Juan F. Giménez Pla1, Amparo López Vicente1, Carol Soriano García1, Raquel Marzo Roselló1, José S. Solaz Sanahuja1, Elisa Signes i Pérez1, Antonio Marqués Moreno2, María Tomás Pérez2
1 Instituto de Biomecánica (IBV) Universitat Politècnica de València (Edificio 9C) Camino de Vera s/n (E-46022) Valencia (Spain)
2ETRA Investigación y Desarrollo, S.A.
USER-CHI is an innovative project aimed at promoting electromobility in Europe, by coming up with solutions that improve the experience of drivers during the charging process. This article presents the main results obtained in the qualitative research work carried out within the context of the project, which users from six different EU countries have taken part in.
INTRODUCTION
The European transport sector is at the forefront of energy consumption and it is also the main cause of air pollution in cities, which is why the growing public awareness of environmental issues and the new mobility habits call for a revolution that favors decarbonization. This revolution involves using electric vehicles (EVs) on a large scale, which need a public interoperable charging infrastructure that the European Union (EU) has undertaken to guarantee among its member states, although today it is far from being a reality.
Indeed, the commercial models and the revenue generated by the charging infrastructure are currently not enough to guarantee the growth of a strong and buoyant market. Consequently this leads to a lack of trust in the e-mobility sector overall and it causes users to question the electric car being the main vehicle, which creates a vicious circle of frozen demand due to an unsatisfactory supply and vice versa.
One of the key factors to break this vicious circle is to improve the charging station solutions, by designing and developing systems that focus on responding to and satisfying the needs and expectations of the drivers. In this context USER-CHI, a research and innovation project financed by the EU and led by ETRA I+D, is promoting active cooperation between the industry, cities and the citizens to co-create and display a set of solutions and tools that promote the mass launch and market acceptance of the EVs in Europe. These solutions and tools will be tested and validated in 5 prominent urban areas in Europe: The metropolitan area of Barcelona (Spain), Rome (Italy), Berlin (Germany), Budapest (Hungry) and Turku (Finland). Apart from their relevancy, these 5 cities are the connecting nodes of strategic corridors[1] on a European level (Mediterranean and Scandinavian-Mediterranean); while their different sizes, cultural contexts and EV level of adoption provide a very complete picture of e-mobility in Europe, which favors the scalability and the replicability of the proven solutions.
This article presents the results obtained in the qualitative research work done on users, led by the Instituto de Biomecánica (IBV), carried out within the context of the USER-CHI project. These results, obtained in the exceptional circumstances imposed by COVID-19, are thanks to the participation of electric car users and key players from six different EU countries.
[1] TEN-T Corridors, https://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/infrastructure/ten-t_en
DEVELOPMENT
The objective of the qualitative research work carried out within the context of the USER-CHI project is to understand the whole process of charging an electric vehicle that an individual has to go through, its key factors and its critical points. To this end we basically carried out two types of procedures: observation and inquiry.
Figure 1: Differences in the number of fast charging stations (Tesla Supercharger and CHAdeMO) between Norway, Germany and Spain.
When observing we aim to determine the problems that users have while they charge an EV, in their daily lives and in the context in which the related charging systems are used. Having identified the problems the inquiry stage begins, in which the users are directly asked what has caused these problems and whether there are features, new forms of usage or even new strategies that they use to overcome the limitations associated with charging an EV.
Figure 2: Forums visited for the observational studies
To carry out the observations we used an online method called Netnography. This is an observation method that aims at understanding the social interaction in the current contexts of digital communication, such as social media sites and thematic forums. Accordingly, free unrestrained conversations that are entered into on these platforms are used.
For the EV drivers the observations are made on the digital platforms of three different countries (Figure 1): Spain and Germany, the representatives of the big vehicle markets in the EU, and Norway, which is the most developed market at a European level. Furthermore, in Spain drivers of light electric vehicles were observed, by visiting eight different forums (Figure 2).
Table 1: Size of the qualitative research sample .
The technical data related to the EV charging process was obtained using the Delphi method, which started the inquiry stage. Professionals and experts answered an online questionnaire containing questions about the state-of-art of the charging technology and how this technology is evolving. Four different professional profiles took part in two Q&A sessions: UMPs (urban mobility planners), EMSPs (mobility service providers), CPOs (charge point operators), and DSOs (energy distribution system operators). The technical partners of the USER-CHI project gave out the questionnaire among their network of contacts, both in the first and the second Q&A sessions.
