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Adapting to the range of an electric vehicle: The relation of experience to subjectively available mobility resources
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Range of electric vehicles has been identified as a major barrier for acceptance of electric mobility within studies with inexperienced potential users. However, results suggest that experienced users are able to successfully deal with, and thus, are often satisfied with available range. The relation of experience to the perceived fit of mobility needs and mobility resources and subjectively usable range was examined. Positive experience-related effects were found. A tendency for actively exploring the range of an electric vehicle was linked to more successful adaptation. In conclusion, skepticism about range or even range anxiety may be overcome by assisting potential users explore the fit between mobility needs and mobility resources.
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... They mostly saw limited range as a problem to be solved, rather than as a cause for stress, with limited seating and storage (due to the battery) experienced as a greater inhibitor on usability than limited range (Franke and Krems, 2013a, Turrentine et al., 2011, Woodjack et al., 2012. These users become more satisfied with range with experience and more willing to accept a lower range, finding that having to plan was less difficult than initially expected (Franke et al., 2012b, Franke andKrems, 2013b). Other studies had similar findings (Bühler et al., 2014b, Schmalfuß et al., 2017, Ryghaug and Toftaker, 2014; elsewhere, a timeframe of up to two weeks was indicated for people to adapt to the range. ...
... Other trials found that hands-on experience of range reduced range satisfaction amongst users (Carroll et al., 2013, Heyvaert et al., 2013 or made them less willing to accept a BEV, either as a first or second car (Skippon et al., 2016). And even users satisfied with vehicle range tended to regret its limitations (Magali and Fulda, 2015) and wanted it to be higher (Franke et al., 2012b). ...
... Elsewhere, Walsh et al. (2010) found that only 7% of trips were taken when half or less of the range remained. But Franke et al. (2012b) found that participants' comfortable range limit fell slightly after experiencing a car for three months. Pichelmann et al. (2013) found that on average, users reached their maximum available estimated range without recharging after just under 100 days. ...
Plug-in electric vehicles (PEV), comprising both battery and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs), are innovations central to the low-carbon mobility transition. Despite this, there has not been a review of users’ experiences of them. We address this through this systematic review. Of 6492 references located from diverse sources, we synthesised and thematically organised findings from 75. We found a wide range of themes relating to user experiences, characterised broadly under: driving and travel behaviours; interactions with the vehicle; and subjective aspects of the user experience. Most of the evidence pertained to BEVs. Specific findings were as follows. The limited electric range of the BEV was not debilitating and users valued the limited electric-only range in PHEVs. In terms of journey-making, BEVs can fit into users’ lives. Regarding interactions with specific vehicle attributes, regenerative braking and low noise were very popularly received, although the in-vehicle instrumentation not universally so. Users freely offered wide-ranging improvements for future vehicles. There were important symbolic and social aspects of user experience. Themes relating to the former included environmentalism, futurism, and status/identity; to the latter, social influence and gender-distinct experiences. Overall, we qualifiedly conclude that PEVs can play an effective role in the transition: they can meet users’ travel needs satisfactorily, thereby being 'acceptable' to them, and are used at least as intensively as conventionally-fuelled vehicles, implying effective substitution away from more energy-intensive vehicle mileage.
... Officials have invested a substantial amount of funds to decrease range anxiety among BEV customers (Lundström & Bogdan, 2012). Although the technology of batteries and BEVs are improving (Pagliaro & Meneguzzo, 2019) and ranges are increasing, but range anxiety is still a great concern of buying an EV and might have a negative direct influence on BEV acceptance and consumers may perceive risks when there is a lack of technology infrastructures like charging stations (Franke et al., 2012). As Result, the study is proposing the following hypothesis: ...
... Although the technology of batteries and EVs are improving and ranges are increasing, but range anxiety is still a great concern of buying an EV and might have a negative direct effect on EV adoption. The increase of traveled distance between charging events over the consumers may perceive risks when there is a lack of technology infrastructures like charging stations (Franke et al., 2012). ...
