Understanding the social practice of EV workplace charging

Owning or leasing an electric vehicle (EV) is becoming more common in developed countries. While home charging is the most common choice, workplace charging and its provision by employers has become an important option. For many, it is essential to cope with the limited range of most EVs. Home and work are the two places where vehicles are parked for long periods and so are prime candidates as charging locations. However, workplace charging is often a limited resource. This paper reports on an empirical study of workplace charging at a UK public sector employer. It explores the use of workplace charging (WPC) via spatiotemporal analysis of employees and visitors' charging events over a 3-month period. It provides insights into weekly patterns and daily mechanisms of using shared facilities in a WPC environment. We identify insights that are relevant in the design of workplace-charging infrastructure, identify the design needs, emerging requirements, and highlight potential areas for sociotechnical-interventions

Community and Social Media Use among Early PEV Drivers

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are now being offered for sale to consumers. Contemporaneously, multi-way social interactions among individuals, groups, businesses, governments, and other actors are increasingly facilitated by communication technologies: we take this to be “social media.” Can this confluence facilitate the formation of new interest-based communities among plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) buyers? How might this be important to promoting PEVs? This paper presents the results of 28 in-depth interviews with household PEV drivers in San Diego, California. These PEV drivers show wide variation in their descriptions of who they believe PEV drivers to be, conceptualizations of a PEV, uses of social media to engage other members of the community, and socially mediated and face-to-face interactions with other PEV drivers. Better understanding of the relationship between emerging PEV markets, social media and consumer-based communities will affect the ongoing management of transitions to electric-mobility

The Critical Role of Public Charging Infrastructure

Editors: Peter Fox-Penner, PhD, Z. Justin Ren, PhD, David O. JermainA decade after the launch of the contemporary global electric vehicle (EV) market, most cities face a major challenge preparing for rising EV demand. Some cities, and the leaders who shape them, are meeting and even leading demand for EV infrastructure. This book aggregates deep, groundbreaking research in the areas of urban EV deployment for city managers, private developers, urban planners, and utilities who want to understand and lead change

Factors Affecting Demand for Plug-in Charging Infrastructure: An Analysis of Plug-in Electric Vehicle Commuters

The public sector and the private sector, which includes automakers and charging network companies, are increasingly investing in building charging infrastructure to encourage the adoption and use of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and to ensure that current facilities are not congested. However, building infrastructure is costly and, as with road congestion, when there is significant uptake of PEVs, we may not be able to “build out of congestion.” We modelled the choice of charging location that more than 3000 PEV drivers make when given the options of home, work, and public locations. Our study focused on understanding the importance of factors driving demand such as: the cost of charging, driver characteristics, access to charging infrastructure, and vehicle characteristics. We found that differences in the cost of charging play an important role in the demand for charging location. PEV drivers tend to substitute workplace charging for home charging when they pay a higher electricity rate at home, more so when the former is free. Additionally, socio-demographic factors like dwelling type and gender, as well as vehicle technology factors like electric range, influence the choice of charging location

Plugging the gap – can planned infrastructure address resistance to adoption of electric vehicles?

Non peer reviewe

Open-Source, Open-Architecture SoftwarePlatform for Plug-InElectric Vehicle SmartCharging in California

This interdisciplinary eXtensible Building Operating System–Vehicles project focuses on controlling plug-in electric vehicle charging at residential and small commercial settings using a novel and flexible open-source, open-architecture charge communication and control platform. The platform provides smart charging functionalities and benefits to the utility, homes, and businesses.This project investigates four important areas of vehicle-grid integration research, integrating technical as well as social and behavioral dimensions: smart charging user needs assessment, advanced load control platform development and testing, smart charging impacts, benefits to the power grid, and smart charging ratepayer benefits

The Spatio-Temporal Analysis of the Use and Usability Problems of EV Workplace Charging Facilities

With the worldwide calls to meet greenhouse gas targets and policy objectives by 2030, finding an electric vehicle (EV) on the way to work every day has become less surprising. Adapting to owning an EV is challenging to all potential users. Current users tend to rely on domestic charging for a more certain and less hassle charging opportunity. The demand is shifting towards workplace charging (WPC) as a cheap and convenient solution due to the relatively long time the car is parked there. WPC fills a critical gap in EV charging infrastructure needs by extending electric miles and building range confidence. This chapter reports on the social practice of using one of the WPC facilities in the UK. It investigates the use and usability problems that are faced (n = 12) by EV users at workplace environment in one of the UK public sector employer

