This paper centers on the estimation of the total primary energy consumption for personal transportation in the United States, to include gasoline and/or electricity consumption, depending on vehicle type. The bottom-up sector-based estimation method introduced here contributes to a computational tool under development at The Ohio State University for assisting decision making in energy policy, pricing, and investment. In order to simulate highly-resolved consumption profiles three main modeling steps are needed: modeling the behavior of drivers, generating realistic driving profiles, and simulating energy consumption of different kinds of vehicles. The modeling proposed allows for evaluating the impact of plug-in electric vehicles on the electric grid-especially at the distribution level. It can serve as a tool to compare different vehicle types and assist policy-makers in estimating their impact on primary energy consumption and the role transportation can play to reduce oil dependency. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.