Forecasting the state of health of electric vehicle batteries to evaluate the viability of car sharing practices

Abstract

Car-sharing practices are introducing electric vehicles (EVs) into their fleet. However, the literature suggests that at this point shared EV systems are failing to reach satisfactory commercial viability. A potential reason for this is the effect of higher vehicle usage, which is characteristic of car sharing, and the implications on the battery's state of health (SoH). In this paper, we forecast the SoH of two identical EVs being used in different car-sharing practices. For this purpose, we use real life transaction data from charging stations and different EV sensors. The results indicate that insight into users' driving and charging behavior can provide a valuable point of reference for car-sharing system designers. In particular, the forecasting results show that the moment when an EV battery reaches its theoretical end of life can differ in as much as a quarter of the time when vehicles are shared under different conditions.