Electrification of vehicle miles travelled within the household context

Paper in proceeding, 2020

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), consisting of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plugin hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), combined with the decarbonization of the electricity sector can significantly help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the transport sector. In this paper, we investigated PEVs within the household context and analyzed how household factors impact electric vehicle miles travelled (eVMT), VMT of the PEV,
VMT of the household, utility factor (UF) of the PEV and UF of the household. We used a data set consisting of detailed logger data on all actively used cars from 71 households (with each household containing one PEV) in California, from summer 2015 to summer 2016. Our results indicate that, within lower range PEVs, in the context of the whole household, a PHEV like the Chevrolet Volt with half the range of a BEV like the Nissan Leaf, can electrify almost the same share of miles. Also, tendency for long distance trips seems to decrease the fuel economy and the utility factor of the PHEV. Furthermore, internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) with higher MPGs have a higher likelihood to replace trips from the PEV and consequently lower the UF of the household.