Location of the Interurban Fast Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles Using the Methodology for Calculating the Maximum Distance between Fast Charges (MDFC) and Simulation: A Case Study in Ecuador
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This article is detailed and well written, and I only have minor questions for the authors.
1. What is the effect of number of passengers traveling in the vehicle? We can expect a change in the vehicle range with increasing number of passengers, and this could be a useful parameter to model.
2. With the projected trend for EV sales in Ecuador, how many charging outlets per charging station would be required to obtain realistic charging wait times of say 30 minutes or less?
3. For the case of 4 lane highway, can the authors model improvements in vehicle range if one of the lanes were designated for high occupancy and EV vehicles by the government? High occupancy lanes are commonly used to promote car sharing and EV vehicles in other countries.
Author Response
Point 1: What is the effect of number of passengers traveling in the vehicle? We can expect a change in the vehicle range with increasing number of passengers, and this could be a useful parameter to model.
Response 1: The mass of the vehicle for our model is one of the most important parameters to consider, in the dynamic simulation block we have kept the option to change the mass in the simulation. Considering that we have the curb weight and the gross vehicle weight provided by the manufacturer's data, we have decided to use the latter because it would be the most critical and useful case for the planning of the infrastructure, allowing us to ensure the functionality of the location to be proposed. Indeed, the number of passengers influences the range of the vehicle. For example, in order to know the effect of the number of passengers through simulation, using the curb weight of the KIA Soul EV plus the weight of a driver of 80 kg, the vehicle would reach 20% SOC traveling a distance of 127.14 km on the one-way route Riobamba - Quito. When using the gross weight of the vehicle, i.e. 1960 kg, which would include 1 driver, 4 passengers and luggage, the distance that can be reached is 117.09 km, i.e. 7.90% of autonomy is lost. Considering the above, we can say that the number of passengers is a parameter that affects the performance of the vehicle, so we recommend that in the application of this methodology the gross vehicle weight is used, considering that the location of the minimum load infrastructure should allow the EV to comply with the route under any operating circumstances.
Point 2: With the projected trend for EV sales in Ecuador, how many charging outlets per charging station would be required to obtain realistic charging wait times of say 30 minutes or less?
Response 2: At the moment, as we have been able to know through our work, the participation of electric vehicles in our country is really very low, representing a total of 0.16% of total sales from January to July 2022. The 325 KIA Soul EVs are currently used in the urban environment at a national level so at the moment and taking into account the percentage of participation in sales mentioned above, we consider sufficient to use 2 chargers per charging station. However, future trends will seek to replace the gasoline-powered vehicle fleet in our country. Currently, the fuel stations on the analyzed route generally have 10 gasoline and 4 diesel fuel dispensers, that is, in the future there should be 14 points per station, recommending that each point can supply up to 2 fast charges at the same time, in order to improve the waiting queue. It is also important to mention that the model analyzed, KIA SOUL, was sold until 2022, currently new models with better specifications are entering the country, which will promote that waiting lines can be reduced to more reasonable waiting times.
Point 3: For the case of 4 lane highway, can the authors model improvements in vehicle range if one of the lanes were designated for high occupancy and EV vehicles by the government? High occupancy lanes are commonly used to promote car sharing and EV vehicles in other countries.
Response 3: Well, in this case, the data entered into the simulation correspond to records of vehicle behavior on these routes, the data correspond to the altitude and speed profile obtained from the experimental records, so the behavior of the speed profile includes the behavior of the traffic and the maximum speed that can be reached on this road at present. The road under study has a stretch of 82.2 km with mostly only 2 lanes, then 102 km of a road with 4 and even 6 lanes in certain sections but given the high vehicular flow we can consider that it would be very complicated to have 1 exclusive lane. We can also mention that according to what is shown in the MDFC method, 5% of autonomy is penalized for high traffic factors, this consideration is taken into account in Table 3 for our application given the high traffic conditions of the current route, so by having a special lane we would estimate to adjust the results with a 5% improvement in autonomy for the location of the stations if at some point the government decides to adopt the designation of a high occupancy lane on the road.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript describes a method to determine the geographic location of fast charges in a route in Equator. It is a very specific case with a choice of a very specific car model, popular in Equator, that serves a dual purpose of method validation as well as directly application into society.
The paper has a very didactic language with a great level of detail. The methodology presented proved to be solid enough to be applicable to diverse scenarios around the world. Overall the manuscript is of high quality and I endorse it for publication in WEVJ.
Author Response
Point 1: The manuscript describes a method to determine the geographic location of fast charges in a route in Equator. It is a very specific case with a choice of a very specific car model, popular in Equator, that serves a dual purpose of method validation as well as directly application into society.
The paper has a very didactic language with a great level of detail. The methodology presented proved to be solid enough to be applicable to diverse scenarios around the world. Overall the manuscript is of high quality and I endorse it for publication in WEVJ..
Response 1: We are very grateful for your comments and it motivates us to continue working on the development of scientific knowledge that will help to promote the incursion of electric mobility in our country and in the region. We hope and trust that this work will be of great use to anyone who needs to undertake this type of research and application in your country.
Best regards.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
