Fusion of Carsharing and Charging Station Data to Analyze Behavior of Free-Floating Carsharing BEVs

Although in the last years many models of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) were launched into the market, electric mobility in the car sector is still no mass market. Beside other reasons one problem is the small range of BEVs. To overcome this fear of customers a sufficiently sized public charging infrastructure is necessary. Unfortunately, operating charging stations is not profitable at the moment because of the small number of existing BEVs and the high investment costs. This problem is called the "chicken-egg-problem" of electric mobility. An often mentioned sector which could guarantee at least a basic utilization of charging stations to a public charging infrastructure provider is the electric free-floating carsharing. In this paper booking data of BEVs in a free-floating carsharing fleet as well as charging stations data is evaluated to analyze to which extent free-floating carsharing BEVs are relevant for the utilization of public charging stations. Furthermore charging behavior of different user groups of a free-floating carsharing fleet is analyzed. Also areas are identified which are preferred for the installation of public charging stations based on electric free-floating carsharing. Due to these results the requirements on a public charging infrastructure in terms of size, type and layout are identified from the perspective of a free-floating carsharing provider as well as from the perspective of a public charging infrastructure provider.