How much range is required? A model based analysis of potential battery electric vehicle usage

Promoting electric mobility has become a prominent measure to reach the goal of reducing carbon dioxide in the transportation sector. However, the sales of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are still low. The main reasons hampering the success of electric vehicles are probably insufficient user acceptance due to range limitations and high purchase costs. Hence, the crucial question is to find a battery size that is both large enough to provide sufficient range and small enough that it is not cost prohibitive. Our work addresses this question from the user perspective and aims to identify the BEV range that is necessary to satisfy most of the mobility needs by use of the agent-base travel demand mode mobiTopp. Seven scenarios with varying BEV ranges have been simulated The results show that a range of 150 km forces major adaptations of travel behavior and is, for this reason, there is a significant barrier to a broad acceptance. With a range of 400 km and above, the necessary adaptations of travel behavior are small. However, for most cars of this configuration, the charging state of the batteries do not come below 50% within one week. ... mehrThus, considering battery purchase costs and sustainability, 250 km or 300 km could be justified as a sufficient range, which satisfies already most of the mobility needs for mandatory activities.