Electric Vehicle and Management of its Autonomy: a Prospective Approach Anchored in a Real-life Experience

Empirical Studies
By Claudine Nguyen, Béatrice Cahour
English

"The development of the Electric Vehicle (EV) raises the issue of the management of the limited autonomy and its impacts on the drivers’ activity and user experience. In a first phase, through interviews and questionnaires, four styles of management of autonomy with thermal vehicles were identified. These styles are dependent on the emotional relation which binds drivers at the risk of a breakdown and generally motivates the behavior of resupplying. They consist in adopting an anticipative or reactive behavior of resupplying, which depends on the emotional relation to the risk; they can be modified by some contextual determiners. In a second phase, based on a two week use of EV, we observed the transfer of the styles to the EV, which indicates that they can be used for prospective ergonomics. The difficulty of determining exactly the evolution of the EV autonomy generates concerns and the design of new instruments and services must reduce the uncertainty; the perceptions and interpretations of the relevant instruments were then analyzed. In a third phase, the experience of our drivers and their confrontation to prototypes brought them into a situation of realistic and creative projection where they could propose innovations for the management of autonomy. Of particular interest in our study is the articulation of varied methodologies which, by leaning on real-life experience, supply forward-looking ideas to support the design of innovative instruments and services which will participate in the safety and emotional comfort of future EV."

Keywords

  • electric car
  • lived experience
  • styles
  • affects
  • management of the risk
  • user expectations
  • innovation
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