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

Analysis of the reported trip purposeprovides more insights into how peopleuse EVs. Participating householdsreported 11, 11 and 12 per cent ofcar-trips as being direct to work inthe before, during and after phasesrespectively. Unsurprisingly given thetwo-thirds substitution for total vehicletrips above, 11 per cent of EV tripswere reported as being direct to workin the ‘during’ phase. These resultsare slightly above the Melbourneaverage of 7 per cent, suggesting thatthe trial sample is biased towards‘car commuters’.This conclusion may also apply to thebroader group of would-be EV drivers.Figure 22 provides an insight into thedriver travel behaviours for householdsapplying to take part in the trial.Noting that multiple responseswere permitted, the workplace wasthree times more likely to be a traveldestination than the next most popularalternative. This is a significant findingin the context of ‘workplace charging’(refer to 5.3.5).Potential differences between earlyadoptersand mainstream marketparticipants were investigated in thecontext of the technology marketdevelopment model adopted at theheart of the trial (refer to Section 3.2).The trial household participants weresegmented according to their responseto the question ‘Thinking in generalabout when a new product comes onthe market, which one of the followingwould best describe you?’.Those who described themselvesas ‘I like to be in there early and getit straight away’ were not found toexhibit any statistically-significantdifference in behaviour from the restof the population in terms of vehicleutilisation, charging behaviour orcharge management (as describedby average daily distance travelled,average distance travelled betweencharge-events, average state-ofchargeat plug-in, use of heating/airconditioning,use of eco driving mode).This suggests that ‘early adopters’ inthis case may be characterised by theirpurchase rather than user behaviour,however further investigation may bewarranted into this issue.Workplace 60%Domestic duties18%Childrensschool or care6%Place of study5%Sport/Leisure 5%Figure 22. Results from the 2011 trial household application process showing the distribution of vehicle travel destinations foreach driver in the household; multiple responses are permitted for each (n = 6,147, DOT 2010d).