Gaining attitudes towards electric vehicles

Chris Walsh from Cenex finds out what fleet operators really think about electric vehicles after taking part in the Smart Move trial

Cenex – the UK’s first Centre of Excellence for low carbon vehicle technologies – has recently completed a six month study that looked at the feasibility of integrating electric vehicles into fleets, and surveyed the perceptions of fleet drivers and managers towards electric vehicles.   

The Smart Move Trial took place in the North East of England and was designed to test the hypothesis that organisations that operate vehicle pools and fleets are ideal candidates as early adopters of electric vehicles.  The more predictable and planned travel requirements of fleets lend themselves to electric vehicles being more easily and economically restricted to certain applications. Fleets also operate a return-to-base operation where only a limited amount of recharging infrastructure needs to be installed. 

Ten organisations took part, integrating one to four electric passenger cars – Mercedes Fortwo smarts – into their fleets and allowing qualitative and quantitative data to be collected. Incorporating findings from 264 participants in total, this is one of the most comprehensive studies yet undertaken in the UK on driver attitudes to electric vehicles.

GAINING PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES
To gain information on the perception and attitudes towards the electric vehicles, three
questionnaires were used.

A fleet user questionnaire was issued to all drivers of the smarts during the fleet trials to gain feedback on the perceived performance of the vehicle, the recharging infrastructure and how this affected the users’ opinions of electric vehicles.

A fleet manager questionnaire was issued to each user company for feedback on management experiences during the trial. The questionnaire focused on items such as an organisation’s motives for integrating electric vehicles into its fleet and the perceived advantages and disadvantages from a fleet managers’ perspective based on their experiences during the trial.

A public drive event questionnaire was issued to members of the public attending a test drive day. The drivers rated their expectations of the performance from the electric vehicle before the test drive and then reassessed against the same performance criteria post test drive.   

To capture detailed quantitative information on vehicle performance and energy demands, telemetry and data logging equipment was fitted to the smarts by Newcastle University’s Transport Operations Research Group.  Information recorded included positive and negative power flow across the battery terminals, battery state of charge, and vehicle GPS position.   

For electric vehicles to gain mass market acceptance, performance and drive should be similar or superior to conventional vehicle technology. Providing easy to understand vehicle information, such as a prominent state of battery charge display and an onboard feedback system for driving efficiency, helps users to maximise journey range. The study was also keen to assess if the green credentials associated with electric vehicles actually improved the driver experience.

THE RESULTS
The user questionnaires showed that drivers rated the vehicle as ‘Good’. Noise and environmental feel good factor were rated highest and drive acceleration and driver display were marked lowest. There were no significantly major deviations from the perception of ‘Good’. Users with no prior experience of electric vehicles were more enthusiastic about the EV than users with previous EV experience. Experienced drivers marked the driver display aspects lower, whereas users without EV experience would be unaware of the benefits of driver aids showing regeneration and power usage which are common place in most electric vehicles.

In terms of user experience of charging the EVs, a wide variety of regimes were used and evaluated throughout the trial as a dedicated charging infrastructure is not currently widely available. These ranged from using dedicated recharging post to normal indoor and outdoor plug sockets. While charging is often highlighted as one of the issues holding back the adoption of EVs, the fleet users rated their experiences charging the vehicles as ‘Good’, finding that charging the vehicle was easy, safe and reliable. The positive attitude towards charging shows that the users accepted the electric vehicle charging requirements, and did not draw comparison to refilling a conventional vehicle with fuel.   

However, charge management did reveal differences between public and private fleet users. Because the range available from an electric vehicle is low when compared to a conventionally fuelled vehicle, poor charge management can lead to a further reduction in available mileage. While 95 per cent of users thought that there was always or normally sufficient charge available for their intended journey, 61 per cent of public sector fleet users found the vehicle was always charging when not in use compared to just 23 per cent in private fleets. There is clearly a correlation here with the only dedicated charging points being installed at public organisations.   

Overall, the key finding from fleet users was that 58 per cent felt more positive about electric vehicles after taking part in the trial, with drivers in their 20s being the most positive age group.

FLEET ENTHUSIASM
The main motivations for fleet managers to participate in the study were to take advantage of the opportunity to trial electric vehicles and to satisfy their organisations’ green aspirations. 50 per cent of organisations were already hoping to incorporate electric vehicles into their fleets as part of their long term transport strategy.   

The main adjustment that managers had to make to the operation of their fleet was in managing the type and number of journeys. This was mainly due to range, but also to specific attributes of the car such as passenger and storage restrictions. But while range and price were seen as barriers to adoption, 88 per cent of managers didn’t think that the lack of public charging infrastructure was a major issue in incorporating electric vehicles into their fleets.

Overall, 88 per cent of fleet managers said that their opinions of electric vehicles had increased after the trial.   

Perhaps the most revealing findings from the trial in terms of EV perceptions came from the three public drive events, where members of the public were freely available to either pre-book a drive or just turn up on the day. Test drivers rated their expectation of the performance of the electric vehicles before the drive and then rated against the same criteria after the test drive. This gave an interesting snapshot of the expectation versus actual performance of the electric vehicles.   

72 per cent of test drivers said they would use an electric vehicle as their regular car after their test drive compared with just 47 per cent before the test drive. The largest change in attitude was concerning the top speed performance of the EV, while the largest positive shift in opinion after the test drive came from users, again, in their 20s.  

Overall, the EVs exceeded the general public’s expectations on all monitored performance aspects.

RANGE ANXIETY
The one other overall finding of interest was around ‘range anxiety’, which caused drivers to be overly-cautious as to how far they were willing to travel in the EVs. Only seven per cent of journeys were undertaken when the battery was showing less than 50 per cent state of charge. Users also began to modify their driving style when the battery went below 50 per cent. This under-utilisation of range is undesirable in terms of efficient deployment and acceptance of EVs and highlights a need for more sophisticated on board range prediction aids within electric vehicles, especially as the number of electric vehicles available to the market increases.   

The average range achievable from the electric vehicles was 72.4 km emitting 81.4 g CO2/km when recharged with UK average grid mix electricity. Clearly, as the UK government meets its targets to decarbonise the national electricity mix, the CO2 emissions from electricity will reduce. This decarbonisation of the electricity network will coincide with advancements and mass market introduction of electric vehicles offering an inherently low carbon future for EVs.        

In conclusion, the trial has shown that strong potential exists for fleet operators to be early adopters of electric vehicles, having successfully integrated the vehicles for a short trial and gained confidence that EVs can realistically form part of their transport fleet. A key reason for the success of the trial is that, due to the return-to-base operation of fleets, the lack of public infrastructure is not seen as a barrier to EV adoption, though organisations with dedicated recharging infrastructure rated the charging experience higher than those without.

While fleet managers highlighted a main barrier to EV integration as limited range, the quantitative data from vehicle telemetry shows that users are over cautious when planning journeys. This was demonstrated in the trial data where the maximum journey length undertaken was only 25 per cent of the theoretical average range.   

A full analysis of the Smart Move Trial results is available to download at www.cenex.co.uk/projects/smart-move-trial    

Following the success of the six month Smart Move trial, Cenex has announced a further series of studies taking place in the North East of England, aiming to inform and aid the uptake of electric vehicles. These studies include user group workshops and training sessions, the development of case studies detailing electric vehicle performance, range, emissions and business cases for different fleet scenarios, plus technical studies on the vehicles in collaboration with Universities and testing laboratories.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
To keep up to date with Smart Move events and activities, e-mail technical@cenex.co.uk with Smart Move Trial in the subject line.