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

A clearly positive influence on people’sattitudes towards EVs is vehicleperformance. This finding arises fromthe inherent characteristics of electricmotors, which generate maximumtorque from rest (in contrast to ICEs,which generate maximum torque nearthe middle of their operating range).Torque is ‘twisting’ force that is thebasis of acceleration – a popularvehicle driving characteristic.Evidence of this can be seen in theopinions of participants in the shorttermtest-drives, who were surveyedon their perceptions of electric vehiclesbefore and after their test-driveexperience. Of the 127 participantssurveyed, 27.6 per cent changed theirmind in favour of EVs as a result oftheir test-drive experience (that is,their answer to the question ‘Wouldyou use an EV as your regular vehicle?’changed from ‘no’ before theirtest-drive to ‘yes’ afterwards). Withreference to Figure 18, the vehicleattributes that showed the greatestrating improvement according to these‘converted’ participants were mostlyperformance related.First impressions by the drivers asrecorded in the trial discussion boardmost often cited the lack of noiseand issues to do with comfort/space/storage, which were both cited byaround half of the contributors each.Driving modes, range and technology/features were each cited by between30 and 40 per cent of contributors.21.5Rating change (after vs before)10.50-0.5-1-1.5AccelerationFun to driveOvertakingMaintain highway speedEase to driveEase to startBrakingQuiet operationComfortInfo displayFigure 18. Changes to the vehicle attribute survey responses for the participants who changed their mind in favourof using an electric vehicle as their regular car as a result of their short-term test-drive experience (n = 127).CREATING A MARKET 35