Effects of ambient temperature and trip characteristics on the energy consumption of an electric vehicle

Abstract This work evaluates the impacts of ambient temperature and trip characteristics on the energy consumption of an electric vehicle (EV) during road tests. The trip characteristics are here defined by the driving distance, stop time percentage and average vehicle speed. The analysis uses data collected from real-world driving of an EV in one of the most populous metropolitan regions in the UK for almost four years, using a dedicated monitoring software for real-time vehicle data processing. The results reveal that the EV specific energy consumption (SEC) increases under operation at low temperature, also showing a larger scatter. Significant changes in SEC are linked to auxiliary energy demand and trip characteristics, especially under cold temperatures. Trips complying with a real-world driving test procedure produced lower SEC than random trips at cold temperatures but showed closed values at moderate temperatures. At both cold and moderate temperature conditions the EV presented lower SEC for urban driving, in comparison with rural and motorway operation, confirming its adequacy for application in metropolitan areas. Urban EV operation at low temperatures from 0 °C to 15 °C has a trip range 28% lower than driving at moderate temperatures from 15 °C to 25 °C.