Research reports
Flip The Fleet research report No. 1
Flip the Fleet: a Citizen Science Approach to Accelerating Uptake of Low Emission Vehicles in New Zealand.
Encouraging uptake of Low Emission Vehicles (LEVs) in New Zealand requires extraordinary efforts to overcome barriers of misconceptions amongst potential purchasers, the absence of strong financial subsidies and regulatory incentives to buy LEVs, and sparse rapid charging infrastructure. The Flip the Fleet project (FtF) takes a ‘citizen science’ approach to better inform the public and businesses of LEV practicality…….
Flip The Fleet research report No. 2
How much fossil fuel use is avoided by Low Emission Vehicles?
Estimation of the fossil fuel savings by Low Emission Vehicles (LEVs) requires an estimate of the fuel consumption of ‘equivalent’ internal combustion engine vehicles (ICVs) that have been displaced. Therefore we first constructed a statistical model of standardised vehicle test ‘driving cycle’ measures of fuel consumption of 90 conventional (ICVs) for ‘urban’, ‘ex-urban’ and ‘combined’ driving conditions in New Zealand. The model …….
Flip The Fleet research report No. 3
Rapid chargers for battery electric vehicles in New Zealand: current use, access and location preferences
Rapid chargers are now installed at many strategic positions to enable long-distance travel through much of New Zealand, even by short-range Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs). However, our survey of 108 BEV owners found that they are required to wait an average of 10 minutes for their turn to charge in around 14% of visits to a rapid charger station. The chargers are not functioning on around 4% of the visits and blocked by an internal combustion vehicle on 2% of visits…..
Pre-prints
Flip the Fleet Preprint No. 1
Accelerated reported battery capacity loss in 30 kWh variants of the Nissan Leaf
Analysis of 1,382 measures of battery State of Health (SoH) from 283 Nissan Leafs (“Leaf/s”), manufactured between 2011 and 2017, has detected a faster rate of decline in this measure of energy-holding capacity for 30 kWh variants. At two years of age, the mean rate of decline of SoH of 30 kWh Leafs was 9.9% per annum (95% uncertainty interval of 8.7% to 11.1%; n=82). This was around three times the rate of decline of 24 kWh Leafs which at two years averaged 3.1% per annum (95% uncertainty interval of 2.9% to 3.3%; n=201)…
Flip the Fleet Preprint No. 1 – Update
30 kWh Nissan Leaf firmware update to correct capacity reporting
In March 2018, Flip the Fleet (FTF) published a paper on the reported battery degradation of the 30 kWh Leaf. Since this report, Walter Larason of EVs Enhanced has carried out nine energy holding capacity tests on a dynamometer which showed that most of them held more energy in their battery pack than was reported by the car’s Lithium Battery Controller (LBC)….
Conference proceedings
Using Citizen Science to Promote Electric Vehicle Uptake in New Zealand
Encouraging uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) in New Zealand requires extraordinary efforts to overcome barriers of misconceptions amongst potential purchasers and absence of strong financial subsidies and regulatory incentives to buy EVs. ‘Flip the Fleet’ (www.flipthefleet.org) is a citizen science approach to better inform public and businesses of EV practicality, financial rewards, environmental and social benefits. Owners of over 1000 EVs upload monthly data from their CAN bus and dashboard, report charging events, repairs and maintenance. Social research provides the human dimension of EV ownership and aids media outreach. Scientific analysis builds trust and reduces uncertainty amongst prospective buyers.
Magazine columns
