The goal of the United States Department of Energy‘s Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity (AVTA)
is to promote the use of electric vehicles in commercial fleets in the United States.
To achieve this goal, the AVTA is actively supporting the
purchase, operation, and data collection of commercially available electric vehicles in
electric utility fleet operations.
During 1996, the AVTA, requested and received proposals
from interested groups to become qualified vehicle testers (QVT). This formal procurement
process resulted in the selection of two groups of QVTs. One QVT is headed by
Southern California Edison (SCE), a California-based electric utility. The other
group is headed by Electric Transportation Applications (ETA) of Arizona,
and includes the electric utilities Arizona Public Service, Potomac Electric Power Company,
and the Salt River Project.
Also known as EVAmerica testing, the test parameters were developed in
conjunction with electric utility fleet operators, original equipment manufacturers,
and vehicle conversion companies. The test parameters include acceleration,
three types of range tests, gradeability, handling, charging, maximum speed,
and braking. Since 1994, 20 models of electric vehicles have been EVAmerica
Baseline Performance tested.
Southern California Edison (SCE) conducted performance tests on full size electric vehicles over an open road
specific course.
In this validation process, the QVTs collect data on electric vehicles within their
respective commercial fleets. The data collected includes energy use (kWh), mileage,
and maintenance requirements. The activity had 10
Chevrolet S-10 pickups in fleet use since 1997. The activity had 20
Toyota RAV4s and 18 Ford Rangers for fleet operations testing, and these vehicles
were entered in utility fleet operations with the program’s QVT partners. The
Chevrolet and Ford vehicles were equipped with lead acid batteries, and the Toyota
vehicle is equipped with nickel-metal-hydride batteries.
Additional activity information includes information about our incremental funding program, the national
loaner program and historical results from the original Site Operator Program.
Also listed below are slides and papers from conferences and other historical information from the activity.
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