Electric Vehicle Research Interview

15th May 2010 - Today we will be completing the electric vehicle research interview. All this week we have been keeping a detailed dairy of our everyday use as a family with an electric car.

We were contacted back in January via the G-Wiz Forums by a student at Durham. She is researching how an EV is used in the real world by regular users.

During this week we have travelled a total of 175.1 miles, on average this is 25 miles per day. During the week we did not use our petrol car at all.

Here is a summary of the main interview:

• How do we use an electric car? We use our electric car nearly everyday for most of our journeys. The only time we use our petrol car is for long journeys, holidays and if we both need to use a car.
• Where do we recharge? We mainly recharge at home, but have used charging points at council car parks.
• Did we need to have any changes to the house for the electric car? We have a garage with electricity so we can plug the car in. There is a smart meter with a timer for the Mitsubishi i MiEV
• When do we recharge? We have a timer which we set to come on at midnight, so we are using off peak electricity
• How do we drive the car? We both try and drive the car by using eco driving techniques. We mainly use Eco and Boost mode for the regenerative braking.
• Why did we buy an electric car? We have always been interested in cars and unusual cars. Mike had liked the idea of an electric car from when the Sinclair C5 was launched.
• When did we first buy our G-Wiz? Our first electric car was purchased in 2006.
• Do we have any range anxiety? We always know how many miles we can achieve on the range, so we keep within this range.
• Do electric cars need a charging infrastructure? People who travel further distances will need a charging network. We would travel further if charging points were installed in cities and Motorway service stations. Some of these charging stations will need to be fast charging, so that you can stop for a short break and get back on the road again quickly.

It has been useful for use to week the week long diary and see how many miles we complete each day and when we recharge the car.

We were also able to take the student for a drive in the Mitsubishi i MiEV and she was able to drive our G-Wiz.

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