Electric cars can also be used for everyday journeys outside of urban centres without any restrictions. This is the conclusion reached by the energy storage experts at NEXT ENERGY after analysing a ten-week field test with three Audi A2s converted to electric drive. "Our test subjects covered a total of 12,166 kilometres and were able to integrate the vehicles into their everyday lives without any restrictions," reports project leader Christian Finger, who is responsible at NEXT ENERGY for the GridSurfer project funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, whose research activities included the road tests.
In the field test, the research team was primarily interested in gaining insights into user acceptance and the reliability of electric cars in rural areas. Accordingly, commuters were primarily used as test subjects in the project region around Oldenburg. The distance between home and work was up to 80 kilometres. In order to be able to record as many private journeys as possible, the researchers selected particularly powerful batteries with 40 kilowatt hours of battery storage for the test. "They were developed by the Berlin-based company DBM Energy and confirmed a reliable range of 200 kilometres in the test," says Finger. "According to our findings, even distances of up to 230 kilometres are no problem with a moderate driving style." By way of comparison, the test subjects had previously specified an average range of 150 kilometres as the minimum requirement for a second car.
The tests were designed in such a way that every vehicle movement was recorded using data loggers and GPS. The user profiles generated from this resulted in an average daily range utilisation of 60 percent. This corresponds to a mileage of around 120 kilometres. The charging time of up to eight hours hardly played a role, as this was mostly done at night. The test subjects did not perceive the maximum range as a restriction in their everyday lives. Accordingly, none of the test subjects utilised the battery capacity until it was fully discharged. Another indication of a sufficient range of 200 kilometres: the ECO energy-saving mode, which can be used to limit the engine power and thus extend the range, was not used by most of the test drivers. Instead, strong acceleration was favoured.