Electric cars are relatively in the early stage of acceptance in Malaysia, the purpose of the current research was to determine the factors affecting the adoption of battery electric vehicles in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This research utilized a quantitative method to gather and analyze the data and proposed a novel theoretical framework to explain the acceptance of battery electric vehicles. 500 surveys were distributed and 322 were gathered. Respondents of the study were University lecturers, postgraduate students, and employees in private companies. The results of SEM analysis indicated that the developed model provides a good fit for constructs used for this research. The result showed that social influence, facilitating conditions, environmental concern, and perceived enjoyment have positive effects on the adoption of BEVs. However, respondents indicated anxiety about the battery range. In conclusion, this study has contributed additional variables such as range anxiety and driving experience to the electric vehicle's acceptance literature. The findings are significant to electric car producers and policy makers who have environmental concerns to understand consumer prospective in this field.
... Range is another crucial criterion for general BEV acceptance [32,38]. Customers perceive a range of about 250 km to be comfortable [39][40][41], but even satisfied users ask for a higher range [42]. Nonetheless, Franke et al. [38] found that range satisfaction increases with experience with BEVs. ...
Bidirectional charging management could offer benefits to individuals, society and energy providers by using the batteries of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) as a means of storage. To successfully design and implement this technology, it is necessary to match customer mobility needs with the goals of the energy sector. Therefore, practice and research need a better understanding of potential customers’ acceptance of the new technology. The authors address this void by providing a review of the existing user-centered literature on users’ perceptions and demands regarding smart charging. In addition, the authors conducted qualitative interviews to gain up-to-date, country- and use case-specific insights. The authors interviewed experienced BEV drivers as well as owners of photovoltaic systems and presented them with two use cases: Intraday and Optimized Private Consumption. The results give an overview about facilitating factors as well as potential barriers to the adaptation of bidirectional charging (BC). However, the review shows that research focusing on actual users of the technology is still rare. In addition, the interviews reveal that perceptions and demands differ between scenarios, which should be addressed by future research.KeywordsBidirectional chargingVehicle-to-grid (V2G)Vehicle-to-home (V2H)User preferencesUser perceptionUser demandsUser-centered design
... (Cowen and Gatersleben, 2017;Herberz et al., 2020;Marghetis et al., 2019;Mertens et al., 2020;Pichert and Katsikopoulos, 2008;Schley and DeKay, 2015). The high importance assigned to battery SoC is moreover in line with previous research highlighting the role of range concerns in EV-related decisions and the potential decision biases derived from these concerns (Charilaos et al., 2017;Franke et al., 2012a). In agreement with the previous literature, we observed that respondents' decisions were primarily driven by the goal of having the car fully charged as fast as possible (Delmonte et al., 2020;Huber et al., 2019). ...
The increasing diffusion of electric vehicles (EVs) can challenge the stability of distribution grids. Smart charging systems can reduce the stress of EV charging on the grid, but the potential of the technology depends on EV drivers' participation in smart charging schemes. To investigate this potential, we conducted an online randomised-controlled experiment with two waves (baseline and experimental phase, N = 222), in which we examined drivers' preferences for smart charging and tested a behavioral intervention to increase the number of smart charging choices. We translated state-of-charge (SoC) information from percentage of battery level into miles corresponding to the battery level and tailored information, i.e., the number of driving days covered by the actual SoC based on participants' personal driving profiles. Participants preferred to use smart charging systems to decrease costs and to increase renewable energy use. However, they tended to overestimate the importance of the battery SoC when setting charging preferences. This overestimation was especially evident for participants who only drive short distances and may be lead to inefficient use of smart charging technology. Translating battery SoC into tailored information corrected for this bias and increased the number of smart charging choices. Our findings illustrate how behavioral interventions can be leveraged to attain energy transition goals.
... Nevertheless, in line with Larson et al. [13], they found that consumers are not willing to pay a significant premium for EVs. The analysis of Larson et al. [13] also revealed that consumers that were exposed to EV's are less sensitive to previously found critical attributes, such as range [18]. Liao et al. [19] furthermore discovered that the type of EV business model affects the attractiveness of EV adoption, with vehicle leasing being the most attractive. ...
