Impacts of Electric Vehicle Adoption on Driver Behavior and Environmental Performance

The introduction of alternative vehicle technologies to respond to the transportation sector pressure regarding fossil fuel dependency poses questions regarding their impacts on travel and driving behavior but also on the environment. The results presented in this paper are part of a long-term study developed to evaluate user's satisfaction and adaptation to electric vehicle (EV), in terms of driving behavior, mobility, comfort, charging routines, interaction with the charging infrastructure. User's energy consumption and CO2 emissions are also estimated. The data presented concerns information collected with interviews done to the eleven EV drivers and with on-board diaries, including km travelled, kWh charged, number of trips per day. The information was gathered over a period of 5 months, and comprises a total of 1772 trips, 18524 km travelled, a total electricity consumption of 3252 kWh related to approximately 220 charges. Results indicate that the adoption of the EV impacted everyday routines on 36% of the participants and 73% observed changes on their driving style. In comparison to conventional internal combustion engine vehicles running on gasoline or diesel, EV reveals considerable reductions in both energy consumption and CO2 emissions in a Well-to-Wheel life cycle approach, with 1.30 MJ/km and 63 g/km, respectively.