Learning Rates of Electric Vehicles

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Chapter 2: Methods:
2.1 Definitions:
Throughout this thesis, we use the terms 'electric vehicle' and 'battery-electric vehicle' (BEV) synonymously for passenger cars that are exclusively propelled by one or multiple electric engines, drawing their propulsion energy solely from an electric energy storage system such as a battery.
Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are defined as passenger cars that: (i) are equipped with an internal combustion engine (ICE) and one or multiple electric engines, (ii) draw their propulsion energy from combustible fuels and/or electricity, and (iii) can be charged from an external electricity source (UNECE, 2015). We do not distinguish between parallel PHEVs in which the internal combustion engine and the electric engine are both connected to a transmission and can thus propel the vehicle in parallel and series PHEVs (also referred to as range-extender vehicles) in which the electric engine propels the vehicle, whereas the internal combustion engine functions as an electricity generator to charge the battery. Our choice is justified by the limited number of PHEV models offered on the market in each individual year of our analysis. We acknowledge that not distinguishing between parallel and series PHEVs introduces uncertainty into our analysis because parallel PHEVs equipped with a small, thus less costly, battery and a full-size internal combustion engine are lumped together with series PHEVs equipped with a comparatively large, thus costly, battery and a rather small internal combustion engine. However, the database contains only around 8.5% (5 out of 59) vehicles with range extender, meaning that PHEVs take the major part in the analysis.
Throughout this thesis, we refer to 'conventional vehicles' (CVs) as passenger cars propelled exclusively by an internal combustion engine that draws its energy from combustible fuels such as gasoline or diesel.
2.2 Data collection:
In our analysis, we include BEVs, PHEVs,