Electrification of Private Mobility: Driving Patterns, Multi-Car Households and Infrastructure

Electrification of personal vehicles has the potential to significantly reduce carbon emissions. However, a large-scale transition to electric vehicles may be difficult as there are many individuals who collectively need to transition to this technology. Thus, it is important to understand car users needs, and to what extent a fully battery electric vehicle (BEV) fulfill these needs. In particular, batteries have been expensive and charging infrastructure scarce, thus creating a trade-off between the price of the car, and its driving range.We use several GPS-measured driving data sets, interview data, and charging infrastructure data to analyse potential BEV adoption in multi-car households. Furthermore, we develop methods with regards to driving data modelling and analysis. We also estimate the size of a future charging infrastructure network.We find that for short-range BEVs (120 km), a noteworthy adaptation is required for most users. However, within multi-car households, approximately 50% of the second cars need to adapt less than one day per month. We also assess how users in two-car households adapt to a BEV replacing one of their ordinary cars. We find large heterogeneity in how users adapt, where some increase the use of the BEV compared to the replaced car, and some decrease it. From interview data we find that most households have experienced no actual problems with the range limitation, but most would prefer a range of 200 km.As a methodological contribution, we analyze the effect of modelling driving data with three probability distributions. Contrary to earlier literature we find that the Weibull and Log-Normal distributions overall fit driving data better than the Gamma distribution. But when estimating the frequency of long-distance driving we find that Weibull and Gamma perform better than Log-Normal. Finally, we have extended the traditional driving data analysis beyond distance analysis to destination analysis. One of the results is that BEVs drive a significantly larger share of their driving to their most common destinations compared to a conventional car

The economics of trafficking for sexual exploitation

International human trafficking of women for commercial sexual exploitation (henceforth trafficking) is an economic activity in which organizations try to make profits. Trafficking has been identified as a form of modern-day slavery and is a worldwide problem which has grown rapidly in the last decades. Despite this, the economics literature on trafficking is small, which is somewhat surprising given that the economics of immigration as well as the economics of crime are both large areas of research. We review the existing economics literature on trafficking with a particular focus on the gaps in this literature. We also describe the datasets that have been and can be used in studying trafficking and we point to future areas of research. We believe that economists have a lot to contribute to the knowledge of the determinants of trafficking and, as more and improved data becomes readily available, the possibilities for credible quantitative research in this area will grow

Indicating and managing BEV range issues in two-car households

We discuss from various perspectives the range limitation; possible indicators, different relaxation options and the actual adaptation in two-car households, using GPS-loggings of both cars simultaneously for 1-3 months in 64 two-car households, and interviews after a BEV trial in 25 of these households. Indicators such as DRA are less useful in two-car households. Instead the flexibility in such households may drastically reduce the range issues. The actual adaptation in households shows that there are numerous reasons to why the options are not fully utilized. Still, none of the test households stated a perceived limitation due to range

Att tyda tecknen -En alternativ syn på förändringarna av Japans säkerhetspolitik

Japan's foreign and security policy has seen some substantial changes as a result of events like the first Gulf war and 9/11th. This has been taken as proof, by some, that Japan is abandoning its antimilitaristic stance and pursuing a more traditional hard power role through military means. This essay aims to explore if these shifts have coincided with any substantial shifts away from antimilitarism, which has had a strong influence on the country's security policy since the end of WW2. To do this I use constructivist theory, specifically regarding the impact of norms and identities on states security policy and briefly look into the problem of actor designation. The thematic focus is on security policy, from a narrow perspective, and thus I examine areas like the input and output to the Japanese military and the actual applications of this force. State identity is used to explore the prevalence of nationalistic sentiments and support for anti militarism in the public opinion and the political elite. The result of this study points to the further relevance of constructivist theory and especially the application of norms and identity. The effect of an anti militarist norm is clearly seen and the support for antimilitarism is still adamant in the public opinion although there has been a serious, but largely unsuccessful, effort by the political elite to change this using identity politics

How do users adapt to a short-range battery electric vehicle in a two-car household? Results from a trial in Sweden

We supplied 25 two-car households with a short-range battery electric vehicle (BEV) to study their adaptation to a BEV replacing one of their conventional cars. The data includes GPS-measured driving of the households’ two original cars for 2–3 months, and for the BEV and the remaining conventional car for 3–4 months. We performed interviews with the households before and after the BEV trial period. We can thus compare the change in measured driving patterns and the users’ experienced adaptation in relation to their measured driving adaptation. We find large heterogeneity in measured adaptation, with some users driving the BEV more than the replaced car and some less. Most users state a preference for using the BEV, but this is not always detectable in the GPS data. Similarly, expected issues with the range limitation from the GPS data do not predict satisfaction with the BEV from the qualitative data

When do Default Nudges Work?

