Planning for Electric Vehicles Coupled With Urban Mobility

Research Team: Marta C. Gonzales (lead), Luis Eduardo Olmos, and Scott J. Moura

UC Campus(es): UC Berkeley

Problem Statement: California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project (CVRP) is designed to promote the purchase of battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric (PEV). PEV technology is one of the most promising candidates to date to ameliorate the use of oil and the associate emissions with traffic. The challenge with the rise PEV adoption is the increasing need for alignment of the state’s electricity and mobility demands. Transportation and power infrastructures are becoming increasingly interdependent and this can create undesired instabilities in the grid.

Project Description: This project integrated novel and traditional data sources to estimate the costs and benefits of the adoption of electric cars in the Bay Area. The research team uncovered patterns of PEV mobility by integrating for the first time: (i) mobile phone activity of 1.39 million Bay Area residents, (ii) charging activity of PEVs in 580,000 sessions obtained in the same region, (iii) EV mobility survey and the profiles of the CVRP and (iv) Global Positioning Systems (GPS) from large car fleets. The goal of the project was to project the costs to the grid versus the benefits as a function of different EV adoption scenarios. The benefit is measured in terms of the savings in fuel consumption by changing from gasoline cars to EVs.

Status: Completed

Budget: $64,912