Electric vehicles (EVs) have many attractive features compared to conventional vehicles (CVs). Their main advantage lies in their significant economic benefits due to the much higher fuel efficiency, and substantial environmental benefit of lower greenhouse gas emissions. However, the market share of EVs in the UK remains low and their benefits will not be realized unless the government and the manufacturers can gain crucial information, necessary to effectively support and speed up the adoption of EVs. Such contemporary information for the UK is missing in the literature, and this study aims to fill the gap. Therefore, a stated preferences UK dataset is used, and a discrete choice mode is applied, using an adaptive Lasso methodology, binomial logit and ordered logit regressions. The main goals include: finding the characteristics of potential early adopters of EVs in the UK, the vehicle attributes that they consider important for their buying decisions, and the key barriers that slow EV adoption. The results suggest that the propensity of being a potential EV early adopter increases with youth, education, being a student, living in the more southern parts of UK, being married and, to a lesser extent, income. Additionally, purchase cost, performance, maximum range and environmental friendliness are found to be important vehicle attributes for the potential buyers. Furthermore, two key barriers to wide EV adoption are identified – high purchase cost and low maximum range of the vehicle.
... The experience of such a situation leads to drivers becoming accustomed to dealing with critical range situations and increase their self-reported eco-driving knowledge, knowledge certainty rating, and perceived eco-driving usefulness and satisfaction. These results are in line with other constructs showing the positive influence of a critical range situation experience on drivers' range experience , drivers' experienced range stress (Rauh et al., submitted for publication), and on drivers' range adaption process (Franke, Cocron, Bühler, Neumann, & Krems, 2012). Theoretical training in addition to practical driving under real driving conditions enhances adoption of eco-driving. ...
Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are a promising form of future mobility. However, current BEV drivers have to interact with quite small ranges because of the relatively small battery sizes and relatively long charging periods. One important coping resource to overcome this barrier is to use the available driving range as efficiently as possible by successfully using several eco-driving strategies. Eco-driving can reduce energy consumption and enhance a BEV’s driving range. Several eco-driving strategies can be adopted from internal combustion engine vehicles, but specific strategies for driving BEVs, such as efficient use of the regenerative braking need to be learnt. We examine the influence of pre-drive theoretical eco-driving training (i.e., consumption related information, eco-driving tips) versus practical BEV driving experience on self-reported eco-driving behaviour, knowledge, knowledge certainty rating and eco-driving acceptance. Experienced BEV drivers (N = 20), untrained non-BEV (N = 23), and a third group consisting of non-BEV drivers who received pre-drive theoretical eco-driving training (N = 20) undertook a BEV test drive in a critical range situation. First time experience of a critical range situation and the pre-drive theoretical eco-driving training both had positive effects on non-BEV drivers’ self-reported eco-driving knowledge, knowledge certainty rating and acceptance. Compared to untrained non-BEV drivers, both experienced BEV drivers and trained non-BEV drivers reported enhanced eco-driving behaviour in the critical range situation.
... transportation system: "It is our aim to have one million electric vehicles (EV) on German roads by 2020" said Chancellor Angela Merkel. Announcing an aim like this seems quite ambitious, especially, when following polls revealed that German people were still skeptical about using electric vehicles in their everyday life (Schwedes et al., 2013;Steinhilber et al., 2013 One might argue that announcing this innovation in newspaper advertisements would help to convince people of seeing EVs becoming a major mobility concept in the future, while others say that people have to experience e-mobility to positively increase their attitudes towards it (Franke, Cocron, Bühler, Neumann, & Krems, 2012). Since the adoption of innovations directly influences the productivity as well as the profit of countries and companies (Mairesse & Mohnen, 2002), it seems important to be able to predict those progressions for the future of e-mobility. ...
