revised most comments in the previous revisions. Thank you for your revision. The quality improves a lot.
