Coupling transport and electricity: How can vehicle-to-grid boost the attractiveness of carsharing?

Combining carsharing and vehicle-to-grid could result in synergies for decarbonizing transport and electricity systems. For carsharing operators, often experiencing financial difficulties, vehicle-to-grid service provision could generate additional revenues while supporting the integration of renewable energy. However, extant research has not yet studied customers’ interest in vehicle-to-grid carsharing. We therefore investigate whether and how vehicle-to-grid could improve the attractiveness of carsharing. Based on a stated-choice experiment in Germany and Switzerland, we compare the attractiveness of vehicle-to-grid, electric and conventional carsharing. We find that customers choose vehicle-to-grid over electric carsharing in 56.1% and over conventional carsharing in 74.2% of the choices. By estimating a multinomial, a mixed-logit, and a willingness-to-pay-space model, we find that costs show the highest relative importance for customers’ utilities despite the early adopter sample. Access and egress times as the second most important service characteristics, combined with free-floating as the preferred scheme, highlight the relevance of charging infrastructure.