Electric vehicle charging strategies for Urban freight transport: concept and typology

Tharsis Teoh

doi:10.1080/01441647.2021.1950233

Abstract

ABSTRACT Charging services play an important role in encouraging the growth of the electric freight vehicle (EFV) market. Understanding charging strategies and their influence on charging behavior is crucial in the deployment of charging services. Unfortunately, existing charging strategy definitions and types are incoherent and incomplete. This conceptual paper synthesizes the perspectives found in literature on the charging strategy concept, and provides a definition based on Orlikowski’s structurational model of technology. A two-level charging strategy typology is proposed. The first distinguishes between decision-making modes: schedule- or trigger-based decisions. The second identifies when and where charging is used during a vehicle operating cycle. The result is three schedule-based charging strategies: downtime, opportunity, and intrusive charging, and one trigger-based emergency charging. The selection of strategy depends on the EFV operations, the availability of charging systems and services, as well as the driver behaviour. The influence of the strategy on enhancing the EFV, the carrier operations and business model is discussed. Charging behaviour, especially in location and timing, is shown to be strongly dependent on the strategy. While downtime charging is considered the default strategy, carriers should employ a variety of complementary strategies to enhance the capability of their vehicles and improve the financial viability of the operations. Carriers should also have an emergency charging strategy on hand in case of unforeseen situations.

Highlights

The electrification of road transport vehicles is one of the key ways to decarbonize the freight transport system (McKinnon, Allen, & Woodburn, 2011)
Part of the reason for the slow growth could be attributed to the prevalent state of the market for electric freight vehicles (EFVs), which is characterized by comparatively higher purchase prices, costly battery replacements, short driving distances, reduced payload capacity, limited vehicle models, and the underdeveloped repair and maintenance network, as well as the insufficient availability of charging infrastructure (C40 Cities, 2020; Christensen, Klauenberg, Kveiborg, & Rudolph, 2017; Lebeau, Macharis, & van Mierlo, 2016; Oliveira, Albergaria De Mello Bandeira, Vasconcelos Goes, Schmitz Gonçalves, & D’Agosto, 2017; Quak, Nesterova, van Rooijen, & Dong, 2016; Wang, Thoben, Bernardo, & Daudi, 2018)
A charging strategy, in keeping with the general interpretation, is defined as the approach adopted by the carrier to integrate charging services into the EFV operation (Camilleri et al, 2017)

Summary

Introduction

The electrification of road transport vehicles is one of the key ways to decarbonize the freight transport system (McKinnon, Allen, & Woodburn, 2011). The selection of strategy depends on the EFV operations, the availability of charging systems and services, as well as the driver behaviour. Key considerations of the use of EFVs in operations, charging systems and charging services are discussed.

Results

Conclusion