Suggested Citation:
Ji, Wei and Gil Tal (2017) BEV Consumer Household Travel Behavior Decisions in Multi-Vehicle Households: Do They Get the Maximum Out of the Nissan LEAF?. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Research Report UCD-ITS-RR-17-23

This paper analyzes the travel behavior of early Leaf adopters based on GPS tracking data. Heterogeneity between households that own a Leaf and do not own a Leaf was found in terms of their travel demand and how they assign multiple vehicles for different trips. Within a Leaf household, medium trips are more often assigned to the Leaf maximizing its usage while short trips are assigned to both the Leaf and the ICE and long trips are assigned to the ICE. This also suggests that Leaf households self-select if these beneficial travel patterns match their household. However, Leaf households do not completely optimize their travel as household eVMT can theoretically increase by 10% if drivers in the household swap cars more.

Keywords: BEV household, mix vehicle household, eVMT, GPS data