Electric Vehicles: Forecasting future uptake of Electric Vehicles

THE CHALLENGE

Committee for Climate Change, 2017

SYSTRA is one of a team of three consultants (with Cenex and Next Green Car) that is currently developing tools to assess how much electric vehicle charging infrastructure will be needed to deliver Britain’s climate change goals. This work, commissioned by the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, builds on previous R&D by SYSTRA, in partnership with the Management Science Department at the University of Strathclyde, which designed and developed an initial prototype version of these tools.

SYSTRA’S ROLE

The new tools will consider ‘destination-charging’, where the electric vehicle is charged while its driver carries out some other business (shopping, leisure activities, etc.) in the area, options at Park & Ride sites and residential on-street charging (for EV owners with no access to a home charger). The most important option will be consideration of inter-urban ‘en-route’ rapid charging, for those making journeys which are longer than the (perceived) battery range of their vehicle.

The tools will be calibrated to match observed charging behaviour (using data provided by Next Green Car) and use scenarios for electric vehicle uptake which are consistent with meeting the reduction in emissions needed to meet the ambition set out in the CCC’s Fifth Carbon Budget. The work will incorporate the observed regional variations in EV ownership, using data provided by Cenex.