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

Information gained fromthe cars has allowed for arelative assessment of thevehicle use.The household vehicle roll-out hasprovided around 120 households withthe opportunity to live with an electricvehicle for three months. Informationgained from the households hasprovided insights into the sort of peopleand motives for being interested inelectric vehicles, what they thoughtof them and how they used them.The fleet vehicle roll-out has providedaround 40 fleets with the opportunityto trial a range of electric vehicles forperiods of up to six months at a time.An understanding of the fleet types,motives and uses for the electricvehicles has been gained, along withthe issues and opportunities formarket development.4.1 VEHICLES4.1.1 What vehicles are takingpart in the trial?The mainstay of vehicles taking partin the trial are 100 per cent electricallypoweredvehicles – primarily theMitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan LEAF.A small number of Toyota Prius PHEVs,both pre-production prototypes andconversions, have also taken part,along with a number of aftermarketEV conversions.Table 1 provides a summary of thevarious vehicles operating as part ofthe trial. Vehicles for which the serviceapplication has been identified as‘fleets through affiliation’ were ownedand/or controlled by entities other thanthe former Department of Transport.These vehicles took part in the trial toaccess a range of benefits includinguse of public charging infrastructureor the trial data collection andmanagement framework, or simplyin support of information exchange.The supply arrangements for theOEM vehicles (Mitsubishi i-MiEV,Nissan LEAF and Toyota Prius PHEVpre-production) allowed them tobe deployed to both householdsand fleets, whereas the remainingvehicles were operated solely by fleets.Furthermore, those vehicles takingpart in the trial courtesy of ‘fleetsthrough affiliation’ did not supplydata into the trial collectionand management framework– refer to Table 1 and Section 3.4.Vehicle Type No. vehicles PriceFirst vehiclecommissioningdateTrial serviceapplication/sMitsubishi i-MiEV OEM BEV 14 $65,200 2 (2010) December 2010$48,800 (2011-12)3 $36,888 3 (2013) December 2010Toyota Prius PHEV 4Blade Electron 5OEM preproductionPHEVAftermarketconversion PHEVAftermarketconversion BEVNissan LEAF OEM BEV 16EV EngineeringElectricCommodore 8Aftermarketconversion BEVTotal 54Fleets, householdsFleets throughaffiliation3 N/A December 2010 Fleets, households3 N/A January 20118 $48,000 (2010-11) March 2011$68,007 6 (2010)$51,500 (2012)$46,990 7 (2013)June 20117 N/A June 2012Fleets throughaffiliationFleets throughaffiliationFleets, householdsFleets throughaffiliationTable 1. Vehicles operating as part of the Victorian Electric Vehicle Trial as of December 2012, where ‘Price’ reflects the RecommendedRetail Price (RRP) unless otherwise indicated.2 Drive-away price includes $20,000 guaranteed buyback price from Mitsubishi3 Dealer drive-away price 16 January 20134 Vehicle ownership retained by Toyota (OEM pre-production) or operators (aftermarket conversion)5 Blade Electric Vehicles ceased trading in April 20126 UK-specification vehicles supplied ahead of the Australian product launch; includes $25,045 guaranteed buyback price from Nissan7 Drive-away price, representing around $8,000 saving on the 2012 RRP8 Proof-of-concept prototype vehiclesCREATING A MARKET 25