The Constraints of Vehicle Range and Congestion for the Use of Electric Vehicles for Urban Freight in France

Electric vehicle is a solution to reduce pollutant emissions from road urban freight. This paper assesses the potential CO2 reduction by transferring urban freight from diesel to electric vehicles while simultaneously looking at the two main technical constraints: electric vehicle range and the impact on congestion linked to change diesel heavy duty vehicles (with a load up to 25 tons) to much smaller electric vehicles. The data used has been computed from a survey (ECHO) that describes in details a very large sample of French shipments. Two scenarios were set up, which differ mainly by the type of available electric vehicle: In scenario E1, the electric vehicle has a payload of 2 tons, versus 6 tons in scenario E2.The vehicle range is not very binding for urban deliveries in our scenario, except in the Paris Urban area. The CO2 reduction is nearly the same in the two scenarios, but the congestion is much higher in scenario E1, showing that the payload is an important issue for the generalisation of electric vehicles in urban freight.