Optimal Mileage of Electric Vehicles Considering Range Anxiety and Charging Times

Abstract

This paper aims to find out the optimal mileage of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) by considering the trade-off between range anxiety and charging times, since frequent charging is a customary way to ease range anxiety for BEV drivers in practice, but declines the life cycle of battery and increases the charging cost. We propose a power function to measure the range anxiety and then solve two types of optimal mileages. The results show that the increment of BEVs’ cruising range increases the optimal absolute mileage but decreases the optimal relative mileage, while the improvement of the driver’s tolerance to range anxiety increases both. It is concluded that improving the driver’s tolerance, such as by expanding charging infrastructures and raising drivers’ practical experience with BEVs, is more effective than the increment of BEVs’ cruising range. The findings help to understand the optimal mileage of EVs and provide recommendations on the design of BEVs’ cruising range.