Electric Vehicles

Driving Equity: Can Electric Vehicle Carsharing Improve Grocery Access in Underserved Communities? A Case Study of BlueLA

Yassine, Ziad
Elizabeth Deakin
Martin, Elliot W.
Susan Shaheen
2025

Carsharing has long supported trip purposes typically made by private vehicles, with grocery shopping especially benefiting from the carrying capacity of a personal vehicle. BlueLA is a one-way, station-based electric vehicle (EV) carsharing service in Los Angeles aimed at improving access in low-income neighborhoods. We hypothesize that BlueLA improves grocery access for underserved households by increasing their spatial-temporal reach to diverse grocery store types. We test two hypotheses: (1) accessibility from BlueLA stations to grocery stores varies by store type, traffic conditions,...

Charging Ahead: Perceptions and Adoption of Electric Vehicles Among Full- and Part-Time Ridehailing Drivers in California

Ju, Mengying
Martin, Elliot
Susan Shaheen
2025

California’s SB 1014 (Clean Miles Standard) mandates ridehailing fleet electrification to reduce emissions from vehicle miles traveled, posing financial and infrastructure challenges for drivers. This study employs a mixed-methods approach, including expert interviews (n = 10), group discussions (n = 8), and a survey of full- and part-time drivers (n = 436), to examine electric vehicle (EV) adoption attitudes and policy preferences. Access to home charging and prior EV experience emerged as the most statistically significant predictors of EV acquisition. Socio-demographic variables,...

Charging Ahead: How Income and Home Access Shape Electric Vehicle Adoption among Ridehailing Drivers

Susan Shaheen
Martin, Elliot
Ju, Mengying
2025

Transportation network companies (TNCs), also known as ridehailing, such as Uber and Lyft, have contributed to increased vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and associated emissions in California’s urban areas over the past decade. In response, Senate Bill (SB) 1014 – the Clean Miles Standard – requires TNCs to achieve 90% electric vehicle (EV) miles traveled and zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per passenger mile by 2030. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) oversee implementation and enforcement of these targets.

Zero-emission Mobility Strategies: Innovation, Diversity, and Integration

Du, Bo
Liu, Wei
Song, Ziqi
Susan Shaheen
2025

The transportation sector accounts for a substantial proportion of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions globally. Electrification of transportation systems has emerged as a promising pathway to achieve sustainability, especially with the widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in recent decades. Various types of EVs, particularly battery electric vehicles (BEVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), have gained considerable attention in research, spanning diverse domains, such as battery management, charging infrastructure planning...

Electric Vehicles and Social Equity

Yassine, Ziad
Susan Shaheen
2025

The shift toward electric vehicles (EVs) involves addressing both environmental sustainability and social equity concerns. It underscores the importance of inclusive approaches to ensure fair access to EV technology. As EVs gain traction as a sustainable transportation strategy, it is critical to address disparities in charging infrastructure, vehicle affordability, and environmental justice. There is a need to incorporate EVs into social equity frameworks that include innovative policies, community involvement, and targeted investments in underserved areas. A comprehensive approach is...

Planning the Electric Vehicle Transition by Integrating Spatial Information and Social Networks

Wu, Jiaman
Salgado, Ariel
Marta Gonzalez
2025

The transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) offers a promising pathway for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Spatial forecasts of PEV adoption are essential to support power grid adaptation, yet forecasting is hindered by limited data at this early stage of adoption. While different model calibrations can replicate current trends, they often yield divergent forecasts. Using empirical data from states with the highest levels of adoption in the United States, this study shows that accounting for spatial and social networks among potential PEV adopters...

Global Sensitivity Analysis of 0-D Lithium Sulfur Electrochemical Model

Dangwal, Chitra
Kato, Dylan
Huang, Zhijia
Kandel, Aaron
Moura, Scott
2023

This paper examines global parameter sensitivity in a zero-dimensional lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery model. Li-S batteries are an appealing cell chemistry due to their high theoretical energy density, abundant supply, and low cost. Due to the lack of complete understanding of the underlying working mechanisms for Li-S cells, the development of mathematical models and state estimation is still in its early stages. Model development and parameter Identification are closely associated. Both are essential for developing battery management systems (BMS) in commercialized Li-S powered...

Roadway Electrification and Automation Technologies

Shladover, Steven
1990

This paper explains how the new technologies of roadway electrification and automation can be applied to help alleviate the severe transportation/ environmental/energy problems facing our major metropolitan areas. The necessity of a complete system solution that encompasses these three problem areas simultaneously is emphasized. While the roadway-electrification technology is targeted at the environmental and energy problems, the automatic steering and longitudinal control technologies serve to enhance mobility and safety in our urban motor transportation system. The vehicle control...

The Roadway-Powered Electric Transit Vehicle Progress and Prospects

Shladover, Steven
1987

In this paper, progress in the development of the roadway powered electric vehicle (RPEV) technology for use on a transit bus is reviewed, and the possible future applications of this technology are explored. The paper focuses on the Santa Barbara Electric Bus project, for which this development work was conducted. The various phases of this project are reviewed, and the baseline roadway powered electric vehicle system for Santa Barbara is described. Its costs are compared with those for more conventional bus technologies. The implications of the progress made in the Santa Barbara project...

Optimized PV-coupled Battery Systems for Combining Applications: Impact of Battery Technology and Geography

Pena-Bello, A.
Barbour, E.
Gonzalez, M. C.
Patel, M. K.
Parra, D.
2019

Interest in residential batteries to supply photovoltaic (PV) electricity on demand is increasing, however they are not profitable yet. Combining applications has been suggested as a way to increase their attractiveness, but the extent to which this can be achieved, as well as how the different value propositions may affect the optimal battery technology, remain unclear. In this study, we develop an open-source optimization framework to determine the best-suited battery technology depending on the size and the applications combined, including PV self-consumption, demand load-shifting,...