Cohousing and EV Sharing: Field Tests
in Flanders
Sidharta Gautama, Dominique Gillis, Giuseppe Pace
and Ivana Semanjski
Abstract This paper investigates the potential of electric vehicles (EVs) in a
context of a pilot test in Belgium, consisting of car sharing services managed and
exploited in small communities. Part of a broader testing activity in the framework
of the e-Mobility NSR project, the test had the objective of metering EVs’ charging
and consumption in real daily transport operations, but soon it acquired new
meanings. It shaped EV sharing services at a small scale, directly managed by the
users, which also share energy and maintenance costs. The chosen context was
cohousing, a special type of collaborative housing, and four ones were selected in
Flanders: two urban units and two larger semi-urban ones. The two urban com-
munities received a prepaid card for reserving and using EVs provided by Cambio,
a Belgian car sharing company. The other two cohousings received two EVs and a
charging box, organising and running an internal car sharing system for the duration
of 1 year. During the tests, quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The
paper reports the intermediate results, identifying potential EV sharing consumers,
based on their behaviour and attitudes in relation to the condition of the local
context in which they live.
Keywords Cohousing
Á
Car sharing
Á
Electric vehicle monitoring
Á
Consumer
insights
Á
Field tests
S. Gautama (&) Á D. Gillis Á G. Pace Á I. Semanjski
Department of Telecommunications and Information Processing (TELIN), Ghent University,
St-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
e-mail: sidharta.gautama@ugent.be
D. Gillis
e-mail: dominique.gillis@ugent.be
G. Pace
e-mail: giuseppe.pace@ugent.be
I. Semanjski
e-mail: isemanjski@fpz.hr
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
W. Leal Filho and R. Kotter (eds.), E-Mobility in Europe,
Green Energy and Technology, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-13194-8_12
209