The North East England Electric Vehicle and Infrastructure Trials

This paper will provide an update and overview of the progress with the North East of England trials in the UK and provide an insight into how early adopters are using their vehicle and importantly their charging behaviour with a large number of charging points available to them. The North East of England is one of the pioneers in the wide-scale demonstration of electric vehicles in the United Kingdom. The SwitchEV trial is one of only 8 projects across the UK to have won funding through the Technology Strategy Board’s Ultra Low Carbon Vehicle (ULCV) Demonstrator Programme. As part of the three year trial, 44 full-electric vehicles have been equipped with data loggers to provide an insight into how early adopters are using their vehicles and most importantly their charging behaviour with a large number of charging points available to them. The trials correlates the driving and performance data derived from the vehicles, with charging behaviour derived from both the vehicle loggers and EV recharging infrastructure and soft data from: questionnaires; focus groups; and structured interviews with participants