Abstract
The present study discusses on real-world operating scenario of widely accepted electric vehicles — electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers. Use of electric three-wheelers remains majorly restricted to developing regions, whereas electric two-wheelers have a widespread stakeholder base. However, the majority of these vehicles demonstrate maximum speed of 25 km/h, constrained by design specifications. Study revealed that electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers exhibited specific energy consumption of 28.67 Wh/pkm and 43.25 Wh/pkm, respectively, based on a case study for the state of West Bengal, India. Predominant charging regime of target vehicles from domestic source, powered by nationalized grid, leads to high use-phase emission, on a plant-to-wheel approach. Results on traffic dynamic behavior revealed that target electric variants pose to be potential candidates augmenting congestion effect on already running conventional traffic. Hence, two scenarios need to be addressed: (a) regulating the operation of low-speed electric vehicles and (b) optimizing the parameters governing use-phase emissions.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during the present study are not available publicly, but are available with the corresponding author, on request.
Abbreviations
- 2W:
-
Two-wheeler
- 3W:
-
Three-wheeler
- BEV:
-
Battery electric vehicle
- BM:
-
Build margin
- CFGL :
-
Grid transmission loss correction factor
- CFCL :
-
Charging losses correction factor
- CM:
-
Combined margin
- CMR :
-
Combined margin realistic
- CKm:
-
Circuit kilometres
- D :
-
Distance covered in km
- e2W:
-
Electric two-wheeler
- e3W:
-
Electric three-wheeler
- Ebus:
-
Electric bus
- GEF:
-
Grid emission factor
- pkm:
-
Passenger-kilometer
- PTW:
-
Plant-to-wheel
- T&D :
-
Transmission and distribution
- VEF:
-
Vehicle emission factor
- VEFc :
-
Vehicle emission factor for conventional vehicles in gCO2/km
- VEFe :
-
CO2 emission factor of EVs in gCO2/km
- WA:
-
Simple weighted average
- C :
-
Unit cost of the energy type in INR
- c :
-
Specific energy cost in INR/pkm
- E :
-
Energy consumption of a vehicle type in Wh
- ϵ :
-
Specific energy consumption (Wh/pkm)
- ϵ m :
-
Specific energy consumption of vehicle type m (Wh/pkm)
- e g :
-
Fuel emission factor in gCO2/kWh
- ϵ cs :
-
Specific energy consumption of conventional scooter
- ϵ cm :
-
Specific energy consumption of conventional motorcycle
- ϵ 2e :
-
Specific energy consumption of e2W
- ϵ a :
-
Specific energy consumption of 3W
- ϵ ad :
-
Specific energy consumption of 3W (diesel)
- ϵ 3e :
-
Specific energy consumption of e3W
- EU:
-
Electric utility
- F c :
-
Fuel consumption of small car in ml/km
- F 2w :
-
Fuel consumption of 2W in ml/km
- L :
-
T&D Loss expressed in %
- L m :
-
Levelized T&D loss in %
- p :
-
Equivalent number of passengers
- R :
-
Coefficient of variance
- r :
-
Coefficient of roughness
- S ec :
-
Per capita CO2 emission in gCO2/pkm
- S ee :
-
Per capita CO2 emission of EVs in gCO2/pkm
- T mo :
-
Moving time in minutes
- T i :
-
Total idling time in minutes
- V c :
-
Velocity of small car in km/h
- V 2w :
-
Velocity of 2W
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DM contributed to conceptualization, methodology, investigation and writing—original draft preparation. AD contributed to data curation and investigation. TJ contributed to conceptualization, supervision and reviewing.
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Majumdar, D., Dutta, A. & Jash, T. Study on real-world performance of electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers under heterogeneous traffic conditions: a case study in West Bengal State, India. Clean Techn Environ Policy 24, 2419–2439 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-022-02324-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-022-02324-y