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The Dynamics of PEVs in the Secondary Market and Their Implications for Vehicle Demand, Durability, and Emissions
4/13/2018
California is one of the first markets in the world to have a significant secondary market for plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). This study examines the status of the nascent secondary PEV market in California. It reviews who purchases these vehicles and how used PEVs are utilized. It also examines the role of PEV purchase incentives via surveys of used PEV buyers and by analyzing the purchase behavior for used vehicles nationwide and in California.
Authors: Turrentine, T.; Tal, G.; Rapson, D.
Range Extension Opportunities While Heating a Battery Electric Vehicle. SAE Paper No. 2018-01-0066
4/3/2018
The Kia Soul battery electric vehicle (BEV) is available with either a positive temperature coefficient (PTC) heater or an R134a heat pump (HP) with PTC heater combination (1). The HP uses both ambient air and waste heat from the motor, inverter, and on-board-charger (OBC) for its heat source. Hanon Systems, Hyundai America Technical Center, Inc. (HATCI) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory jointly, with financial support from the U.S. Department of Energy, developed and proved-out technologies that extend the driving range of a Kia Soul BEV while maintaining thermal comfort in cold climates. Improved system configuration concepts that use thermal storage and waste heat more effectively were developed and evaluated. Range extensions of 5%-22% at ambient temperatures ranging from 5 degrees C to -18 degrees C were demonstrated. This paper reviews the three-year effort, including test data of the baseline and modified vehicles, resulting range extension, and recommendations for future actions.
Authors: Meyer, J.J.; Lustbader, J.; Agathocleous, N.; Vespa, A.; Rugh, J.; Titov, G.
Analysis of Fast Charging Station Network for Electrified Ride-Hailing Services. SAE Paper No. 2018-01-0667
4/3/2018
Today's electric vehicle (EV) owners charge their vehicles mostly at home and seldom use public direct current fast charger (DCFCs), reducing the need for a large deployment of DCFCs for private EV owners. However, due to the emerging interest among transportation network companies to operate EVs in their fleet, there is great potential for DCFCs to be highly utilized and become economically feasible in the future. This paper describes a heuristic algorithm to emulate operation of EVs within a hypothetical transportation network company fleet using a large global positioning system data set from Columbus, Ohio. DCFC requirements supporting operation of EVs are estimated using the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Projection tool. Operation and installation costs were estimated using real-world data to assess the economic feasibility of the recommended fast charging stations. Results suggest that the hypothetical transportation network company fleet increases daily vehicle miles traveled per EV with less overall down time, resulting in increased demand for DCFC. Sites with overhead service lines are recommended for hosting DCFC stations to minimize the need for trenching underground service lines. A negative relationship was found between cost per unit of energy and fast charging utilization, underscoring the importance of prioritizing utilization over installation costs when siting DCFC stations. Although this preliminary analysis of the impacts of new mobility paradigms on alternative fueling infrastructure requirements has produced several key results, the complexity of the problem warrants further investigation.
Authors: Wood, E.; Rames, C.; Kontou, E.; Motoaki, Y.; Smart, J.; Zhou, Z.
Development of 80- and 100- Mile Work Day Cycles Representative of Commercial Pickup and Delivery Operation
4/3/2018
When developing and designing new technology for integrated vehicle systems deployment, standard cycles have long existed for chassis dynamometer testing and tuning of the powertrain. However, to this day with recent developments and advancements in plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicle technology, no true 'work day' cycles exist with which to tune and measure energy storage control and thermal management systems. To address these issues and in support of development of a range-extended pickup and delivery Class 6 commercial vehicle, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in collaboration with Cummins analyzed 78,000 days of operational data captured from more than 260 vehicles operating across the United States to characterize the typical daily performance requirements associated with Class 6 commercial pickup and delivery operation. In total, over 2.5 million miles of real-world vehicle operation were condensed into a pair of duty cycles, an 80-mile cycle and a 100-mile cycle representative of the daily operation of U.S. class 3-6 commercial pickup and delivery trucks. Using novel machine learning clustering methods combined with mileage-based weighting, these composite representative cycles correspond to 90th and 95th percentiles for daily vehicle miles traveled by the vehicles observed. In addition to including vehicle speed vs time drive cycles, in an effort to better represent the environmental factors encountered by pickup and delivery vehicles operating across the United States, a nationally representative grade profile and key status information were also appended to the speed vs. time profiles to produce a 'work day' cycle that captures the effects of vehicle dynamics, geography, and driver behavior which can be used for future design, development, and validation of technology.
Authors: Duran, A.; Li, K.; Kresse, J.; Kelly, K.
California Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Projections: 2017-2025 - Future Infrastructure Needs for Reaching the State's Zero Emission-Vehicle Deployment Goals
3/27/2018
This report analyzes plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) infrastructure needs in California from 2017 to 2025 in a scenario where the State's zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) deployment goals are achieved by household vehicles. The statewide infrastructure needs are evaluated by using the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Projection tool, which incorporates representative statewide travel data from the 2012 California Household Travel Survey. The infrastructure solution presented in this assessment addresses two primary objectives: (1) enabling travel for battery electric vehicles and (2) maximizing the electric vehicle-miles traveled for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The analysis is performed at the county-level for each year between 2017 and 2025 while considering potential technology improvements. The results from this study present an infrastructure solution that can facilitate market growth for PEVs to reach the State's ZEV goals by 2025. The overall results show a need for 99k-130k destination chargers, including workplaces and public locations, and 9k-25k fast chargers. The results also show a need for dedicated or shared residential charging solutions at multi-family dwellings, which are expected to host about 120k PEVs by 2025. An improvement to the scientific literature, this analysis presents the significance of infrastructure reliability and accessibility on the quantification of charger demand.
Authors: Bedir, A.; Crisostomo, N.; Allen, J.; Wood, E.; Rames, C.
Charging Electric Vehicles in Smart Cities: An EVI-Pro Analysis of Columbus, Ohio
2/7/2018
With the support of the U.S. Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) worked with the City of Columbus, Ohio, to develop a plan for the expansion of the region's network of charging stations to support increased adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in the local market. NREL's Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Projection (EVI-Pro) model was used to generate scenarios of regional charging infrastructure to support consumer PEV adoption. Results indicate that approximately 400 Level 2 plugs at multi-unit dwellings and 350 Level 2 plugs at non-residential locations are required to support Columbus' primary PEV goal of 5,300 PEVs on the road by the end of 2019. This analysis finds that while consumer demand for fast charging is expected to remain low (due to modest anticipated adoption of short-range battery electric vehicles), a minimum level of fast charging coverage across the city is required to ease consumer range anxiety concerns by providing a safety net for unexpected charging events. Sensitivity analyses around some key assumptions have also been performed; of these, consumer preference for PHEV versus BEV and for their electric driving range, ambient conditions, and availability of residential charging at multi-unit dwellings were identified as key determinants of the non-residential PEV charging infrastructure required to support PEV adoption. The results discussed in this report can be leveraged by similar U.S. cities as part of a strategy to accelerate PEV adoption in the light-duty vehicle market.
Authors: Wood, E.; Rames, C.; Muratori, M.; Raghavan, S.; Young, S.
Initial Assessment and Modeling Framework Development for Automated Mobility Districts: Preprint
2/7/2018
Automated vehicles (AVs) are increasingly being discussed as the basis for on-demand mobility services, introducing a new paradigm in which a fleet of AVs displaces private automobiles for day-to-day travel in dense activity districts. This paper examines a concept to displace privately owned automobiles within a region containing dense activity generators (jobs, retail, entertainment, etc.), referred to as an automated mobility district (AMD). This paper reviews several such districts, including airports, college campuses, business parks, downtown urban cores, and military bases, with examples of previous attempts to meet the mobility needs apart from private automobiles, some with automated technology and others with more traditional transit-based solutions. The issues and benefits of AMDs are framed within the perspective of intra-district, inter-district, and border issues, and the requirements for a modeling framework are identified to adequately reflect the breadth of mobility, energy, and emissions impact anticipated with AMDs.
Authors: Young, S.E.; Hou, Y.; Garikapati, V.; Chen, Y.; Zhu, L.
New EVSE Analytical Tools/Models: Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Projection Tool (EVI-Pro)
1/29/2018
This presentation addresses the fundamental question of how much charging infrastructure is needed in the United States to support PEVs. It complements ongoing EVSE initiatives by providing a comprehensive analysis of national PEV charging infrastructure requirements. The result is a quantitative estimate for a U.S. network of non-residential (public and workplace) EVSE that would be needed to support broader PEV adoption. The analysis provides guidance to public and private stakeholders who are seeking to provide nationwide charging coverage, improve the EVSE business case by maximizing station utilization, and promote effective use of private/public infrastructure investments.
Authors: Wood, E.; Rames, C. Muratori, M.
Impacts of Electrification of Light-Duty Vehicles in the United States, 2010-2017
1/25/2018
Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are among the fastest growing drivetrains in the United States and worldwide. Understanding the aggregate impact of PEVs is important when exploring electricity use and petroleum consumption. This report examines the sales of PEVs in the United States from 2010 to 2017, exploring vehicle sales, electricity consumption, petroleum reduction, and battery production.
