Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI

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  • Publication
    Factors impacting real-world fuel economy of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in Europe - an empirical analysis
    ( 2024)
    Mandev, Ahmet
    ;
    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    ;
    Sprei, Frances
    Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) combine an electric motor with an internal combustion engine and can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport if mainly driven on electricity. The environmental benefit of PHEVs strongly depends on its usage and charging behavior. Several studies have demonstrated low electric driving shares (EDS) of many PHEVs. However, there is limited evidence on which vehicle properties affect the EDS of PHEVs to which extent. Here, we provide an empirical and quantitative analysis of real-world EDS and fuel consumption and look at how they are impacted by factors related to vehicle properties such as range, system power and mass. We complement previous studies on real-world EDS and fuel consumption of PHEVs by combining two different data sets, with almost 100,000 vehicles in total, over 150 models in 41 countries, which is combined the largest PHEV sample in Europe to date to be analyzed in the literature. We find that an increase of 10 km of type approval range leads on average to 13%-17% fuel consumption decrease and 1%-4% EDS increase. Furthermore, a 1 kW increase in system power per 100 kg of vehicle mass is associated with an average increase of 7%-9% in fuel consumption and a decrease of up to 2% in EDS. We also find that long-distance driving and charging behavior are the largest non-technical factors for the deviation between type-approval and real-world data. Furthermore, PHEV fuel consumption and related tail-pipe emissions in Europe are on average higher than official EU values.
  • Publication
    Battery electric long-haul trucks in Europe: Public charging, energy, and power requirements
    ( 2023)
    Shoman, Wasim
    ;
    Yeh, Sonia
    ;
    Sprei, Frances
    ;
    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    ;
    Speth, Daniel orcid-logo
    Electric battery trucks (BETs) have the potential to significantly reduce emissions from heavy-duty vehicles. However, adopting BETs for long-haul operations depends on the availability of sufficient charging infrastructure. In this study, we use a trip chain model to assess the charging requirements for BETs in long-haul operations in Europe in 2030. Our model accounts for truck driving regulations and different stop types. We find that the number of overnight chargers (50-100 kW) required is 4-5 times higher than the number of megawatt chargers (0.7-1.2 MW) needed to support a BET share of 15% in long-haul operations. We estimate that approximately 40,000 overnight and 9,000 megawatt chargers are required, with an average of eight overnight and two megawatt chargers per charging area serving an average of two and 11 BETs daily, respectively. These findings provide insights for planning charging infrastructure for BETs in long-haul operations in Europe.
  • Publication
    Public charging requirements for battery electric long-haul trucks in Europe: A trip chain approach
    (Fraunhofer ISI, 2023)
    Shoman, Wasim
    ;
    Yeh, Sonia
    ;
    Sprei, Frances
    ;
    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    ;
    Speth, Daniel orcid-logo
    Heavy-duty vehicles (HDV) account for less than 2-5% of the vehicles on the road in Europe but contribute to 15-22% of CO2 emissions from road transport. Battery electric trucks (BETs) could be deployed on a large scale to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but they require charging infrastructure that supports long-haul operations. Therefore, assessing the required charging locations, energy, and power requirements is critical. We use a trip-chain-based model to derive charging requirements for BETs in long-haul operation (defined as travel times over 4.5 hours or distances over 360 km) for Europe in 2030. We convert an origin-destination (OD) matrix into trip chains combined with European truck driving regulations to derive break and rest stops. We show that an average charging area (defined as a 25  25 km square, where each square can include multiple charging stations and parking lots with multiple charging points) needs to have four to five times more overnight than megawatt (MW) charging points: We estimate that about 40,000 overnight charging points (50-100 kW, combined charging system, CCS) and about 9,000 megawatt charging system (MCS, 0.7- 1.2 MW) points are required to support a BET share of long-haul operations at 15%. On average, 8 and 2 CCS and MCS chargers are required per charging area, and each CCS and MCS serves, on average, 2 and 11 BETs daily, respectively. The daily electricity demand for public charging of BET in each charging area would be around 110 GWh. The model can be applied to any region with similar data. Future work can consider improving the queuing model, assumptions regarding regional differences of BET penetration and heterogeneity of truck sizes and utilization.