Os desafios do mercado automóvel atual: extensões descendentes de marcas premium e a adoção de veículos elétricos

The automotive sector is one of the most competitive and complex markets in the world. The dynamics of this context push manufacturers into implementing downward brand extensions, blurring the differences between value and premium brands. Through an experimental approach, the main study aimed to understand how consumers evaluate a downward brand line extension in the European premium automotive market. Results indicated that the extension purchase intention is dependent of the consumer’s extension attitude, the extension perceived fit, and the status-seeking behaviour, but not of the parent brand attitude, the ownership status, or the innovativeness. The second purpose to the study was to investigate the consumer attitudes towards the adoption of electrical vehicles (EVs) and also to analyse the influence of consumer attitudes on EV adoption in an EV secondary market context. The study relied mainly on in-depth interviews of drivers of conventional vehicles, complemented, in the first part, with quantitative data collected by a survey on drivers’ attitudes. Results suggest that the preference between battery charging point types (personal, workplace, public) is important and dependent on the driver context. The existence of a second conventional car and an advanced range management system were also noted as potentially important. A secondary market of EVs was also suggested as potentially viable, if certain conditions are met.O setor automóvel é um dos mercados mais competitivos e complexos no mundo. As forças dinâmicas que caracterizam este contexto levam os fabricantes a implementar extensões descendentes da marca, reduzindo as diferenças entre as marcas massificadas e marcas premium. Através do método experimental, o estudo principal procurou perceber como os consumidores avaliam extensões descendentes de marcas premium no mercado automóvel Europeu. Os resultados indicaram que a intenção de compra de uma extensão é dependente da atitude do consumidor face à extensão, da semelhança percebida da extensão face à marca mãe, e da procura de prestígio por parte do consumidor, mas não é dependente da atitude do consumidor à marca mãe, do efeito de propriedade, ou da innovativeness. O segundo estudo teve por objetivo investigar as atitudes dos consumidores face à adoção de veículos elétricos, e ainda a aceitação dos consumidores ao mercado secundário de veículos elétricos. O estudo utilizou fundamentalmente entrevistas em profundidade a condutores de veículos convencionais, complementadas, numa primeira parte, com dados quantitativos recolhidos por inquérito sobre as perceções dos consumidores de automóveis. Os resultados sugerem que a preferência entre os tipos de estações de carregamento de baterias (residencial, local de trabalho, pública) é importante e dependente do contexto do consumidor. A existência de um segundo carro convencional e um sistema de gestão de viagem avançado também foram notadas como potencialmente importantes. Foi ainda sugerido que um mercado secundário de veículos elétricos poderá ser viável, caso sejam garantidas certas condições.Programa Doutoral em Marketing e Estratégi

Carbon Free Boston: Transportation Technical Report

Part of a series of reports that includes: Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report; Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report; Carbon Free Boston: Technical Summary; Carbon Free Boston: Buildings Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Waste Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Energy Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Offsets Technical ReportOVERVIEW: Transportation connects Boston’s workers, residents and tourists to their livelihoods, health care, education, recreation, culture, and other aspects of life quality. In cities, transit access is a critical factor determining upward mobility. Yet many urban transportation systems, including Boston’s, underserve some populations along one or more of those dimensions. Boston has the opportunity and means to expand mobility access to all residents, and at the same time reduce GHG emissions from transportation. This requires the transformation of the automobile-centric system that is fueled predominantly by gasoline and diesel fuel. The near elimination of fossil fuels—combined with more transit, walking, and biking—will curtail air pollution and crashes, and dramatically reduce the public health impact of transportation. The City embarks on this transition from a position of strength. Boston is consistently ranked as one of the most walkable and bikeable cities in the nation, and one in three commuters already take public transportation. There are three general strategies to reaching a carbon-neutral transportation system: • Shift trips out of automobiles to transit, biking, and walking;1 • Reduce automobile trips via land use planning that encourages denser development and affordable housing in transit-rich neighborhoods; • Shift most automobiles, trucks, buses, and trains to zero-GHG electricity. Even with Boston’s strong transit foundation, a carbon-neutral transportation system requires a wholesale change in Boston’s transportation culture. Success depends on the intelligent adoption of new technologies, influencing behavior with strong, equitable, and clearly articulated planning and investment, and effective collaboration with state and regional partners.Published versio