Authors: Gohlke, D.; Zhou, Y.
Navigation API Route Fuel Saving Opportunity Assessment on Large-Scale Real-World Travel Data for Conventional Vehicles and Hybrid Electric Vehicles: Preprint
12/22/2017
The green routing strategy instructing a vehicle to select a fuel-efficient route benefits the current transportation system with fuel-saving opportunities. This paper introduces a navigation API route fuel-saving evaluation framework for estimating fuel advantages of alternative API routes based on large-scale, real-world travel data for conventional vehicles (CVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). The navigation APIs, such Google Directions API, integrate traffic conditions and provide feasible alternative routes for origin-destination pairs. This paper develops two link-based fuel-consumption models stratified by link-level speed, road grade, and functional class (local/non-local), one for CVs and the other for HEVs. The link-based fuel-consumption models are built by assigning travel from a large number of GPS driving traces to the links in TomTom MultiNet as the underlying road network layer and road grade data from a U.S. Geological Survey elevation data set. Fuel consumption on a link is calculated by the proposed fuel consumption model. This paper envisions two kinds of applications: 1) identifying alternate routes that save fuel, and 2) quantifying the potential fuel savings for large amounts of travel. An experiment based on a large-scale California Household Travel Survey GPS trajectory data set is conducted. The fuel consumption and savings of CVs and HEVs are investigated. At the same time, the trade-off between fuel saving and time saving for choosing different routes is also examined for both powertrains.
Authors: Zhu, L.; Holden, J.; Gonder, J.
Electric Ground Support Equipment at Airports
12/12/2017
Airport ground support equipment (GSE) is used to service airplanes between flights. Services include refueling, towing airplanes or luggage/freight carts, loading luggage/freight, transporting passengers, loading potable water, removing sewage, loading food, de-icing airplanes, and fire-fighting. Deploying new GSE technologies is a promising opportunity in part because the purchasers are generally large, technologically sophisticated airlines, contractors, or airports with centralized procurement and maintenance departments. Airlines could particularly benefit from fuel diversification since they are highly exposed to petroleum price volatility. GSE can be particularly well-suited for electrification because it benefits from low-end torque and has frequent idle time and short required ranges.
Authors: Johnson, C.
Overcoming Barriers to Electric Vehicle Charging in Multi-unit Dwellings: A Westside Cities Case Study
12/1/2017
The purpose of this case study is to explore barriers to plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) adoption for residents of multi-unit dwellings (MUDs) within the Westside Cities subregion of Los Angeles County and then identify MUDs within the study region that may exhibit high PEV demand and demand for low-cost electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) installation. This report also reviews the costs associated with EVSE installation at MUD sites, which are highly variable across properties. The report closes with a discussion of policy tools for scaling up charging infrastructure at MUD sites across the Westside Cities subregion.
Fuel Cell Buses in U.S. Transit Fleets: Current Status 2017
11/21/2017
This report, published annually, summarizes the progress of fuel cell electric bus (FCEB) development in the United States and discusses the achievements and challenges of introducing fuel cell propulsion in transit. The report provides a summary of results from evaluations performed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This annual status report combines results from all FCEB demonstrations, tracks the progress of the FCEB industry toward meeting technical targets, documents the lessons learned, and discusses the path forward for commercial viability of fuel cell technology for transit buses. These data and analyses help provide needed information to guide future early-stage research and development. The 2017 summary results primarily focus on the most recent year for each demonstration, from August 2016 through July 2017. The primary results presented in the report are from five demonstrations of two different fuel-cell-dominant bus designs: Zero Emission Bay Area Demonstration Group led by Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit) in California; American Fuel Cell Bus (AFCB) Project at SunLine Transit Agency in California; AFCB Project at the University of California at Irvine; AFCB Project at Orange County Transportation Authority; and AFCB Project at Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
Authors: Eudy, L.; Post, M.
Utility Investment in Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure: Key Regulatory Considerations
11/13/2017
The report provides an overview of the accelerating electrification of the transportation sector and explores the role of state utility regulators in evaluating potential investments by electric utilities in plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) charging infrastructure. The report identifies key considerations for regulators, including the amount of charging infrastructure needed to support PEVs, ways that regulators can help ensure equitable access to charging infrastructure, and opportunities to maximize the benefits of utility investment in charging infrastructure.
Authors: Allen, P.; Van Horn, G.; Goetz, M.; Bradbury, J.; Zyla, K.
