Abstract
Research and/or Engineering Questions/Objective
The Dutch government is eager to realise a critical mass of two hundred thousand electric vehicles on the roads in the Netherlands by 2020. A variety of projects are being subsidised to study the use of electric vehicles. In return, these pilot projects must communicate the lessons learned to Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO.nl). RVO.nl is a public organisation that is, among other things, charged with subsidy evaluations and publications on behalf of the Dutch government. The objective of this study is to assist pilot projects in registering the utilization data needed to calculate the business case.
Methodology
The government is supporting pilot projects for electric driving in five different market segments: (a) logistics & distribution; (b) commercial mobility and commuter traffic; (c) mass transit: public transport, taxis, car sharing, and carpooling; (d) company vehicles, including garbage trucks; and (e) government vehicles. Pernosco has visited the projects that have completed in order to understand their business and to request the utilization data they recorded. The definition of each collected data element is determined using the Pernosco object model for innovation so that the utilization data can be compared and reported upon using a business intelligence tool (QlikView) with illustrative pivot tables and graphs.
Results
Because the range of electric vehicles is still limited, most of the vehicle owners in the pilot projects began by analysing their utilization data for conventional vehicles to determine the operating areas that are most suitable for electric driving. Subsequently, they recorded utilization data for each area of operation in order to compare the expected and realised benefits and costs to those for conventional vehicles. In the end, six parameters appeared to be key in calculating the business case from utilization data: the trips driven, the assignments executed, the types of application, the customers served, the vehicles used, and the servicing required (maintenance and charging).
Limitations of this study
New pilot projects will be visited beforehand, giving us the opportunity to request a more complete set of utilization data. Further study is needed to determine whether communicating the value of their key parameters and issues will increase the use of electric vehicles. New mainstream customers should be asked in the future whether the data from pilot projects in their market segments were decisive in choosing to drive electric vehicles.
What does the paper offer that is new in the field in comparison to other works of the author
Pilot projects are often used to test and learn from a technology aspect only. We introduce Zagema’s theory of topic-based innovation to illustrate that a strong business case is of greater importance in convincing mainstream customers.
Conclusion
Business case calculations are sensitive information not eagerly shared with competitors. The values of key parameters are less sensitive and in fact more informative for similar companies. In addition, key parameters focus the collection of data, thereby reducing the effort required to record utilization data. More detailed data is only recorded when an issue related to a key parameter is seriously affecting the business case. For example, an issue related to the Service key parameter charging can result in the need to specifically collect more detailed utilization data about the outdoor temperature, the use of the heater, ventilator and air conditioning, and the speed driven.
KEYWORDS Electric driving, Pilot projects, Business case, Utilization data, Key parameters