February ’24 Project #3 Update: Systems of Systems

Project Leads: Yuanrui Sang and Patrick Singleton

Key Accomplishments for this Quarter:

Task 2: Modified emissions model in Salt Lake region to run at a small spatial scale (1km).
Task 3: Collected and started analyzing survey data in Indiana about light-duty EV adoption, perceptions, and charging preferences.
Task 3: Analyzing and comparing social media and traditional media content on EVs. Paper accepted for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association co-authored by Cervini, Ruan, Lv, and Clawson
Task 4: Expand the nation-wide model of vehicle energy consumption to include more than just major highways.
Task 5: Develop a “micro-city” for live testing of wireless power transfer in 800 sq ft lab with 10 ground robots that compete for wireless chargers: (1) assembled vehicles and developed autonomous navigation; (2) developed interface to motion capture system for accurate positioning.; (3) Wireless power transfer simulation for city and highways completed and expanded for additional vehicle types.
Task 6: Performed an EV aggregation study with a large number of EVs and conducted EV-induced emission studies in the El Paso power system.
Task 7: Visualization service version 1 with aggregated values for the state of Utah and higher-resolution data for SLC region developed. Additional data from external sources and IIB partners integrated into visualization.

The EV aggregation work done in Task 6 is a continuation of the collaborative work done during the INTERN Program (funded by NSF) with Ford.
Task 3 social and traditional media analysis gives us an important picture of the political and social context surrounding the move toward electrified transportation.

Our analysis of survey data from Indiana is helping us understand the perceptions and knowledge gaps regarding EVs and EV charging systems. This information could help to educate the public and provide EV charging solutions that better address consumer concerns.
The enhancement of tools to analyze vehicle energy consumption at a national level is helping to better model the levelized costs of various EV charging technologies, to inform policymakers and industry about the most cost-effective paths forward.
The EV aggregation work reduces the burden of EV integration and provides benefits to the power grid.
The emission analysis unveils the impacts of EV integration on emissions produced in the transportation and energy sectors.

Our comparative analysis of traditional news articles and social media posts regarding EVs and transportation electrification shows that such public discussions are rarely centered around equity issues. Thus, there is an opportunity to frame local news stories and community discussions on EVs/charging around equity topics and to engage and highlight the perspectives and considerations of members of underserved communities.
We are beginning to study the secondary EV market to understand trends, performance, etc. The sale of used EVs is an important market to achieve population-wide adoption, especially for lower-income segments. However, there are still concerns/unknowns about long-term maintenance, battery performance (range, lifetime), and other factors with used EVs.
Task 3 social and traditional media analysis includes an examination of equity discourse.
Equity is considered in EV charging station allocation and the emissions induced by EV charging in this project.