A Study of Grid-to-Wheel Energy Consumption of Electric Vehicle on Real Road Tests in Bangkok

Recently, many countries have announced policy to support electric vehicle (EV) usage in order to reduce emission and energy intensity in transport sector. However, range anxiety is still a major concern and hurdle to promote EV, especially in megacities where the traffic is congested and commuters mainly rely on personal vehicles. Therefore, this research aims to conduct a feasibility study to assess whether EV passenger cars are suitable for daily use in Bangkok. The energy consumption data were collected from laboratory and fixed-route real road tests, using two different electric passenger cars. The laboratory results show that the energy consumption from grid to wheel based on New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) with air-conditioner set at 25°C of EV model A and EV model B are 197.36 Wh/km and 179.76 Wh/km, respectively, while the energy consumption of both EV models based on Bangkok Driving Cycle phase 1-3-5 (BDC 1-3-5) are 221.04 Wh/km and 186.8 Wh/km, respectively. The electric driving range of the two EV models obtained from the laboratory tests based on the BDC 1-3-5 are 170.5 km and 146.3 km, respectively. For the fixed-route real road tests, the two EV models were tested on different fixed-routes with the total distance of 20, 30, 50, 70, 80, 100 and 110 kilometers to study the effects of distance and average speed on the energy consumption. The results suggest that the energy consumption of both EV models is the lowest when driving at average speed of 35-45 km/h.