The B2B platform for full-electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: Industry News

A six months trial run of EVs in North East England shows that once people have driven an EV on their own, they are quite open to using one regularly or to buy one themselves and that the crucial barrier to overcome is the famous range anxiety.

Cenex, the UK’s Centre of Excellence for low carbon vehicle technologies, has undertaken a six month field test with 10 organisations integrating one to four full electric Smarts into their fleets. The hypothesis was that operators of vehicle pools and fleets are ideal candidates as early adopters of electric vehicles because their vehicle usage patterns are more predictable than those of private users.

The objectives were threefold:

• study the integration of electric vehicles into fleets
• accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles in the area
• study the efficiency and performance of the vehicles

Data collection

Qualitative data was collected via questionnaires to fleet users, fleet managers, and people test driving the EVs during the three public drive events organised during the project. 190 out of 264 people driving the EVs filled in the questionnaire.

Quantitative data was collected via data logging equipment fitted to the Smart and recording:

• positive and negative power flow across the battery terminals
• battery state of charge
• vehicle GPS position
• ancillary load state
• ignition position
• brake pedal state
• ambient temperature

Users underestimate EVs' performance

The driving data clearly showed that range anxiety prevented users from using the full potential of their electric vehicles: 93% of travels were only undertaken with over 50% battery charge and the maximum travel distance rarely exceeded 25% of the available vehicle range. Driving behaviour furthermore changed significantly as soon as the charge fell below 50%.

A change of heart through hands-on experience

Overall, however, the driving experience of the full electric Smarts was rated quite well. 58% of fleet users declared to feel more positive about EVs after taking part in the trial, in the age group of 20-30 year olds this percentage attained even 83%.

Key findings from the public drive events were equally positive with 72% of test drivers saying they would consider using an EV as regular car compared to 47% before the test drive. In general, the EVs exceeded the general public's expectations during the test drives on all monitored performance aspects.

The EVs' carbon footprint

The field tested EVs had an average range of 72.4 km, emitting 81.4 g CO2/km when charged with the UK average grid mix electricity. Charged on lower carbon energy sources such as combined heat and power the emissions fell to 45.0 g CO2/km to achieve 0 emissions when charged on renewables.

Tackling the psychological hurdle

The driving behaviour in the field test leads to the conclusion that sophisticated and reliable range prediction tools are needed for users to not be overly cautious and finally drive EVs to their potential. It was also noted, that drivers of organisations who had dedicated charging points in place, ranked their EV experience higher than those who did not, demonstrating the “psychological need” for a well developed charging network. They were also more efficient in charging the EV and keeping it “topped up” between drives.

About Cenex

Cenex is a delivery agency established with support from the Department for Business, Innovations and Skills (BIS). Cenex's principle focus is catalysing market transformation projects linking technology providers and end users. As part of this work Cenex runs a number of programmes for UK national and regional governments promoting and deploying low carbon vehicle technology.