This dissertation investigates how far the content of provided information can affect people‘s attitudes in the space of current political thinking. Specifically, it examines how opinion formation within political conflicts and state of affairs can be biased through varying visual and narrative representations in times of threat and uncertainty. Instead of using fictional scenarios or post-hoc evaluations, the experimental designs were applied to current political affairs and conducted within time frames where opinion formation was rather unsettled than cast in concrete. In doing so, the possibility was created to gather new insights into the assessments of ongoing political state of affairs and how opinion formation can be biased through the lens of available information. For example, due to the so-called Ukrainian Crisis a heavily waged dispute emerged in 2014 about how to deal with Russia’s infringement of international law (e.g., annexation of Crimea) ranging from economic sanctions to military action. Although a majority of Germans blamed Russia for this crisis, only a minority favored to provide military aid in this conflict. Empirical evidence was found that one-dimensional and threatening depictions (e.g., in news coverage) can alter people’s military attitudes in this reemerging international conflict (Gebauer, Raab, & Carbon, 2016c). Furthermore, results from two experiments demonstrate how seemingly subtle variations of visualizing the political realities in this conflict can shape the political perception and reinforce stereotypical thinking (Gebauer, Raab, & Carbon, 2016a). Additionally, studies have shown that minimal narrative changes in the context of possible political conspiracies—here, the perceived relations between the US and Russia—can affect the conspiratorial reasoning of conspiracy believers and sceptics (Gebauer, Raab, & Carbon, 2016b). Finally, empirical findings will illustrate that rethinking about political issues beyond current international conflicts might be less suggestible and requires more tangible approaches—like hands-on experience—in order to alter people’s political point of view (Gebauer, Vilimek, Keinath, & Carbon, 2016). The presented findings, therefore, highlight the susceptibility of opinion formation in (re-)emerging political conflicts and its suggestibility through informational descriptions, but do also point to the contextual limitation of persuasiveness—at least in some areas of political rethinking.
The challenge of reducing worldwide greenhouse gas emissions has become increasingly important in recent years. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are a promising alternative having the potential for a CO2 neutral and sustainable utilization over the whole vehicle lifetime. However, BEVs limited range is still considered as one important usage barrier. Reducing drivers' experience of range stress is discussed as one possibility to overcome this barrier. The objective of the present research was to investigate the influence of range related knowledge, practical driving experience and the encounter of a critical range situation (i.e., experience of a small range buffer) on drivers' range stress. A specific focus lied on the effects of critical range situation encounters on experienced BEV drivers. A field experiment with 63 participants (20 experienced drivers and 43 inexperienced drivers) who drove a BEV in a critical range situation was conducted. Results indicate that range related knowledge and practical driving experience reduced range stress. The experience of the critical range situation is related to lower range stress, even for the experienced BEV drivers. The results can be useful to derive strategies and design recommendations aimed at reducing the experience of BEV drivers' range stress.
Electric vehicles (EVs) can contribute to sustainable individual road transport. That is, they constitute one key element in the broader context of sustainable urban design, which also incorporates important further measures such as promoting public transport, cycling, and walking. However, for EVs to achieve an optimal sustainability effect, several human factors issues need to be addressed. The present chapter gives an overview of ergonomics research in this field with a focus on battery electric vehicles (BEVs). We focus on four core areas: (1) the acceptance of BEVs (e.g. perceived barriers, the effect of practical experience, range acceptance), (2) user interaction with BEV range (e.g. range comfort zone, range stress, or range anxiety), (3) users’ charging behaviour (e.g. interaction styles, green charging), and (4) ecodriving in EV usage (e.g. representation of energy flows, ecodriving control strategies). This overview demonstrates the importance of a comprehensive understanding and support of user-resource interaction in order to realise the sustainability potential of EVs.KeywordsElectric vehiclesAcceptanceRange anxietyRange stressCharging styleEcodriving
In the present study the authors propose a methodological framework for user studies on electric vehicles (EVs) and present first results from a 1-year field study conducted in the Berlin metropolitan area. The objective of the current field study is to develop, adjust and apply psychologically founded methods of assessing the acceptance of EVs in everyday use. Based on these methods, it will be possible to identify factors influencing the acceptance of EVs and to outline changes, for example in attitudes or behaviour, of participants during their participation in test trials. Accordingly, we identified four pillars that are decisive in user evaluation of EVs: mobility, human-machine interaction (HMI), traffic and safety implications and acceptance. Results from the first study period indicate that a great part of daily mobility needs are satisfied although range of EVs is limited. Attitudes towards EVs are predominantly positive. As expected, ecological aspects such as CO<sub>2</sub> emissions play an important role in the evaluation of EVs.
