Ford said it had developed a smart algorithm that could support increased electric vehicle use, especially in cities, by identifying the most beneficial places to install charging stations.
This is based on more than 1m kilometres of driving data and is intended to allay driver concerns as regards wasteful journeys or running out of charge.
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It made its announcement on the first day of London’s new Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).
The idea is to help drivers integrate charging within their operating patterns, rather than making special journeys to out of the way locations.
Following in-depth analysis in Greater London, the team concluded that it would be possible to significantly improve access to on-the-go charging through deploying a relatively small number of strategically positioned rapid-charging stations.
John Scott, project lead, city data solutions, Ford Mobility, said, as well as providing the electric vehicles, “we also want to try to use data to help improve investment efficiency into the necessary infrastructure to support that approach”.
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By GlobalDataTo get the data, it fitted a plug-in device to record journey data to 160 connected vans. This generated more than 500m data points, from more than 15,000 days of vehicle use, that was sent to the cloud for analysis.
Eight months’ data identified where charging points would be most useful to a fleet. Although the vehicles in the trial were not electric, it was possible to understand their operation and forecast their ability to access charge points as if they were.
By seeing where vehicles travelled, where they parked and for how long, they could identify ways in which charging could be integrated within regular journeys, especially for businesses whose drivers might make multiple stops.
From a separate London fleet trial involving 20 Transit Custom plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) vans, the automaker additionally found fleets operated in pure electric mode for 35% of their time on the road, increasing to 45% in Greater London, and to 68% in central London.
During that trial – based on 80,000km/50,000 miles of PHEV fleet mileage – no use of public charging facilities was observed. Vehicles were instead charged either at depots or at home. On average, vehicles started the day with only 45% charge, underlining the value that charging points en route could add. It was also found that operators became more adept at effectively charging vehicles, predominately at their depots, as time went on.
Rapid-charging stations can provide up to 80% battery charge in 30 to 40 minutes. There are now more than 1m electric cars in Europe and it is expected that worldwide, electric vehicles will account for the majority of all new car sales and a third of all fleets by 2040. But there are already concerns around a shortfall in the provision of charging points.
“Electrification changes the way we drive – and refuel – our vehicles. We realise that charging time and behaviour are fundamentally different for electric vehicles compared with traditional models, where refilling with petrol or diesel may take only five minutes,” said Scott. “In locating these additional charging points, we’ve attempted to take into account regular driving and stopping patterns so that topping up slots into drivers regular day-to-day activities.”