  • Publication
    Greenhouse gas emission budgets and policies for zero-Carbon road transport in Europe
    ( 2023)
    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    ;
    Wachsmuth, Jakob
    ;
    Sprei, Frances
    ;
    Gnann, Till orcid-logo
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    Speth, Daniel orcid-logo
    ;
    Neuner, Felix
    ;
    Link, Steffen orcid-logo
    Following the Paris Agreement, virtually all countries worldwide have committed themselves to undertaking efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. Within the European Union (EU), the recent ‘Fit for 55’ policy package proposes ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies for all sectors as part of the EU's contribution to limiting global warming. Yet, it is unclear whether the proposed policies are sufficient for the EU to limit global warming to 1.5 °C and it remains an open policy problem how to translate global temperature targets into sector-specific emission budgets and further into sector-specific policies. Here, we derive GHG budgets for transport in EU27 and obtain GHG mitigation pathways for Europe consistent with 1.5 °C global warming. We do not provide a comprehensive assessment of the ‘Fit for 55’ transport package but we discuss the main policies for road transport in light of the GHG emission budgets, their level of ambition, and suggest amendments to these policies as well as improvements to the ‘Fit for 55’ package. Our results suggest that parts of the ‘Fit for 55’ for transport are still not ambitious enough to align with a 1.5 °C scenario.
  • Publication
    A Review of Big Data in Road Freight Transport Modeling: Gaps and Potentials
    ( 2023)
    Shoman, Wasim
    ;
    Yeh, Sonia
    ;
    Sprei, Frances
    ;
    Köhler, Jonathan orcid-logo
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    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    ;
    Todorov, Yancho
    ;
    Rantala, Seppo
    ;
    Speth, Daniel orcid-logo
    Road transport accounted for 20% of global total greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, of which 30% come from road freight transport (RFT). Modeling the modern challenges in RFT requires the integration of different freight modeling improvements in, e.g., traffic, demand, and energy modeling. Recent developments in 'Big Data' (i.e., vast quantities of structured and unstructured data) can provide useful information such as individual behaviors and activities in addition to aggregated patterns using conventional datasets. This paper summarizes the state of the art in analyzing Big Data sources concerning RFT by identifying key challenges and the current knowledge gaps. Various challenges, including organizational, privacy, technical expertise, and legal challenges, hinder the access and utilization of Big Data for RFT applications. We note that the environment for sharing data is still in its infancy. Improving access and use of Big Data will require political support to ensure all involved parties that their data will be safe and contribute positively toward a common goal, such as a more sustainable economy. We identify promising areas for future opportunities and research, including data collection and preparation, data analytics and utilization, and applications to support decision-making.
  • Publication
    Greenhouse gas emission budgets and policies for zero-carbon road transport in Europe
    (Fraunhofer ISI, 2023)
    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    ;
    Wachsmuth, Jakob
    ;
    Sprei, Frances
    ;
    Gnann, Till orcid-logo
    ;
    Speth, Daniel orcid-logo
    ;
    Neuner, Felix
    ;
    Link, Steffen orcid-logo
    Following the Paris Agreement, virtually all countries worldwide have committed themselves to undertaking efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Within the European Union (EU), the recent “Fit for 55” policy package proposes ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies for all sectors as part of the EU's contribution to limiting global warming. Yet, it is unclear whether the proposed policies are sufficient for the EU to limit global warming to 1.5°C and it remains an open policy problem how to translate global temperature targets into sector-specific emission budgets and further into sector-specific policies. Here, we derive GHG budgets for transport in EU27 and obtain GHG mitigation pathways for Europe consistent with 1.5°C global warming. We do not provide a comprehensive assessment of the "Fit for 55" transport package but we discuss the main policies for road transport in light of the GHG emission budgets, their level of ambition, and suggest amendments to these policies as well as improvements to the “Fit for 55” package. Our results suggest that parts of the "Fit for 55" for transport are still not ambitious enough to align with a 1.5°C scenario.
