We investigate the travel costs of CVs, HEVs and PHEVs for long-distance trips. We analyze the impacts of battery, driver and road network characteristics on the costs. We provide critical managerial insights to shape the investment decisions about PHEVs. Drivers' stopping intolerance may hamper the cost and emission benefits of PHEVs. Negative effect of intolerance on cost may be overcome by battery capacity expansion. a r t i c l e i n f o
b s t r a c tIn a road network with refueling and fast charging stations, the minimum-cost driving path of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) depends on factors such as location and availability of refueling/fast charging stations, capacity and cost of PHEV batteries, and driver tolerance towards extra mileage or additional stopping. In this paper, our focus is long-distance trips of PHEVs. We analyze the impacts of battery characteristics, often-overlooked driver preferences and road network features on PHEV travel costs for long-distance trips and compare the results with hybrid electric and conventional vehicles. We investigate the significance of these factors and derive critical managerial insights for shaping the future investment decisions about PHEVs and their infrastructure. In particular, our findings suggest that with a certain level of deployment of fast charging stations, well established cost and emission benefits of PHEVs for the short range trips can be extended to long distance. Drivers' stopping intolerance may hamper these benefits; however, increasing battery capacity may help overcome the adverse effects of this intolerance.