Market Review and Technical Properties of Electric Vehicles in Germany

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is very interesting from a scientific point of view. The results are noteworthy and merit to be published. The paper is well structured and clear, I only suggest improving English grammar, since there are a lot of mistakes.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and the kind words. We have thoroughly revised the grammar of the paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper proposes the market review and technical properties of electric vehicles in Germany. So, the authors illustrated the survey results of the sold and registered, battery capacity and charging power in Germany. The research works are based on data and analyzed by summarization and graphs. To be journal published, the authors must solve the following problems.  

(1) In Abstract section, the authors have to show the goal of this paper and explain the proposed method.

(2) The contributions of this paper should be added in this paper.

(3) Quantitative data analysis such as frequency analysis or regression analysis is required to improve understanding of the collected data and survey results.

Author Response

This paper proposes the market review and technical properties of electric vehicles in Germany. So, the authors illustrated the survey results of the sold and registered, battery capacity and charging power in Germany. The research works are based on data and analyzed by summarization and graphs. To be journal published, the authors must solve the following problems. 

Thank you for the comments. We have addressed your queries as outlined below.

(1) In Abstract section, the authors have to show the goal of this paper and explain the proposed method.

The goal is now given more explicitly and the method description moved to be more prominent.

(2) The contributions of this paper should be added in this paper.

We have made the contributions of the paper more clear by moving the content in a separate section and with additional clarification

(3) Quantitative data analysis such as frequency analysis or regression analysis is required to improve understanding of the collected data and survey results.

No surveys were used in this paper. Concerning frequency or regression analysis, the data presented unfortunately does not really warrant for such an analysis. We have added a reference to a previous publication (C. Hecht, J. Figgener, and D. U. Sauer, “Analysis of Electric Vehicle Charging Station Usage and Profitability in Germany based on Empirical Data,” 2022.) where such methodologies were used to discover how stations are used instead of the simple market size. In our current paper, however, the time steps of 1 month and regional resolution of 16 federal states is too coarse to generate any useful insights. The number of features (socio-economic differences, different industries, political views, overall growing market, varying purchase incentives, vehicle manufacturers having to meet fleet emission quota, etc.) are just too numerous to generate reliable relationships. If you have a suggestion for a concrete analysis that you would be curious about, we are of course happy to see whether results can be generated.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have presented an interesting data-driven overview of electric vehicles. Following are a few points that if addressed can improve the manuscript:

1. Wherever possible and applicable, the authors should try to use the month spelled out to indicate a date. Usage of date/month/year or month/date/year format would make it confusing for international readers.

2. In the abstract:

a) There is a discontinuity in the following statement of the abstract: "The results were generated..". The authors should elaborate on this further.

b) the full form of CCS is not mentioned.

3. There is a discontinuity in the following statement in the introduction: "Our paper does not follow since..." 

4. Minor change: Figure 1 text is in bold on Page 4.

5. Authors mention CCS in the abstract but the results, specifically, the Figure 6 CHAdeMO results instead of CCS. Authors should explain this and/or update the abstract accordingly.

6. As this is a review paper, based on the title, an extensive comparison of the existing works either in the form of a related works section or as a comparison of results obtained in other existing studies can be added to the conclusion. For instance: FACTS Approach to Address Cybersecurity Issues in Electric Vehicle Battery Systems, Overview of Technical Specifications for Grid-Connected Microgrid Battery Energy Storage Systems

Author Response

The authors have presented an interesting data-driven overview of electric vehicles. Following are a few points that if addressed can improve the manuscript:

Thank you for the nice remarks and helpful comments.

1. Wherever possible and applicable, the authors should try to use the month spelled out to indicate a date. Usage of date/month/year or month/date/year format would make it confusing for international readers.

Adjusted all plots

2. In the abstract:
3. a) There is a discontinuity in the following statement of the abstract: "The results were generated..". The authors should elaborate on this further.

I am afraid that I cannot follow you here. The sentence is continued in the paper. Maybe a mistake occurred when inserting the abstract into the MDPI system and we will ensure that this is not repeated.

1. b) the full form of CCS is not mentioned.

Fixed (for CHAdeMO as well in the text, but not in the abstract)

3. There is a discontinuity in the following statement in the introduction: "Our paper does not follow since..."

Fixed

4. Minor change: Figure 1 text is in bold on Page 4.

The bold font was replaced with a normal font

5. Authors mention CCS in the abstract but the results, specifically, the Figure 6 CHAdeMO results instead of CCS. Authors should explain this and/or update the abstract accordingly.

We chose to show CHAdeMO as the largest competitor to CCS since the data is clearer for CHAdeMO than for CCS. The reason for this is that Tesla switched from their proprietary socket to CCS, but we cannot tell for which models exactly this is the case. We added an explanation in the text leading up to figure 6.

6. As this is a review paper, based on the title, an extensive comparison of the existing works either in the form of a related works section or as a comparison of results obtained in other existing studies can be added to the conclusion. For instance: FACTS Approach to Address Cybersecurity Issues in Electric Vehicle Battery Systems, Overview of Technical Specifications for Grid-Connected Microgrid Battery Energy Storage Systems

Thank you for this comment. We inserted a reference to a market overview paper that also includes results from tertiary studies. However, we believe that there is a bit of confusion between a market review and a review paper. Our paper is a market review, which means that we collect fundamental information about the market. The goal and structure is not that of a classical review paper that encompasses a wide area of literature. For this reason, we do not believe that the two suggested papers are directly connected to the sale and technical properties of vehicles sold in Germany.