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

Very few fleet participants deployed‘network’ charging strategies thatprovided overnight charging optionsoutside of the central charginglocation for the vehicle. Despite this,the majority of the fleet participantcharging has taken place at thebusiness premises during businesshours, effectively reducing the vehicleavailability for operational duties.This may be explained by thedeployment strategy for the trialvehicles, which were strongly promotedfor staff to ‘experience’ throughovernight evaluations. While thismay have contributed to the staffenthusiasm for the vehicles reportedby many fleets, it may have been asignificant contributor to the relativeunder-utilisation of the vehicles as wasevidenced by average distance travelled(refer Section 4.3.2).5.3.4 What do fleets thinkof charging?Fleets were generally of the view thatfast charging, longer range and/orpublic charging options were neededfor electric vehicles to succeed.These responses reflect the assetmanagement challenge for a corporateEV – a vehicle that is plugged inand charging is also incurringdepreciation and other standingcosts without providing any benefitto the organisation.Trial fleet participants were alsoresistant to the staff time requiredfor charging management. Ensuringa vehicle was plugged in, balancingvehicle bookings with chargingrequirements, easily and reliablyknowing what the actual chargelevel was of a vehicle at any one time– these were issues that persistedfor many fleet operators over theduration of their involvement in thetrial and reduced their acceptanceof the vehicle.These experiences varied between fleetparticipants on account of the variationbetween charging service providers,and also due to the deploymentstrategy for the vehicle. At least onefleet operator developed an automatedbooking system that took chargingneeds into account, reducing thevehicle management overhead for staff.It should also be noted that none ofthe trial vehicles and only a smallamount of the charging infrastructure/services provided real-time, remotelyaccessibleinformation about thecharging status or level of the vehicle.These features are available to varyingdegrees on vehicles and charginginfrastructure that are now in theAustralian market.5.3.5 What has beenthe experience ofworkplace charging?Workplace charging for the householdparticipants was a key enabler forincreased utilisation and acceptanceof the trial vehicles. Although thetrial findings suggest that workplacecharging could significantly enhancethe EV value proposition for would-bebuyers, the case for employers has yetto be substantiated.The average daily electric vehicledriving distance for the 11 householdswith a workplace charging optionwas 38 kilometres compared to27 kilometres for the 65 non-workplacecharging households. Furthermore,of the eight households who hadan average EV driving distance of50 kilometres or more, four wereequipped with workplace charging.This indicates that workplace charginghas been a key enabler for increasedutilisation of the trial vehicles.In addition, discussions with thehousehold participants who hadaccess to workplace chargingdiscerned increased acceptance oftheir EV as a result of the workplacecharging option. Many driversdescribed workplace charging ashaving removed the range limitationof the vehicle, even for relatively longdistance commutes – refer to thebreak-out for a more detailed accountfor one of these participants.