The Silent Revolution: Electric Vehicles (Part 2)
Charging, charging, charging — how and where?
Written in partnership by MAHLE and BABLE GmbH
Missed Part 1? Not to worry, here it is:
Private Use Case for Electric Vehicles and Charging
The sustainability, as well as the usability of electric cars, is highly dependent on the process of charging. Three main aspects of the charging process will be discussed — the frequency of charging as well as the corresponding ranges, the source of energy and the location of the charging stations.
Frequency of charging and ranges
The range of electric vehicles is often perceived as a major disadvantage or even barrier of electric vehicles. While the ranges of BEV as well as other types of vehicles differ widely between different car models, the following table gives the minimum, median and maximum ranges purchased in the US-American market in 2018 (EVAdption, 2018).
The median range of BEV is significantly lower than the range of other powertrains. Likewise, the time to recharge or refuel a BEV is significantly higher. Recent developments show that the ranges of electric cars are increasing amongst others due to developments in battery technologies.
In any case, current statistics show that users usually do not require ranges above 50 kilometres. The following graphic shows the total distance travelled for different European countries and different weekdays, as well as the average number of trips per day.
Thus, on average, electric cars must be recharged one time per day. For longer trips, such as holidays, fast charging facilities close to highways are beneficial.
The Source of Energy and Impact on the Sustainability
The environmental performance of BEVs is highly dependent on the local electricity mix. The smaller the carbon intensity of the electricity grid the smaller the emissions per vehicle kilometre. To achieve a more sustainable mobility mode compared to conventional cars, the carbon intensity of below ca. 0.5 kg CO2 eq./kWh is necessary (Cox, Bauera, Mendoza Beltran, van Vuurende & Mutel, 2020).
Some countries, such as Finland (112.8 g CO2eq/kWh in 2016), Portugal (324.7 g CO2eq/kWh in 2016) and Germany (440.8 g CO2eq/kWh in 2016) are already below that limit value. To maximise the environmental potential of BEV and achieve low carbon mobility, the energy used for BEV needs to be generated by local renewable sources (European Environmental Agency, 2018).
Location of Charging Stations
As the main local source of renewable energies for a household or district level is solar power, the following graphic shows the interdependency of sunlight and the location of an average car.
Furthermore, the figure shows that private vehicles are commonly found at the working place during the day and during the workweek in Germany. Moreover, a significant portion of vehicles is in use during the week. These whereabouts change on weekends when other locations besides work are dominating. Furthermore, the figure visualises that the vast majority of private vehicles are parked at home overnight and at least a quarter of all vehicles are located at home during the day. Thus, charging at home or at work are usually the optimal locations. By comparing these potential charging times with the PV generation, one can see that there is only a small correlation between charging at home but a high correlation for charging at work.
With the pandemic, the percentage of people working from home increased, and general mobility decreased (EIT Urban Mobility, 2021). The peak share of people working from home during the pandemic in Germany was 27% but has constantly been decreasing since summer 2020 (Statista, 2021). Thus, in the future, charging at work will continue to be a relevant use case for electric mobility in Germany.
As the average length of stay at home (during the night) as well as at a workplace (during the day) is higher than 4 hours, fast charging is usually not required.
Stay tuned for Part 3!
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