Shawn Salisbury

DC Fast Charger Usage in the Pacific Northwest

This document will describe the use of a number of Direct Current Fast Charging Stations throughout Washington and Oregon as a part of of the West Coast Electric Highway. It will detail the usage frequency and location of the charging stations INL has data from. It will also include aggregated data from hundreds of privately owned vehicles that were enrolled in the EV Project regarding driving distance when using one of the West Coast Electric Highway fast chargers. This document is a white paper that will be published on the INL AVTA website.

Magnitude and Variability of Controllable Charge Capacity Provided by Grid Connected Plug-in Electric Vehicles

As market penetration of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) increases over time, the number of PEVs charging on the electric grid will also increase. As the number of PEVs increases, their ability to collectively impact the grid increases. The idea of a large body of PEVs connected to the grid presents an intriguing possibility. If utilities can control PEV charging, it is possible that PEVs could act as a distributed resource to provide grid services. The technology required to control charging is available for modern PEVs. However, a system for wide-spread implementation of controllable charging, including robust communication between vehicles and utilities, is not currently present. Therefore, the value of controllable charging must be assessed and weighed against the cost of building and operating such as system. In order to grasp the value of PEV charge control to the utility, the following must be understood: 1. The amount of controllable energy and power capacity available to the utility 2. The variability of the controllable capacity from day to day and as the number of PEVs in the market increases.

Validation and Analysis of the Fuel Cell Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Built by Colorado State University for the EcoCAR 2: Plugging into the Future Vehicle Competition

EcoCAR 2 is the premiere North American collegiate automotive competition that challenges 15 North American universities to redesign a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu to decrease the environmental impact of the Malibu while maintaining its performance, safety, and consumer appeal. The EcoCAR 2 project is a three year competition headline sponsored by General Motors and U.S. Department of Energy. In Year 1 of the competition, extensive modeling guided the Colorado State University (CSU) Vehicle Innovation Team (VIT) to choose an all-electric vehicle powertrain architecture with range extending hydrogen fuel cells, to be called the Malibu H2eV. During this year, the CSU VIT followed the EcoCAR 2 Vehicle Design Process (VDP) to develop the H2eV’s electric and hydrogen powertrain, energy storage system (ESS), control systems, and auxiliary systems. From the design developed in Year 1 of the EcoCAR 2 competition, a Malibu donated by General Motors was converted into a concept validating prototype during Year 2. Through extensive vehicle simulations and on-road testing, the FCPHEV architecture was optimized to meet the goals of the VTS in Year 3. The progress of the CSU VIT through the vehicle design process, discussion of the safety control systems of the vehicle, optimization and validation of both software in the loop (SIL) and hardware in the loop (HIL) testing, as well as the expected VTS goals and realization of the FCPHEV prototype will be discussed in this paper.

Charging and Driving Behavior of Nissan Leaf Drivers in The EV Project with Access to Workplace Charging

 A sample of 622 Nissan Leaf drivers participating in The EV Project with access to workplace charging charged at work on 53,351 vehicle days between March 2011 and December 2013.  On nearly a quarter of those days, drivers drove far enough that they could not have completed their daily driving without workplace charging, even if they fully charged at home.  On about half the days, drivers fully charged at home and “topped off” at work. On about a quarter of the days, drivers only charged at work, even though they had access to home charging.  While 14% of vehicles needed workplace charging to complete their daily commutes most of the time, 43% of vehicles needed it some of the time (i.e., on at least 5% of commuting days). This shows that workplace charging is valuable as a range extender for drivers who live far from work, as well as drivers who sometimes need additional driving range beyond their typical commute.  On days when drivers charged at work, they drove an average of 15% farther than days when they did not charge at work. This demonstrates that workplace charging provides a significant benefit for increasing electric vehicle miles traveled.  In fact, on days when drivers needed workplace charging, they drove 15 more miles, on average, than they would have been able to drive without workplace charging. The average commute on those days was 73 miles.