Plugging into the future
Posted on Friday, April 5th, 2024
Project Summary:
Our study focuses on raising awareness about electric vehicles (EVs) and the improvement of the charging infrastructure implementation process. The impact of this study will help achieve the goal of the City of Ottawa to be green and resilient.
| Client | City of Ottawa | CityStudio | |
| Professor(s) | Jed Looker | |
| Program | Interdisciplinary Studies in Human-Centred Design | |
| Student Team Members | Andres Alvear Luke Zhaoqing He Nungshi Singh Panthi Chavda Yash Gokhale |
Project Description:
The City of Ottawa is responsible for controlling land use, creating policies and infrastructure for the benefit of its citizens, and has the goal to promote a city that is green and resilient based on its proposed strategic priorities from 2023 to 2026, specifically, the points of reducing emissions on the community and improving key infrastructure. To achieve the goal of reducing emissions, they have created a climate change plan with an ongoing project of developing a strategy of personal vehicle electrification, where they support the adoption of an electric vehicle (EV) to reduce emissions from the community. Furthermore, the City of Ottawa defines the importance of implementing a charging infrastructure at home as a factor for owning an EV.
Our preliminary research found that 80-90% of Electric Vehicle (EV) charging happens in residential settings. The City of Ottawa specifies that tenants, condo owners, and electrically constrained areas could face challenges with a charging infrastructure. However, implementing the personal electrification strategy is off-track in Ottawa. For this reason, the city of Ottawa needs to get a clear understanding of the factors affecting the establishment of an optimized charging infrastructure. We want to generate a comparison between two user groups, EV owners and young adults who wish to own an EV living in Ottawa, to understand better EV needs in residential settings.
The purpose of this research study is to dive deeper into the perception and needs of the current and prospective electric vehicle owners in residential Ottawa. Additionally, we will also focus on identifying the policies or initiatives that other cities are implementing to promote the establishment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
The findings of this research will help inform a strategy that facilitates a faster implementation of charging infrastructure in Ottawa.