Effects of Electric Vehicle Adoption for State-Wide Intercity Trips on Emission Saving and Energy Consumption

Abstract: Electric vehicles (EVs) are considered as sustainable alternatives to conventional vehicles, as they reduce emission and fossil fuel dependency. A recent study has proposed a charging infrastructure planning tool to support intercity trips for the estimated EV market share (6 percent) in Michigan for 2030. The main goal of this study is to estimate the emission reduction associated with this electrification rate and infrastructure investment for light duty vehicles. To this end, a state-of-the-art emission estimation framework is proposed to be applied to the state-wide intercity travels. The main contributions of the proposed framework includes: 1) Incorporating a micro emission estimation model for simulated vehicle trajectories of the intercity network of Michigan, 2) Adjusting the micro emission model results considering impacts of monthly travel demand and temperature variations, and heterogeneity of vehicles based on their make, model, and age. The emission estimation framework is then compared with the traditional VMT analysis method as a benchmark. Finally, five different scenarios are explored for EV adoption to assess potential emission savings from the given electrification rate for each scenario. The results suggest an annual CO2 emission savings of 0.58-0.92 million-ton. The CO2 social cost savings may justify the investment on the network electrification. Note that only 3.7 to 8.6 percent of the total EV energy requirements must be provided via the DC fast charger network proposed by the charging infrastructure planning tool. This requires annual energy consumption of 22.15 to 51.76 BWh for the estimated EV market share in Michigan for 2030.