Electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), which obtain their fuel from the
grid by charging a battery, are set to be introduced into the mass market and expected to contribute to
oil consumption reduction. In this research, scenarios for 2020 EVs penetration and charging profiles
are studied integrated with different hypotheses for electricity production mix. The impacts in load
profiles, spot electricity prices and emissions are obtained for the Portuguese case study. Simulations
for year 2020, in a scenario of low hydro production and high prices, resulted in energy costs for EVs
recharge of 20 cents/kWh, with 2 million EVs charging mainly at evening peak hours. On the other
hand, in an off-peak recharge, a high hydro production and low wholesale prices’ scenario, recharge
costs could be reduced to 5.6 cents/kWh. In these extreme cases, EV’s energy prices were between 0.9h
to 3.2h per 100 km. Reductions in primary energy consumption, fossil fuels use and CO2 emissions of up
to 3%, 14% and 10%, respectively, were verified (for a 2 million EVs’ penetration and a dry year’s off-peak
recharge scenario) from the transportation and electricity sectors together when compared with a BAU
scenario without EVs.