Increasing concern about the environmental impact of current road transport
systems as well as the analyses of risks associated with peak oil (Hirsch et al., 2005)
have led to greater interest in sustainable transportation. Mobility systems based on
electric vehicles (EVs) are considered promising for coping with these challenges.
Many countries have set up action plans to increase the proportion of EVs within the
road transport sector (Die Bundesregierung, 2009). However, the positive effects of
EVs on the sustainability of the transport sector are still debated (Horst et al., 2009;
Huo et al., 2010). It has been shown that these effects are largely dependent on how an
electric mobility system (EMS) is set up as well as how it is used (Eggers and Eggers,
2011). Hence the user is a critical parameter in the equation of the net environmental
benefit of EMSs. Adopting the perspective of human centered systems engineering
(Nemeth, 2003) three essential components should to be taken into account when
optimizing user-system interaction: technical system, user and task. The task of EMSs is
to increase sustainability. Much is known about the theoretical sustainable potential of
certain technical system variants for sustainability, but little is known about user factors
in this equation. The objective of the large-scale field study outlined in this chapter was to gain a comprehensive understanding of the user-driven dynamics of sustainability in EMSs. Acceptance of favorable system layouts and efficient interactions with system resources are key dimensions. Adaptation processes occurring on these dimensions as well as personal characteristics (for example dispositions, traits, needs) may yield promising variables to increase our understanding of the dynamics in these dimensions related to sustainability.
A study was conducted to determine if analysis of variance techniques are appropriate when the dependent variable has a dichotomous (zero-one) distribution. Several 1-, 2-, and 3-way analysis of variance configurations were investigated with regard to both the size of the Type I error and the Power. The findings show the analysis of variance to be an appropriate statistical technique for analyzing dichotomous data in fixed effects models where cell frequencies are equal under the following conditions: (a) the proportion of responses in the smaller response category is equal to or greater than .2 and there are at least 20 degrees of freedom for error, or (b) the proportion of responses in the smaller response category is less than .2 and there are at least 40 degrees of freedom for error.
Range of electric vehicles (EVs) has long been considered a major barrier in acceptance of electric mobility. We examined the nature of how range is experienced in an EV and whether variables from other adaptation contexts, notably stress, have explanatory power for inter-individual differences in what we term comfortable range. Forty EVs were leased to a sample of users for a 6-month field study. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of range experiences were performed, including regression analyses to examine the role of stress-buffering personality traits and coping skills in comfortable range. Users appraised range as a resource to which they could successfully adapt and that satisfied most of their daily mobility needs. However, indicators were found that suggested suboptimal range utilisation. Stress-buffering personality traits (control beliefs, ambiguity tolerance) and coping skills (subjective range competence, daily range practice) were found to play a substantial role in comfortable range. Hence, it may be possible to overcome perceived range barriers with the assistance of psychological interventions such as information, training, and interface design. Providing drivers with a reliable usable range may be more important than enhancing maximal range in an electric mobility system.
Previous studies of the potential market for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from different research streams have failed to converge on a single, robust estimate. What these previous research streams share are untested or implausible assumptions about consumer response to new transportation technology. We frame the BEV purchase decision in terms of a household's entire stock of vehicles, car purchase behavior and travel behavior. Within this framework, households which own both electric vehicles and gasoline vehicles are called ‘hybrid households’. Because nearly all consumers are unfamiliar with the characteristics of BEVs, we designed an interactive interview based on week-long travel diaries, which we call Purchase Intentions and Range Estimation Games (PIREG) to explore hypothetical hybrid household vehicle use. Our primary finding is that consumers' perceived driving range needs are substantially lower than previous hypothetical stated preference studies conclude. We find evidence of a viable market for BEVs with 60 to 100 miles driving range.