Similarly, to gather together the information obtained directly from the end users we created a Field diary, which is basically an online questionnaire with open-ended questions about their experience with the electric vehicle and charging it, which the users answer directly, or it is filled in with the help of a third party in interview format. People living in the cities that are part of the project consortium (Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Roma, and Turku) were asked to fill in the questionnaire. The total number of users who took part in the observation and inquiry stages of this ambitious qualitative research was 803, as shown in Table 1.
RESULTS
The results of our research work are consistent, and they highlight the need to create an efficient network of charging stations, which is dense enough to guarantee EV users availability once they have reserved online beforehand. Perhaps the NextGen EU funds are an opportunity to develop this charging station network, which will undoubtedly play a decisive role in the mobility decarbonization in Spain and in Europe.
This requirement directly involves two of the three basic components of e-mobility: the charging infrastructure and the apps. The third component, the EV, seems to be on another level because the users express their satisfaction with a product that, although it is thought to be somewhat expensive, meets the expectations of the users and it is used as a product that replaces the internal combustion engine vehicles. Moreover, the viewpoint of the users is quite similar with regard to the light EVs, seeing as they consider them to be very useful easy devices for travelling short distances around the city.
If we analyze the aforesaid results using a quality model proposed by Kano[2], the conclusion drawn is that the charging infrastructure and the apps do not meet the basic quality requirements yet. These basic quality requirements are mainly:
• The availability of a dense network of charging stations in cities and on roads, this includes promoting the setting up of charging stations in the homes of the drivers and in the public and communal car parks.
• A procedure to reserve a charging station that guarantees that it will be available when the driver gets there.
As the basic quality requirements are not met the users think that the technology is not mature enough for the EV charging infrastructure and consequently they still do not trust e-mobility. These conclusions do not affect the e-mobility of the light EVs, seeing as they are mainly charged at home using the domestic infrastructure.
• In line with the Kano model, we could consider improvement requirements for the e-mobility of the automobile to be as follows:
• Determine the status of the charging station: busy-free-in maintenance, blocked, charging or reserved.
• Increase the number of fast charging stations; fast charging on roads.
• Standardize technical parts and signage.
• Automatically detect users at the charging station.
• Between 6 and 12% of the car parks in cities are equipped with electric charging stations; availability of the charging infrastructure on a neighborhood level.
• Include the management of domestic charging in the apps.
• Pay by credit card (contactless).
• Interoperability among the charging points, at a European level.
• Use the utilities of the app without having to register.
• One unique app to define routes, reserve and pay; pre-reserve.
• Various sockets per charging station or simultaneous charging of electric vehicles.
• Additional information for users such as the minimum charging time, lower price, maximum percentage of green energy, carbon footprint, reduction of CO2 emissions, charge planning,time that the charging infrastructure is blocked by an automobile that is not charging and the preferences of users, are considered to be interesting features for some experts. These additional features require information to be shared among all the parties involved (EMSPs, CPOs and DSOs) through the Open Charge Point Interface – OCPI 2.2
Furthermore, the additional services to carry out activities when the battery is charged are identified as being excess-quality requirements or differentials, a distinction is made between the services in the urban charging stations, such as shopping malls or mobility hubs, and charging station services on the road, on long distance journeys.
[2] Kano, N., N. Seraku, F. Takahashi and S. Tsuji: Attractive Quality and Must-be Quality, Hinshitsu, The Journal of the Japanese Society for Quality Control, (April 1984), pp. 39 -48.
CONCLUSIONS
The final conclusion drawn highlights the fact that the results obtained in the qualitative research carried out in USER-CHI, which have been validated through an online questionnaire answered by more than 2500 users in the countries included in Table 1, show certain key aspects about how the charging infrastructures must evolve and the apps that run the EV charging process to meet the expectations of the end users. As for the electric vehicles, the results suggest that this technology is ready to replace the internal combustion engine vehicles, although the lack of a strong charging infrastructure is slowing this technological change down.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank all the members of the USER-CHI consortium for actively taking part in obtaining the results presented in this paper. This project has received funding from the Horizonte 2020 research and innovation program of the European Union in line with the grant agreement No. [875187].
