Abstract
Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) could reduce CO2 emissions from the transport sector but their limited electric driving range diminishes their utility to users. The effect of the limited driving range can be reduced in multi-car households where users could choose between a BEV and a conventional car for long-distance travel. However, to what extent the driving patterns of different cars in a multi-car household’s suit the characteristics of a BEV needs further analysis. In this paper we analyse the probability of daily driving above a fixed threshold for conventional cars in current Swedish and German car driving data. We find second cars in multi-car households to require less adaptation and to be better suited for BEV adoption compared to first cars in multi-car households as well as to cars in single-car households. Specifically, the share of second cars that could fulfil all their driving is 20 percentage points higher compared to first cars and cars from single-car households. This result is stable against variation of driving range and of the tolerated number of days requiring adaptation. Furthermore, the range needed to cover all driving needs for about 70% of the vehicles is only 220km for second cars compared to 390km for the average car. We can further confirm that second cars have higher market viability from a total cost of ownership perspective. Here, the second cars achieve a 10 percentage points higher market share compared to first cars, and to cars in single-car households for Swedish economic conditions, while for Germany the corresponding figure is 2 percentage points. Our results are important for understanding the market viability of current and near-future BEVs.
Highlights
IntroductionElectric vehicles (EVs) could reduce global and local emissions from the transport sector (Chan, 2007)
In this paper we focus on the first assumption and address the following two questions: Are the second cars in a multi-car household better suited as battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from a driving pattern point of view? And taking into consideration total cost of ownership, are these BEVs economical compared to conventional vehicles?
The second assumption is that the household may be able to optimise their driving so that the BEV takes the majority of short trips and the conventional car takes the majority, or all, of the long distance trips
Summary
Electric vehicles (EVs) could reduce global and local emissions from the transport sector (Chan, 2007). The limited electric driving range of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) is technically and mentally a major hurdle for many consumers and impacts a BEV’s utility. The variation in distances travelled by one individual on different days of the year is important for the utility of BEVs (Greene, 1985; Pearre et al, 2011). Long recharging times seem to impede BEV adoption as well. EVs can be charged at home for most car owners, potentially yielding more comfort since
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