The document summarizes an electric vehicle and infrastructure trial conducted in the North East of England. It installed over 1,300 charging points with public and private access as part of a £7.8 million government-funded program. Data was collected from over 7,000 vehicle trips covering 65,000 km to analyze driver behavior, vehicle range, and energy use. Key findings included that drivers overestimated typical trip lengths, charging mostly occurred overnight, and vehicle acceleration and top speeds met drivers' expectations. While drivers enjoyed electric vehicles, high purchase costs remain a barrier to widespread adoption.

1. Electric vehicle and
infrastructure trials in the
North East of England
Dr. Yvonne Hübner
Transport Operations Research Group
Newcastle University

2. SWITCH-EV trial

3. SWITCH-EV consortium
Programme Managed by

4. Plugged in Places (PIP)
• Programme Nationally funded by • Install 1300 charging points
the Office for Low Emission
Vehicles (OLEV) • Public & private access, workplace,
domestic & Quick charging points
• £7.8m over 3 years to March
2013 • With interoperability, comms capability
& EV user support
• Work with OLEV and other UK PIP
projects to :
• Advance the development of
common standards,
• evaluate different technologies,
• harmonise local incentives,
• understand user-behaviours &
impact upon infrastructure

5. Data collection

6. Trip summary

7. Journey statistics
• Average journey length: 8.93 km
• Longest journey: 117.3 km
• Average journey duration: 33:12 min
• Total journey distance: 65,036 km
• Total number of journeys: 7,196
• Total number of charges: 2,199
• Total energy transferred: 11,595 kWh
Data from Dec 2010 to May 2011

8. Cumulative % of total trips
100.00%
90.00%
80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
SWITCH-EV data
40.00% DfTdata (2006)
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Distance (miles)
Source: DfT Carbon Pathways Analysis

9. Estimate of journey length before the trial
How many miles do you expect to
complete per trip? • People were
30.0%
asked in the pre-
25.0%
20.0%
trip questionnaire:
15.0%
“How many miles
10.0% do you expect to
5.0% complete per trip?”
0.0%
• Compared to
usage is expected…
I cannot predict / my
0-5 miles
6-10 miles
16-20 miles
21-25 miles
26-50 miles
11-15 miles
50 miles +
actual journey
length, people
over-estimate their
trip length.

10. Topology

11. Driver behaviour

12. Range for EVs

13. Work and home energy transfer
distribution

14. EV recharging profiles

15. UK power demand profile
Source: National Grid

16. Theoretical limits vs real world
• The carbon content of electricity for a 6 hour
recharge is:
• A minimum of 372gCO2/kWh
• A maximum of 464gCO2/kWh
• Approximately 100gCO2/kWh can be saved for
shorter recharging times
• Average from trials so far is 457gCO2/kWh
• Optimum recharging time would be overnight
(12pm – 6am)

17. Charging behaviour - First month
• The data shown here
is the average
charge transfer per
charging event
• It can be seen that
there is a statistically
significant increase
in power transfer
during the first month
of use

18. Charging behaviour - Second month
However, in the
second month,
although there is a
slight downward
trend, it can be seen
that this is not
statistically
significant.

19. How do you expect the top speed of the electric car will
be compared to the ICE equivalent?
80
70 The expressions on
60 peoples’ faces as
you are overtaking
% of responses
50 Before trial
After trial
40
30
20
I’ve reduced the
10
speed. I don’t race
0
to places, keep it
about the same faster than an slower than an no expectation
ICE ICE about 58mph and
I’m not using the
fuel I used to use.

20. How do you expect the acceleration of the
electric vehicle will be compared to the ICE?
100 It does overtake very
90 nicely actually, on a
80 long straight section
between here and
% of responsents
70
Bellingham it would
60
out-accelerate other
50
Before trial
cars, which is
40 After trial reassuring!
30
20
10 You can
0 overtake, you
about the faster than slower than no can whizz by […]
same an ICE an ICE expectation

21. Would you consider buying and EV?
Only 13% of AA members
SWITCH-EV driver
responses said that they “I would
50.0% seriously consider buying
45.0%
40.0%
an electric car within the
35.0% next two years”
30.0%
25.0%
20.0% Participant 1: […] if money
15.0% was no object I’d buy one…
10.0% Participant 2: …yeah, me
5.0%
0.0%
too…
Yes, as my Yes, but as a No Participant 1: … but it is an
primary car second car object.
only

22. Conclusion and recommendations
• Drivers enjoy electric vehicles
• In order to change people’s attitudes
towards EVs, we need them to drive the
cars
• Vehicle range depends on driving
behaviour, topology, congestion
• CO2 emissions depend on charging
behaviour, energy mix and driving style
• Smart metering

23. Contact and further information
Dr. Yvonne Hübner
Yvonne.huebner@ncl.ac.uk
Transport Operations Research Group (TORG)
http://www.ceg.ncl.ac.uk/transport/index.htm
transportNewcastle
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/transport/