victorian electric vehicle trial mid-term report - Department of Transport

Electric vehicles have potential tohelp Victoria in a variety of ways.This is because:• Private vehicles account for thesignificant majority of all travelmade in Victoria, both in terms ofthe number of trips made and thetotal distance travelled (DOT 2009)• Transport makes up 18 per cent ofVictorian household expenditure(ABS 2011)• Victoria increasingly relies on oilimports to fuel passenger vehicles(ACIL Tasman 2008)• Transport makes up 16 per centof Victoria’s greenhouse gasemissions, with the majoritycoming from cars (DCC 2007)• Motor vehicles are the mainsource of urban air pollution(EPA 2012a)• Road traffic noise has beenidentified as the most commonnoise source in Victoria(EPA 2007)• Victoria has a competitiveadvantage in automotive designand manufacture (Invest Vic 2011).2.3 WHAT TYPES OF ELECTRICVEHICLES ARE AVAILABLE?There are different types of electricvehicles. They vary according tothe extent to which they rely uponelectricity as their energy source.The various types can be roughlyclassified as follows – refer also toFigure 2:• Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs)have been on Victorian roads forover 10 years through cars suchas the Toyota Prius, Honda CivicHybrid and the locally-producedToyota Camry Hybrid. They useliquid fuel (petrol) as their soleexternal energy source, butsupplement this with electricalenergy captured from the brakingsystem and stored in batteries• Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles(PHEVs), sometimes calledExtended-Range Electric Vehicles(EREVs), use both electrical energyand liquid fuel from externalsources. They vary in their choiceof primary energy source, withthe Toyota Prius PHEV biasedtowards petrol and the HoldenVolt favouring electricity. They areeasily differentiated from HEVs asthey have a plug• Battery Electric Vehicles(BEVs) or fully-electric vehicles,use electrical energy as theirsole energy source. BEVsavailable in the Australianmarket include the Nissan LEAFand Mitsubishi i-MiEV.As only PHEVs and BEVs use plugsto source electrical energy, they arecollectively known as Plug-in ElectricVehicles (PEVs).Through the remainder of this paperthe term ‘EV’ will be used to denotevehicles which use solely electricalenergy (that is, Battery ElectricVehicles described above).HEV PHEV BEVHybrid Electric Vehicle Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Battery Electric VehicleICEICERegenerativeBrakingRegenerativeBrakingRegenerativeBrakingElectricMotorElectricMotorElectricMotorBatteriesPetrol/DieselBatteriesPetrol/DieselBatteriesFigure 2. Schematic of the various electric vehicle types.