Does “driving range” really matter? The hidden cost of Gasoline Vehicles and the potential value of Electric Vehicles: -From the cases of agricultural enterprises in a countryside of Japan-

Résumé:

This research attempts to the economic value of the electrical vehicles(EVs) in a certain business condition. Describing the cases of agricultural enterprise in Japanese countryside area, the author proves that using internal combustion engine vehicles(ICEVs) becomes a kind of burden of their business. This research is idiosyncratic because it calculates the hidden cost of keeping ICEVs in terms of productivity and working load.
Especially in the countryside of Japan, where the number of gas station continuously decreasing, the working load of refueling the vehicle becomes the burden. And the agricultural enterprise usually operates multiple vehicles for their business. In Yamanashi prefecture, there are many number of fruit farmers producing peach, grape, and plum. They grow the trees on the slope of mountains and their farm field are usually scattering. In such a situation, each car is driven just around 100km or less every day by the workers. Thus, each vehicle has to be refueled almost every week or shorter cycle.
This research attempts to the economic value of the electric vehicles (EVs) in a certain business condition. Describing the cases of agricultural enterprise in the Japanese countryside area, the author proves that using internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) becomes a kind of burden of their business. This research is idiosyncratic because it calculates the hidden cost of keeping ICEVs in terms of productivity and working load.
Especially in the countryside of Japan, where the number of gas station continuously decreasing, the working load of refueling the vehicle becomes the burden. And the agricultural enterprise usually operates multiple vehicles for their business. In Yamanashi prefecture, there are many numbers of fruit farmers producing peach, grape, and plum. They grow the trees on the slope of the mountains and their farm field are usually scattered. In such a situation, each car is driven just around 100km or less every day by the workers. Thus, each vehicle has to be refueled almost every week or shorter cycle.
One problem is that the distance between the nearest gas station and the farm. It takes more than 15 minutes to get there in some case and it takes more than 45 minutes in total. The other problem is that the interruption of the task. The car must be refueled when the remaining fuel level becomes low, even in the middle of harvesting job. The author found that these problems come from the characteristics of the ICEVs. Even though the driving range of ICEVs is much longer than that of EVs, we can’t exploit whole the range when we use it because of refueling. On the other hand, in many cases the company and home in the countryside can install the charging station for EVs with smaller cost. Since EVs can be charged during the night using the station, it enables to eliminate the refueling job and it helps to boost up the productivity of business such as agriculture.