Nudging is a burgeoning topic in science and in policy, but evidence on the effectiveness of nudges among differentially-incentivized groups is lacking. This paper exploits regional variations in the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine in Sweden to examine the effect of a nudge on groups whose intrinsic incentives are different: 16-17-year-olds, for whom Covid-19 is not dangerous, and 50-59-year-olds, who face a substantial risk of death or severe disease. The response is strong in the younger but absent in the older age group, consistent with the theory that nudges work best for choices that are not meaningful to the individual.Comment: 20 page

Historical wind deployment and implications for energy system models

A critical parameter in modeling studies of future decarbonized energy systems is the potential future capacity for onshore wind power. Wind power potential in energy system models is subject to assumptions regarding: (i) constraints on land availability for wind deployment; (ii) how densely wind turbines may be placed over larger areas, and (iii) allocation of capacity with respect to wind speed. By analyzing comprehensive databases of wind turbine locations and other GIS data in eleven countries and seventeen states in Australia, Canada, and the US; all with high penetration levels of wind power, we find that: i) large wind turbines are installed on most land types, even protected areas and land areas with high population density; ii) it is not uncommon with a deployment density up to 0.5 MW/km2 on municipality or county level, with rare outlier municipalities reaching up to 1.5 MW/km2 installed capacity; and iii) wind power has historically been allocated to relatively windy sites with average wind speed above 6 m/s. In many cases, allocation methods used in energy system models do not consistently reflect actual installations. For instance, we find no evidence of concentration of installations at the windiest sites, as is frequently assumed in energy system models. We conclude that assumptions made in models regarding wind power potentials are poorly reflective of historical installation patterns, and we provide new data to enable assumptions that have a more robust empirical foundation

Social decision heuristics used by families in allocating resources

The hypothesis is proposed that due to shallow information processing families frequently use an equal-division social decision heuristic in allocating resources. In Study 1 a survey was conducted of a nationwide sample (n=446) and a smaller student sample (n=50) consisting of married or cohabiting participants. In line with our prediction, it was found that allocating part of a monthly income to joint or individual savings followed an equal-division rule. However, choices to maximize joint savings were almost equally frequent. Since the prevalence of a joint family economy correlated with these choices, participants probably applied a social-decision heuristic of subscribing to a status-quo rule. In Study 2 a sample of 100 students made fictitious choices of allocating part of a monthly income to joint or individual savings after either an income increase or decrease. Consistent with the results of Study 1, the equal-division rule was used after an income increase and when the prior allocations were equal. However, an income decrease or unequal prior allocations appeared to induce less shallow information processing resulting in the application of an equity rule

Substation Placement for Electric Road Systems

One option to avoid range issues for electrified heavy vehicles, and the large individual batteries for each such vehicle, is to construct electric road systems (ERS), where vehicles are supplied with electricity while driving. In this article, a model has been developed that calculates the cost for supplying an ERS with electricity from a regional grid to a road in the form of cables and substations, considering the power demand profile for heavy transport. The modeling accounts for electric losses and voltage drop in cables and transformers. We have used the model to exhaustively compute and compared the cost of different combinations of substation sizes and locations along the road, using a European highway in West Sweden as a case study. Our results show that the costs for building an electricity distribution system for an ERS vary only to a minor extent with the location of substations (10% difference between the cheapest cost and the average cost of all configurations). Furthermore, we have varied the peak and average power demand profile for the investigated highway to investigate the impact of a specific demand profile on the results. The results from this variation show that the sum of the peak power demand is the most important factor in system cost. Specifically, a 30% change in the peak power demand for the road has a significant impact on the electricity supply system cost. A reduction in the geographical variation of power demand along the road has no significant impact on the electricity distribution system cost as long as the aggregated peak power demand for all road segments is held constant. The results of the work are relevant as input to future work on comparing the cost–benefit of ERS with other alternatives when reducing CO2 from road traffic—in particular from heavy road traffic

Comparison and Analysis of GPS Measured Electric Vehicle Charging Demand: The Case of Western Sweden and Seattle

Electrification of transportation using electric vehicles has a large potential to reduce transport related emissions but could potentially cause issues in generation and distribution of electricity. This study uses GPS measured driving patterns from conventional gasoline and diesel cars in western Sweden and Seattle, United States, to estimate and analyze expected charging coincidence assuming these driving patterns were the same for electric vehicles. The results show that the electric vehicle charging power demand in western Sweden and Seattle is 50–183% higher compared to studies that were relying on national household travel surveys in Sweden and United States. The after-coincidence charging power demand from GPS measured driving behavior converges at 1.8\ua0kW or lower for Sweden and at 2.1\ua0kW or lower for the United States The results show that nominal charging power has the largest impact on after-coincidence charging power demand, followed by the vehicle’s electricity consumption and lastly the charging location. We also find that the reduction in charging demand, when charging is moved in time, is largest for few vehicles and reduces as the number of vehicles increase. Our results are important when analyzing the impact from large scale introduction of electric vehicles on electricity distribution and generation