{"id":1281437,"date":"2024-03-05T10:27:19","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T09:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/?post_type=articles&p=1281437"},"modified":"2024-03-05T10:27:19","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T09:27:19","slug":"charging-into-the-future-with-electric-vehicles","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/articles\/charging-into-the-future-with-electric-vehicles\/","title":{"rendered":"Charging into the Future with Electric Vehicles"},"featured_media":1281438,"template":"","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[]},"schools":[],"areas":[23],"subjects":[422,425],"class_list":["post-1281437","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","areas-smart-society","subjects-innovation-and-technology","subjects-sustainability"],"custom-fields":{"wpcf-article-leadin":["Electric vehicles are being widely embraced, but challenges like 'range anxiety' persist. Smart solutions can address these concerns by creating tailored charging timetables for each vehicle, writes Konstantina Valogianni."],"wpcf-article-body":["The future of the motor industry is electric vehicles, thanks primarily to government legislation and regulations that are focused on reaching full decarbonization. Electric vehicles are indeed more energy efficient than traditional cars, do not produce carbon emissions when driven in a city, and can reduce the overall carbon footprint when charged with electricity coming from renewable sources. For these reasons, consumers have widely embraced electric vehicles. According to the International Energy Agency, the total number of electric cars on the world\u2019s roads in 2022 was 26 million<\/a>. That's up 60% from 2021.\r\n\r\nHowever, there are some bumps on the road to a full-scale electric mobility transition. Even though consumers are buying, they have concerns. For example, the whole point of a car is getting from point A to point B, and drivers of electric cars need to think about charging amounts, times, and locations \u2013 and worry about being stranded far from an electric charging point. This is one of the reasons why many consumers are still opting for hybrid options, which combine a traditional engine with an electric motor. Thus, it will still take some time before we reach general market acceptance of fully electric vehicles, as Peter Campbell and his Financial Times <\/em>colleagues note in an article about Toyota\u2019s winning bet on hybrid electric vehicles<\/a>.\r\n\r\nElectric car drivers \u2013 like all car owners \u2013 want to feel secure that their car can operate in the event of an emergency. Think about the ways we charge our phones. We do not charge them only when they need charging, but also when we can do it \u2013 just so that we have the peace of mind that there is enough juice in the phone to use it when we are away from a power source \u2013 in case of emergencies (or, let\u2019s be honest, in case of boredom when standing in line or awkwardly at a party.)\r\n\r\nIn the context of electric vehicles, this behavioral characteristic is called \u201crange anxiety.\u201d This brand of anxiety, together with the fast-charging stations available in many cities, is expected to increase the electricity demand on the grid due to electric vehicle charging. Essentially, because people want their car batteries charged at all times and as quickly as possible, they are more likely to use fast-charging stations that request large amounts of electricity in a very short period of time and create large \u201celectricity demand spikes.\u201d The grid is not designed to handle or sustain these large demand peaks. Rather, its infrastructure is meant to serve the lighter electricity demands of our household behaviors. This issue has been raised by city officials and electricity grid operators who are, with good reason, concerned about large numbers of cars charging at the same time \u2013 a trend that can result in costly blackouts.\r\n\r\nIn our paper \u201cSustainable Electric Vehicle Charging using Adaptive Pricing\u201d<\/a>, my coauthors (Wolfgang Ketter of University of Cologne, John Collins of University of Minnesota, and Dmitry Zhdanov of Illinois State University) and I propose a way to address people\u2019s \u201crange anxiety\u201d inclination to charge their electric vehicles while still respecting the grid infrastructure. Our solution has two main components: a) we design and propose the use of a piece of software inside the car\u2019s controller, called the \u201dintelligent agent\u201d (think of it as an app installed in the car similar to those currently available in Teslas) that is responsible for charging the car\u2019s battery, and b) we design and propose the use of adjustable prices \u2013 based on the availability of electricity as well as the reaction of consumers to price signals \u2013 that are broadcast to the cars and used by these intelligent agents to schedule a specific period of time for the charging of the electric vehicle.\r\n\r\nThis potentially solves an imminent problem because the intelligent software means that drivers need not worry about when and how much to charge because the car will take care of charging itself. The software collects data and \u201clearns\u201d when a particular driver normally uses the car and ensures that it charges the amount of electricity needed (plus some extra to account for unexpected activity.)\r\n
Electric mobility is an essential element of our society\u2019s future.<\/blockquote>\r\nThis is particularly helpful for those electric vehicle users who perhaps worry unnecessarily about when and how much to charge, allowing them to feel more comfortable about using electric vehicles. As such, this solution not only assists the owners of electric cars but helps policymakers instill trust in electric mobility and accelerate its adoption. Furthermore, there is a benefit for the grid infrastructure because electric car drivers are simply charging what they need. Of course, estimating how much electricity they should pull from the grid does require data and machine learning methods, but thankfully these resources have advanced in recent years and now allow for very precise usage estimates.\r\n\r\nElectricity prices have traditionally been used to incentivize people to charge when it is more beneficial for the grid infrastructure in exchange for financial savings. Consider the cheaper electricity prices available at night, as part of a regular household electricity contract. These lower prices are meant to incentivize people, for example, to do their washing during the evening when the grid is not so overloaded with other activities. This of course can be slightly inconvenient because not everyone wants to stay up late doing their laundry or dishwashing. In the case of electric cars, our research proposes using adjustable prices, which we call \u201cadaptive pricing,\u201d and uses intelligent software to signal to electric vehicles when and how much to charge themselves \u2013 in the evening at a home charging via a dedicated home charger \u2013 so that it happens automatically and is more convenient for electric car drivers.\r\n\r\nAnother issue that arises with prices that vary throughout the day according to grid capacity is that, instead of solving the electricity demand spike problem, they can exacerbate it. For example, what happens if all users schedule their car charging for the nighttime in order to benefit from the cheaper electricity prices? \u00a0This result won\u2019t be good for the grid. In fact, there are already real-world pilots that provide evidence of this behavior<\/a>: users make the best of the low prices, and all of them \u201ccongest\u201d to charge during the low-price periods -- this is known as the \u201cavalanche effect.\u201d The issue of properly designing electricity prices for electric vehicles without causing avalanche effects has been concerning academics for years.\r\n\r\nMy fellow researchers and I propose a novel pricing method to address this, one that learns from data to adjust the prices in real-time based on the behavior of people in a given city or area. In plain terms, our method collects behavioral data about how and when drivers prefer to charge their cars, as well as how they value that charging, and uses that information to design prices tailored for that specific charging behavior. The advantage to this is that it adapts to the needs of the driver population and avoids causing an avalanche effect.\r\n\r\nElectric mobility is an essential element of our society\u2019s future. As cities and their drivers continue this inevitable transition to electric vehicles, all residents will benefit from lowered carbon emissions, cleaner air, and an overall healthier environment. Of course, there are many more issues to be addressed in this line of work \u2013 electric mobility is an evolving topic, one that encourages innovation and investment as we collectively move towards a more sustainable future.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00a9 IE Insights."],"wpcf-audio-article":["https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Charging-into-the-Future-with-Electric-Vehicles.mp3"],"wpcf-article-extract":["Electric vehicles are being widely embraced, but challenges like 'range anxiety' persist. Smart solutions can address these concerns by creating tailored charging timetables for each vehicle, writes Konstantina Valogianni."],"wpcf-article-extract-enable":["1"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/1281437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1281438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1281437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"schools","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/schools?post=1281437"},{"taxonomy":"areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/areas?post=1281437"},{"taxonomy":"subjects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/subjects?post=1281437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}