Abstract:

The success of EVs in the marketplace will highly depend on the end-user acceptance. The authors have examined the user acceptance of EVs through a living lab study, where 80 Danish families used EVs for a period of 8-10 weeks as their only car. The main focus of the project was to examine how private households/users would utilize the EV in a daily life situation and how it would fit their actual needs for range as well as in general. The study included a general test and identification of problems faced during usage as well as positive features of the EVs. Fleet potentials were additionally investigated with two trials in departments in Danish municipalities for 14 days. Key conclusions are that 90% of families found that an EV could fulfill their demands but that range is an important issue even though it is mostly a psychological barrier. For fleets the EVs make sense to an extent depending on the predictability of driving behaviour and available infrastructure. A more general conclusion from the project is that the EVs sold in the marketplace today are suitable as car no 2. For more than 80% of the users the EV covered their normal range requirement but still range was perceived too low by nearly all users. Living lab tests do indeed generate valuable user insights that can also drive new business opportunities.