A Feasibility Test on Adopting Electric Vehicles to Serve as Taxis in Daejeon Metropolitan City of South Korea

• Main Authors: Seoin Baek, Heetae Kim, Hyun Joon Chang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2016-09-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: electric vehicle; EV taxi; B/C analysis; feasibility test; sustainability
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/9/964

For realizing sustainable development, EV (Electric Vehicle) is currently considered as one of the most promising alternative due to its cleanness and inexhaustibility. However, the development and dissemination of EV has stagnated because it faces major constraints such as battery performance and an excessively long charging time. Thus, this study examined the feasibility of using EVs as taxis by analyzing real data from a pilot project in Daejeon, a metropolitan city in South Korea for proposing the effective way to adopt EV. To reflect reality and improve accuracy, we adopted scenarios and assumptions based on in-depth interviews with groups of experts. The resulting initial benefit-to-cost (B/C) ratio for EV taxis is approximately 0.4, which is quite low compared to 0.7 for traditional taxis. However, after incorporating some further assumptions into the calculation, the B/C ratio shifts to approximately 0.7, which is more appropriate for EV adoption. For this improvement to be achieved, the dissemination of a charging infrastructure, improvement of the business model and policy support is strongly needed. Limitations to this work and potential areas for future study are also fully discussed.