Characterization of In-Use Medium Duty Electric Vehicle Driving and Charging Behavior

The U.S. Department of Energy's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) deployment and demonstration projects are helping to commercialize technologies for all-electric vehicles (EVs). Under the ARRA program, data from Smith Electric and Navistar medium duty EVs have been collected, compiled, and analyzed in an effort to quantify the impacts of these new technologies. Over a period of three years, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has compiled data from over 250 Smith Newton EVs for a total of over 100,000 days of in-use operation. Similarly, data have been collected from over 100 Navistar eStar vehicles, with over 15,000 operating days having been analyzed. NREL has analyzed a combined total of over 4 million kilometers of driving and 1 million hours of charging data for commercial operating medium duty EVs. In this paper, the authors present an overview of medium duty EV operating and charging behavior based on in-use data collected from both Smith and Navistar vehicles operating in the United States. Specifically, this paper provides an introduction to the specifications and configurations of the vehicles examined; discusses the approach and methodology of data collection and analysis, and presents detailed results regarding daily driving and charging behavior. In addition, trends observed over the course of multiple years of data collection are examined, and conclusions are drawn about early deployment behavior and ongoing adjustments due to new and improving technology. Results and metrics such as average daily driving distance, route aggressiveness, charging frequency, and liter per kilometer diesel equivalent fuel consumption are documented and discussed.