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The aim of this paper is to explore how mainstream vehicle buyers perceive and apply Total Cost of Ownership in their vehicle choice process. All else equal, rational consumers ought to evaluate Total Cost of Ownership in order to acquire the real cost of owning a particular vehicle under consideration, unless bounded rationality is affecting their behavior. The results reveal that vehicle buyers generally are capable of understanding the relative size of individual costs that make up vehicle Total Cost of Ownership but fail to evaluate and apply multiple costs in their vehicle purchase process. Regression analysis exposes that income, educational level, stated importance of Total Cost of Ownership and the number of vehicles in the choice set have a positive association with the degree that consumers conduct an evaluation of vehicle Total Cost of Ownership. Failure to consider Total Cost of Ownership can lead to uneconomic vehicle choices, which is here labeled as the TCO paradox. This could have an especially negative effect on the diffusion of battery electric vehicles, which require a more detailed cost analysis in order to extract its low operating cost structure.

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