The top three things that customers want to know about electric vehicles (EVs) are environmental benefits, how much it will cost to charge a vehicle and where the charging stations are located. That is just one of the findings of a new white paper released by Southern California Edison (SCE) recently after a survey of the company’s 12,000 customers who currently drive EVs.
The survey focused on how customers can shape what the company does to get the US ready for widespread EV adoption and the paper shares information based primarily on data provided voluntarily by customers and utility operations.
“My sense is that SCE is a very forward-thinking company and will do what they can to help their customers make the change to home-vehicle charging” said Marc Gebauer of Lawndale, who took part in the research for the white paper “Charged Up: Southern California Edison’s Key Learnings about Electric Vehicles, Customers and Grid Reliability.”
Some of the six major findings in the paper include the fact that “range anxiety” disappears after driving the vehicle consistently over a period of time. Most customers reported that overnight charging at 240 volts was sufficient to support daily driving patterns. Additionally, the paper found that the grid was sufficiently able to support EVs and that actually the impact on the grid from EVs is miniscule.
Of 400 upgrades carried out on circuits serving the owners of plug-in cars, only 1 percent were in response to increased electrical demand. This finding should alleviate various fears about EVs overloading the grid, and the good news is that SCE is not the only company to have found plenty of capacity for EV charging, other companies have reported similar results.
Around 65 percent of SCE customers who own plug-in vehicles own a plug-in hybrid with the remaining 35 percent owning an all-electric vehicle. Furthermore, around 50 percent of the plug-in hybrid owners are charging their vehicles on regular 120 volt outlets rather than opting to go to a full charging station. SCE is beginning to see a higher adoption of all electric cars yet despite high interest in EVs from apartment occupiers, fewer than 5 percent of building owners or condominium associations are considering installing the necessary charging infrastructure. Multiple rebates and incentives are being considered to improve this situation but in the meantime residents of apartments, condos or townhouse complexes have to negotiate charging station installation with their landlords or home owners associations (HOA’s). Fortunately California law prevents landlords and HOA’s from blocking charging station installations.
Customers are also satisfied with the “end charge” programming feature which enables most electric cars toend the charging at a specific time of day (or night). This has the effect of randomizing charging start times meaning that there won’t be hundreds of EVs starting their charge cycle at midnight.
Finally, the paper found that the 180 cities in the SCE service territory are committed to helping their residents plug in to the network, primarily by streamlining and permitting inspection processes.
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