Overview
The Federal Government supports development of Germany to a leading market for electromobility which requires research and development of electromobility and especially in form of cooperation between companies from the technology fields: Automotive engineering, energy technology, information and communication technology communication engineering.
The project's objective was to identify the success leading to success behind economically operating electric vehicle fleets and to prove their effectiveness. The fleets were linked with each other and with the charging infrastructure making use of electric mobility services. The electrification potentials of fleets were determined based on analyses and data collection. In addition, new fleet services and an infrastructure concept were evaluated, developed and implemented. The attempt was also made to link the participating fleets with other intermodal elements (e.g. car sharing, local public transport). Concrete proposals were developed for the mass market based on high vehicle density, research on the acceptance and the development of business models.
The total project was divided into 6 work packages that are listed below including the applied method:
- WP1 focuses on an analysis of electric mobility potential & charging infrastructure for fleet operators: Electrification potentials were determined and a joint model developed by combining the expertise of Athlon Car Lease in analysis tools together with the driving profile database of the Fraunhofer-ISI. In addition, an infrastructure model was developed by combining electrification potentials and fleet information.
- WP2 focuses on the supply of electric mobility services across fleets.
- WP3 focuses on integrated infrastructure concept: This work package followed a "three-dimensional" integration of drivers, charging infrastructure and energy system to develop a charging infrastructure that has the same core features but that can be adapted to the respective customer group/fleet type. ICT networks played a key role.
- WP4 focuses on demonstration & acceptance: An experimental area was created based on a software network to test electrified fleets and services in a three-phase demonstration. This way on, valuable feedback concerning test persons' acceptance could be collected at the same time.
- WP5 focuses on researching and evaluating possible business models: A large number of economic parameters, drivers and boundary conditions had to be jointly selected by the project partners with the help of scenarios to develop models of the static and dynamic requirements for electric vehicles and potential business models.
- WP6 includes overall project management, reporting, knowledge transfer, diffusion of results
Funding
Results
Vehicle fleets in urban areas are especially suitable for the transfer towards an electrical option due to huge traffic amount and limited routes. However, the lack of a sufficient charging infrastructure was the reason for fleet operators not to make use of electric vehicles. Therefore, a well-developed network of charging stations provided in form of a software-based intelligent network of the fleet operators can be seen as a main reason for the success of the project. Due to the large amount of vehicles participating in the project, it was possible to obtain reliable information about driving profiles, charging requirements as well as the exact location of the infrastructure.