Vehicle trials are an important source of information about how households would use battery electric vehicles. However, trial data are potentially biased because the novelty of the trial can introduce short-term changes in driving patterns and a positive effect for the technology can result from giving respondents special attention. In this study we examine these methodological issues using data collected from travel diaries and pre-trial and post-trial surveys as part of an extensive trial of prototype electric vehicles conducted by a major vehicle manufacturer. Households demonstrated that they can use the electric vehicle to make most of the everyday trips that were previously made on a conventional-fuel vehicle, but some trips will be shifted to other vehicles in the household’s fleet. However, experience with electric vehicles does not change perceptions of desired vehicle range. Keeping a travel diary gave users direct feedback that they were usually travelling less than 50 miles per day, but there remained an expectation that vehicles should have a range of 100 miles or more.
New Zealand transport accounts for over 40% of the carbon emissions with private cars accounting for 25%. In the Ministry of Economic Development's recently released "New Zealand Energy Strategy to 2050", it proposed the wide scale deployment of electric vehicles as a means of reducing carbon emissions from transport. However, New Zealand's lack of public transport infrastructure and its subsequent reliance on private car use for longer journeys could mean that many existing battery electric vehicles (BEVs) will not have the performance to replace conventionally fuelled cars. As such, this paper discusses the potential for BEVs in New Zealand, with particular reference to the development of the University of Waikato's long-range UltraCommuter BEV. It is shown that to achieve a long range at higher speeds, BEVs should be designed specifically rather than retrofitting existing vehicles to electric. Furthermore, the electrical energy supply for a mixed fleet of 2 million BEVs is discussed and conservatively calculated, along with the number of wind turbines to achieve this. The results show that approximately 1350Â MW of wind turbines would be needed to supply the mixed fleet of 2 million BEVs, or 54% of the energy produced from NZ's planned and installed wind farms.
Understanding the potential market for limited-range vehicles is important to planning research and development programs for electric and hybrid vehicles and for gaseous-fueled vehicles as well. Studies of consumer preferences and perceptions have shown vehicle range to be a very important vehicle attribute. Studies of household vehicle use, on the other hand, have suggested that the range requirements most households place on vehicles are quite modest. The latter, however, have been severely limited by the absence of longitudinal data on the usage of individual vehicles. Instead, they have relied on single-day surveys on many vehicles, an inappropriate data source. This study develops a method for estimating daily travel distributions for individual vehicles and applies it to a recent longitudinal survey of miles and days between refuelings for over 2000 vehicles. Every vehicle in the sample has at least 30 consecutive refueling intervals. A variety of measures of "range requirement" are defined and calculated. The results confirm the existence of a substantial potential market (20-50% of all household vehicles) for vehicles with ranges on the order of 100 miles. Future research using these data and this method could describe the nature of vehicles with limited-range needs and the households which own them.
A study was conducted to determine how demand for clean-fuel vehicles and their fuel is likely to vary as a function of attributes that distinguish these vehicles from conventional gasoline vehicles. For the purposes of the study, clean-fuel vehicles are defined to encompass both electric vehicles and unspecified (methanol, ethanol, compressed natural gas or propane) liquid and gaseous fuel vehicles, in both dedicated or multiple-fuel versions. The attributes include vehicle purchase price, fuel operating cost, vehicle range between refueling, availability of fuel, dedicated versus multiple-fuel capability and the level of reduction in emissions (compared to current vehicles). In a mail-back stated preference survey, approximately 700 respondents in the California South Coast Air Basin gave their choices among sets of hypothetical future vehicles, as well as their choices between alternative fuel versus gasoline for hypothetical multiple-fuel vehicles. Estimates of attribute importance and segment differences are made using discrete-choice nested multinomial logit models for vehicle choice and binomial logit models for fuel choice. These estimates can be used to modify present vehicle-type choice and utilization models to accomodate clean-fuel vehicles; they can also be used to evaluate scenarios for alternative clean-fuel vehicle and fuel supply configurations. Results indicate that range between refueling is an important attribute, particularly if range for an alternative fuel is substantially less than that for gasoline. For fuel choice, the most important attributes are range and fuel cost, but the predicted probability of choosing alternative fuel is also affected by emissions levels, which can compensate for differences in fuel prices.