Real world experience with operating electric vehicles in the Netherlands

Between July 2011 and March 2012 a group of eight electric vehicles have been monitored while operating either as part of a local taxi fleet or as a service vehicle for local authorities. With these vehicles a total distance of 38078 km was covered in that period. Analysis of the monitoring data gives results that are in line with these applications. These vehicles are operating mostly in urban and extra-urban traffic conditions, with average trip lengths well below their maximum driving range. Charging took place frequently, usually well before running into charge depletion conditions. Furthermore real world electric energy consumption is well above the nominal values mentioned by the manufacturers. Correspondingly, for seven out of the eight vehicles actual driving range is around half of the value mentioned by the manufacturers. This is believed to be due in part to the lower ambient temperatures in the monitoring period. A cost analysis (considering a five year operating period) shows that — in the Netherlands — these electric vehicles are clearly economically viable, but this is a result of the current subsidy levels. Without subsidies the opposite situation would exist. Finally, estimated well-to-wheel CO2 emission levels of these vehicles are not substantially different from those of the corresponding reference conventional vehicles. This is because electric energy in the Netherlands still mainly originates from non-renewable sources.