Determining the Main Factors Influencing the Energy Consumption of Electric Vehicles in the Usage Phase

Electric vehicles (EV) are often considered as an environmental conscious alternative to conventional vehicles with internal combustion engines (ICEV). In order to quantitatively analyse the environmental benefits, it is essential to explore the energy consumption behaviour of EV during the usage phase. However, this information is neither available in public domain nor commercial database. Theoretically, the energy consumption of driving EV will be influenced by a number of factors, such as road conditions, traffic, etc. Thus, this paper applied Design of Experiment (DoE) method to explore the statistical significance of the selected factors. In order to simulate the real world usage phase, the Nissan LEAF was tested in Sydney metro area, and the energy consumption was collected under various conditions. The screening results define the main factors impacting the energy consumption, as well as measuring the magnitude of those impacts. As a result, a simple binary model is generated to estimate the energy consumption of EV for a specific usage condition.