01593536

Component

Promoting electric mobility has become a prominent measure to reach the goal of reducing carbon dioxide in the transportation sector. However, the sales of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are still low. The main reasons hampering the success of electric vehicles are probably insufficient user acceptance due to range limitations and high purchase costs. Hence, the crucial question is to find a battery size that is both large enough to provide sufficient range and small enough that it is not cost prohibitive. This work addresses this question from the user perspective and aims to identify the BEV range that is necessary to satisfy most of the mobility needs by use of the agent-based travel demand model mobiTopp. Seven scenarios with varying BEV ranges have been simulated. The results show that a range of 150 km forces major adaptations of travel behavior and is, for this reason, there is a significant barrier to a broad acceptance. With a range of 400 km and above, the necessary adaptations of travel behavior are small. However, for most cars of this configuration, the charging state of the batteries do not come below 50% within one week. Thus, considering battery purchase costs and sustainability, 250 km or 300 km could be justified as a sufficient range, which satisfies already most of the mobility needs for mandatory activities.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC80 Standing Committee on Alternative Transportation Fuels and Technologies.

01584066

16-3611

English

19p

2016

Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Costs; Electric batteries; Electric vehicles; Mobility; Sustainable transportation; Travel behavior; Vehicle range

Energy; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Vehicles and Equipment

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016 Paper #16-3611

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 12 2016 5:34PM