Electric vehicles in urban delivery fleets: How far can they go?
研究通过建模分析中型电动汽车在城市配送车队中的渗透潜力，发现当前电池技术和服务区域设计下补贴效果有限，改进电池技术才是关键。
The goal of this study is to provide insights into the expected role of medium-duty electric vehicles (EVs) in urban delivery fleets and to analyze the effectiveness of EV subsidies on EV fleet penetration and tailpipe emissions. To meet this goal, we propose a modeling framework that determines the minimum-cost fleet size and fleet mix (of EVs and conventional vehicles) and vehicle routes for a profit-maximizing delivery company. Second, we conduct extensive analyses using this modeling framework and Southern California network data; we vary the EV driving range, per-mile cost of EVs, demand rate, service region size/structure, driver working hours, and network travel times. We find that the optimal fleet mix nearly always includes EVs and conventional vehicles. Moreover, we find that EV subsidies have limited effectiveness with current EV batteries and service regions designed around conventional vehicles. Hence, improving EV battery technology is critical to electrifying urban delivery fleets.