Electric vehicle test and evaluation program: Site operators´ experience

A total of 35 private companies and federal, state, and local agencies are currently participating in the Department of Energy´s Electric Vehicle Test and Evaluation Program. These participants are operating, in aggregate, 712 electric vehicles in 22 states and the District of Columbia, and reporting monthly to the Department of Energy (DOE) on their operating and maintenance experience with the vehicles. When the program closes in 1985, an estimated 25 000 vehicle-months of data will have been collected. At this time, approximately 6000 vehicle-months of data have been collected since the program´s first fully operational fleet was put into service in January 1980. The data show that battery reliability and maintenance constitute a significant problem in the vehicles now in operation.