Evaluation of Performance and Technological Characteristics of Battery Electric Logistics Vehicles: China as a Case Study

Xiaohong Jiang and Xiucheng Guo
Additional contact information
Xiaohong Jiang: College of Automobile and Traffic Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Longpan Road 159#, Nanjing 210037, China
Xiucheng Guo: School of Transportation, Southeast University, Si Pai Lou 2#, Nanjing 210096, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-23

Abstract: The powertrain characteristics of battery electric logistics vehicles (BELVs) are extremely suited for the urban driving context and have a higher environmental protection potential for sustainable development, which can provide solutions for urban logistics decarbonization. The BELV is an important part of the Chinese national new-energy vehicle program, and the market penetration of BELVs has greatly improved. However, BELVs still have many technical shortcomings, which seriously affect their widespread acceptance. Therefore, it is necessary to reveal the technological characteristics and development direction of BELVs based on a large amount of marketing and technological data. This research reviewed the Chinese incentive policies and industrialization progress of BELVs. An evaluation system comprising 8 technological indicators for evaluating BELV technological progress was proposed. The distribution characteristics of the curb mass, vehicle volume, all-electric range, top speed, driving power, energy efficiency, traction battery and motor technology were analyzed for 2017 and 2019 markets’ models. The vehicle total cost, vehicle performance and reliability of BELVs are not advantageous yet. However, all the performance parameters are improving year by year, constantly meeting logistics demands. The subsidies are needed for longer for the market to mature. Finally, several suggestions for the technical development direction of BELVs were proposed. All these results can be used to improve the vehicle performance, reliability and market penetration of BELVs.

Keywords: battery electric logistics vehicles; vehicle performance; technological characteristics; evaluation; all-electric range; energy efficiency; traction battery; subsidy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/10/2455/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/10/2455/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:10:p:2455-:d:357625

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().