Publication Detail

EVMT in the Household Fleet: Integrating Battery Electric Vehicles into Household Travel

UCD-ITS-RP-16-14

Journal Article

Electric Vehicle Research Center

Available online at: TRB

Suggested Citation:
Nicholas, Michael A. and Gil Tal (2016) EVMT in the Household Fleet: Integrating Battery Electric Vehicles into Household Travel. Transportation Research Board

The authors analyzed electric vehicle miles traveled (eVMT) for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in the context of household travel. Vehicle range is only loosely related to annual miles. Factors such as body style, self selection, commute, access to infrastructure, and sharing of vehicles within the household all play a role in how many miles a vehicle is driven each year. BEV models with similar all electric range had different median miles, and BEVs with different ranges had the same annual miles. There does appear to be a limit on how many miles consumers drive each year and BEVs with 113 miles range reported similar annual miles to a BEV with 265 miles range. However, in order to achieve these equal miles, the BEV with a shorter range must share vehicles within the household. From a household perspective, the longer the range of the BEV, the more travel was shifted to it as a percent of total household VMT except in the case of the longest range BEV. Looking at total household VMT the authors see that customers may be choosing a BEV because their total travel need is not as great as that in a PHEV household.