EV Studies and owner data show Electric Vehicles Work

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With an appreciable amount of EVs on the road (again) there are new studies and owner feedback that give real world info on driving EVs.

BBC News - Electric cars : West Midlands study

Of course Roadster owners have two years of driving now and the conclusions are the same as back when the EV1 and RAV4s etc. were on the road but at least they are current.

 

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Tesla keeps saying they have 10 million + roadster miles of data. Would be nice if they shared.

Nissan has.

It seems like every few months I read about another Post Office that did a study on the viability of EVs for fleet use. They all seem to concluded that EVs would work for them but they never pull the trigger. I'm sure part of what they want is a major manufacture to offer vehicles but seriously, how many studies do you need?

 

[TEG]

Post office ordered 500 RangerEV based postal delivery vans 'back in the day':
Ranger Electric Vehicle Delivers for the U.S. Postal Service | Ford Motor Company Newsroom

 

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New York city has challenged other municipalities with the biggest fleet to date.
I see the Santa Monica Rav4Evs all the time there. Would be nice to here from them on how they have been working for them all these years.

 

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Another link on the West Midlands study.
UKs largest EV trail reveals full year findings | TheGreenCarWebsite.co.uk


This goes against the "they will charge at night" argument.

Peaks for charging were observed from 7-9am and from 6-7pm, which can be most likely attributed to charging on arrival at work in the morning or home in the evening.

 

[ckessel]

This goes against the "they will charge at night" argument.

Yes and no. It says people plug in when they're done driving for a while. For at home, if smart chargers are available it means they plug in at 6pm, but it doesn't charge until later. Charging while at work is another matter though.

 

[doug]

Yes and no. It says people plug in when they're done driving for a while. For at home, if smart chargers are available it means they plug in at 6pm, but it doesn't charge until later. Charging while at work is another matter though.

I'd say for the short term, charging at home (night) doesn't so much need a "smart charger", just a delay timer (which I guess one could say is a lowest level smart charger). Charging at work (9 or so hours during the day) is what truly needs a smart charger (integrated with a smart grid), reacting to other loads on the grid and real time pricing to give the SOC required by the driver by a specific time.

 

[TEG]

For what it is worth:

With my old RangerEV, I had a timer on the SCI Avcon EVSE so it would start charging only after 7PM (when my E6 TOU got cheaper).
With the Nissan Leaf, I use the timer built into the car to only charge at night as well. The Blink EVSE has its' own timers, but people report that they are 'buggy' so I use the one in the car instead.

For PG&E TOU, Sundays and some holidays are cheap all day, so there are occasions when I would override the timer and start charging earlier.

 

[Ladman23]

For PG&E TOU, Sundays and some holidays are cheap all day, so there are occasions when I would override the timer and start charging earlier.[/QUOTE]

When I spoke to PG&E it made sense for me to stay on my current E1 plan instead of going to TOU E9A plan. It seems misleading to say its cheaper to charge at night, when in the daytime they start at a much higher rate of $0.30 on E9A. I spent an hour on the phone trying to grill them for info, and in my situation it made sense to stay where I'm at. If I decide to do solar later I can do it at any time, but if I switched to TOU they lock me in for one year. I would like to hear other experiences users have had with PG&E.

 

[TEG]

At the SF bay area Leaf owner's gatherings, PG&E TOU considerations are a hot topic.
The bottom line seems to be "it all depends on your situation".
I have solar, so TOU made sense even before I started charging an EV.
TOU makes a lot of sense if you do solar during the day and EV charging at night.
There are differences in the TOU hours of peak vs off-peak for E6, E7, E9 so what works best depends on how much solar you can generate, when the sun exposure is best on your panels and what other types of loads you have during the day.
E7 was probably the best rate for a lot of people with Solar, but they discontinued it, so I am stuck with E6 which is still fairly good.
I think E9 probably makes more sense for people with an EV but who do not have solar. But then there is E9A or E9B with the 2nd meter consideration, installation costs, etc.

 

[EVNow]

Another link on the West Midlands study.
UKs largest EV trail reveals full year findings | TheGreenCarWebsite.co.uk


This goes against the "they will charge at night" argument.

Not sure that applies to the US ev owners. Almost everyone at MNL do some kind of timed charging.