Project InitiativE-BW - Real-world driving, energy demand, user experiences and emissions of electrified vehicle fleets

Policy makers see electrified vehicles (EV) as one instrument to reduce local air pollution and also towards a mitigation of climate change. It is known that the “real driving” energy demand of conventional vehicles is significantly higher than the norm consumption. However, there is limited knowledge for the real-world energy demand and charging patterns of EV fleets. Furthermore, first user experiences are important for the uptake of the electrified vehicles. There are not many studies in this field either. Last but not least, the environmental effects of electrified vehicles should be compared with the conventional vehicles in order to assure the positive effect. There are several studies, which compared the well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions from conventional and electrified vehicles. However, most of these studies took the yearly electricity mix as basis for the calculations. Therefore, this paper aims to close this knowledge gap by measuring the energy consumption of the electrified vehicle fleets with vehicle data loggers. Furthermore, information on user experiences are gathered by questionnaires. The intentions and expectations are compared and contrasted with the real world driving behaviour of the users. Within the government funded project InitiativE-BW, which started in summer 2014, more than 44 battery electric vehicles (BEV) have been equipped with data loggers in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg. The project consortium consists of leasing companies, a research institute and a public relations manager to promote the project in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. The data loggers are intended to run until the end of 2016. The EVs are mostly used by commercial fleets e.g. in social services, car sharing, IT-services and municipalities. The data logged includes hours of operation, state of charge (SoC), mileages driven, speed statistics and GPS information. First results show that varying ambient temperatures have a significant influence on the BEV energy consumption. Average energy consumption is up to 45% higher during winter months. The influence of the charging behaviour of the users is analysed to evaluate the CO2 emissions of the vehicles based on hourly electricity consumption and specific emission profiles of the available power sources, which might significantly deviate from the yearly electricity mix of the country. Among all participants of InitiativE-BW, expectations and experiences with leased EVs are repeatedly evaluated through questionnaires. The questionnaires aim on user costs, electricity tariffs, expected mileages and predicted needs for electric ranges. So far, survey results indicate that EV technical benefits such as their pronounced acceleration are not commonly known. The paper / presentation will present the project itself and the results of measurements and questionnaires analysis until mid of 2016