  • Publication
    Empirical charging behavior of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles
    ( 2022)
    Mandev, Ahmet
    ;
    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    ;
    Sprei, Frances
    ;
    Tal, Gil
    Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) offer greenhouse gas emission reduction in car usage if charged frequently and driven mainly on electricity. However, little is known about the actual charging behavior of PHEV owners. Here, we investigate the daily charging of 10,488 Chevrolet Volt PHEV driven on a total of 4.3 million total driving days in the US and Canada. We propose a new method to detect the frequency of individual charging behavior from the daily utility factor and daily distance travelled. Our results show that no charging overnight occurs typically on 3-7% of the driving days per user and additional charging happens on 20-26% of the driving days. We also analyze the relation between charging frequency and utility factor for different user groups and days. Our results show that the utility factor should not be used as the only measure of environmental performance of PHEVs.
  • Publication
    Policy instruments for plug-in electric vehicles. An overview and discussion
    ( 2021)
    Whitehead, Jake
    ;
    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    ;
    Jochem, Patrick
    ;
    Sprei, Frances
    ;
    Dütschke, Elisabeth orcid-logo
    Many different policy instruments have been implemented globally to support the uptake of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), with the ambition to curb growth in, and ultimately reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the ever-expanding transportation sector. While the market continues grow, most consumers are still not choosing to adopt PEVs due to three principal barriers: a lack of PEV supply, high upfront investment costs, and other systemic failures, such as a perceived lack of public charging infrastructure. It is evident that there is no ""silver bullet"" policy instrument that can simultaneously address all of these market barriers. Despite this, success is being witnessed in leading PEV markets through the implementation of comprehensive policy packages, which vary in type and purpose, and are part of broader, long-term PEV diffusion strategies. The efficacy of many policy instruments is ultimately context and regionally-dependent, and therefore, PEV policy must be tailored to suit local circumstances.
  • Publication
    Variability of daily car usage and the frequency of long-distance driving
    ( 2021)
    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    ;
    Sprei, Frances
    The limited electric range of battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) requires an understanding of the variation in day-to-day driving and the frequency of long-distance driving. Existing literature suggests high regularity of human mobility. However, large longitudinal mobility samples for empirical tests are hardly available. Here, we analyze the regularity of daily vehicle kilometers travelled (VKT) of 10,000 vehicles observed between two months and several years and quantify the regularity of daily VKT and the frequency of longdistance driving. Our results indicate limited regularity of daily VKT beyond one day of time lag (mean autocorrelation < 0.11). Long-distance driving with daily km over 100 km (200 km) typically take place on less than 20% (5% for 200 km) of driving days but make up 40% (18%) of annual VKT. Our results have implications for sustainable transport research and the design of travel surveys.
  • Publication
    The effect of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle charging on fuel consumption and tail-pipe emissions
    ( 2021)
    Mandev, Ahmet
    ;
    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    ;
    Sprei, Frances
    Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) have an electric motor and an internal combustion engine and can reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from transport. However, their environmental benefit strongly depends on the charging behaviour. Several studies have analysed the GHG emissions from upstream electricity production, yet the impact of individual charging behaviour on PHEV tail-pipe carbon emissions has not been quantified from empirical data so far. Here, we use daily driving data from 7,491 Chevrolet Volt PHEV with a total 3.4 million driving days in the US and Canada to fill this gap. We quantify the effect of daily charging on the electric driving share and the individual fuel consumption. We find that even a minor deviation from charging every driving day significantly increases fuel consumption and thus tail-pipe emissions. Our results show that reducing charging from every day to 9 out of 10 days, increases fuel consumption on average by 1.85 ± 0.03 l/100 km or 42.7 ± 0.8 gCO2/km tail-pipe emissions (± on standard error). Charging more than once per driving day has less impact in our sample, this must occur during at least 20% of driving days to have a noteworthy effect. Even then, a 10 % increase in frequency only has moderate effect of decreasing fuel consumption on average by 0.08 ± 0.02 l/100 km or 1.86 ± 0.46 gCO2/km tail-pipe emissions. Our results illustrate the importance of providing adequate charging infrastructure and incentives for PHEV users to charge their vehicles on a regular basis in order to ensure that their environmental impact is small as even long-range PHEVs can have a noteworthy share of conventional fuel use when not regularly charged.