Understanding the social practice of EV workplace charging

Abstract

Owning or leasing an electric vehicle (EV) is becoming more common in developed countries. While home charging is the most common choice, workplace charging and its provision by employers has become an important option. For many, it is essential to cope with the limited range of most EVs. Home and work are the two places where vehicles are parked for long periods and so are prime candidates as charging locations. However, workplace charging is often a limited resource. This paper reports on an empirical study of workplace charging at a UK public sector employer. It explores the use of workplace charging (WPC) via spatiotemporal analysis of employees and visitors' charging events over a 3-month period. It provides insights into weekly patterns and daily mechanisms of using shared facilities in a WPC environment. We identify insights that are relevant in the design of workplace-charging infrastructure, identify the design needs, emerging requirements, and highlight potential areas for sociotechnical-interventions.

The Spatio-Temporal Analysis of the Use and Usability Problems of EV Workplace Charging Facilities

“…We derive empirical EV charging pattern and communication between users with access to the same charging network and show how they are affected by charging management as well as charging power. We started this research in early 2015, and have been reporting on some insights of the WPC practice ever since [28]. EV drivers face four particular challenges compared to drivers using the established fossil fuel infrastructure: (i) current battery technology limits range, so depending on the commuted distance drivers may be required to recharge while at work in order to get home without stopping; (ii) re-charging takes significantly longer time than conventional fossil fuel refuelling; (iii) the infrastructure for charging is poorly developed compared to the traditional infrastructure, and (iv) EV drivers may have to compete for the charge points that are available.…”

“…The uncertainty of having access to away from home charging facility has slowed the growing trend of smart ecosystems [18,31,39]. Recently, it has been claimed that WPC adds flexibility to work day, expand their comfort zone, and shall double the daily range of individuals [29,28]. However, with the emerging need to have access to the WPC, in some cases the supply surpluses the demand, which creates sort of a competition spirit between the users, so each of them meets their mobility demand.…”

“…Since 2012, studies and research projects have tackled EV adoption [10], range issues, infrastructure [15], charging loads on electricity grid [19,41] and the use of renewable energy to charge the battery [40]. WPC practices are published as business cases or corporate reports [42] by service providers or a summary of a governmental initiative or grant or scheme announcements [20,19,26,28]. These reports provide data regarding the number of CPs, locations, power capacity, service provider, billing policy, and the number of users.…”

“…The grant schemes would provide up to 75% towards the cost of installing new CPs for public sector bodies to install WPC on their estate. In total, 43 public bodies were successful and were granted various amounts (£3200.00 up to £237,000.00) in 2013 and 2014 to install CPs [28]. In the case of councils, the grant covers public CPs across the city.…”

“…In 2013, Future Transport Systems Ltd. launched a trial (as part of the SwitchEV project) in Northumbria University. In total, (n = 12) staff members participated in the EV trial to drive an EV for 2 months, which aimed at depicting the charging patterns of the participants having access to two onsite CPs [28]. Each user was given an EV (Nissan Leaf) to personally use with free access to charging on campuses.…”