Lessons learned from the Danish EV living lab

The success of EVs in the marketplace will highly depend on the end-user acceptance. Insero E-Mobility has examined the user acceptance of EVs through a living lab study, where 80 Danish families used EVs for a period of 8-10 weeks as their only car. The study included a general test and identification of problems faced during usage as well as positive features of the EVs. Fleet potentials were additionally investigated with two trials in departments in Danish municipalities for 14 days. The living lab approach was used to reveal actual and latent needs as well as to facilitate innovation processes with the purpose of rendering input for product and business model development that will increase chance of end-user acceptance of EVs in the future. Long term public user trials has also in the case of the Danish EV Living Lab proven to provide comprehensive and rich amount of information on end customer needs and perceptions that can be used to define value across a range of attributes considered in vehicle purchasing decisions. Key conclusions are that 90% of families found that an EV could fulfil their demands but that range is an important issue even though it is mostly a psychological barrier. For fleets the EVs make sense to an extent depending on the predictability of driving behaviour and available infrastructure.