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

5.2.5 What do households thinkof electric vehicle charging?The majority of households felt thathome charging alone met their needs.Despite the relative immaturity of thetechnology, most found it easy to use,and felt confident and reassured intheir understanding of what was goingon. However, an appetite existed formore information about costs andenergy use.Around six weeks into their EVexperience household participantswere asked, ‘Does home charging ofthe trial vehicle meet your needs?’Consistent with the findings inSections 4.2.2 and 4.2.3, 79 per cent ofrespondents replied in the affirmative(n = 76). Notably however, the majorityof respondents felt they would alsocharge outside of their home undercertain circumstances – this isexplored further in Section 5.4.3.Additional information was soughtfrom the household participantson what they thought of their homecharging solution. With reference toTable 11, participants were generallyvery positive about their chargingoutlet design and operation. The cable/plug combination and basic feedbackprovided by the outlets were bestreceived, the former potentiallyhaving implications for the wirelesscharging solutions currently beingdeveloped (Pike Research 2012).The least well received and most highlyvaried responses related to supportinginformation on costs and energy.This is likely due to the significantvariation in user feedback and networksupport across the providers (refer toSection 5.1.2).Household participants were alsoasked about the sort of informationthey thought would be useful inrelation to EV charging. Although thesurvey question was not constrained tohome charging, for most participantsthis formed the basis of their EVcharging experience. With reference toFigure 39, cost information was clearlythe highest priority accordingto participants.Although the survey question abovelimited respondents to cost informationabout each charging session only,other survey responses indicatethat households generally considertheir vehicle fuel costs in weekly ormonthly terms (65 and 32 per cent of107 respondents respectively; ‘daily’,‘quarterly’, ‘yearly’ and ‘don’t know’being the other options).Additional suggestions for charginginformation were provided by aboutone third of respondents. The mostcommon requests were for informationrelating to charge management ofthe vehicle, including how long untilcharging would be complete and/ornotifications on when charging hadbeen completed.Charging infrastructure attributeAverage score(out of 5)Std devEase of use – cable/plug 4.6 0.7Confidence in understanding what was happening 4.6 0.7Convenience 4.3 1.0Perceived safety 4.3 1.0Reliability 4.2 1.2Something to look forward to if all cars go this way 4.0 1.0Costs and energy use info 3.6 1.3Table 11. Results from a survey of trial household participants on their perceptions of their home charging solution; survey intervalwas around six weeks into their EV experience (n = 76).CREATING A MARKET 69