Highlights • Commercial passenger cars are better suited for electric vehicles than private cars. • More than 500 vehicle driving profiles containing trips for three weeks are analyzed. • BEVs with 110km electric range could fulfill 87% of these driving profiles completely. • PHEVs with 40km electric range would on average electrify 60% of their driving. • About 2–4% of these vehicles could economize against conventional vehicles in 2020.

Abstract Commercial passenger cars are a possible early market segment for plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). Compared to privately owned vehicles, the commercial vehicle segment is characterized by higher mileage and a higher share of vehicle sales in Germany. To this point, there are only few studies which analyze the commercial passenger car sector and arrive at contradictory results due to insufficient driving profile data with an observation period of only one day. Here, we calculate the market potential of PEVs for the German commercial passenger car sector by determining the technical and economical potential for PEVs in 2020 from multi-day driving profiles. We find that commercial vehicles are better suited for PEVs than private ones since they show higher average annual mileage and drive more regularly. About 87% of the analyzed three-week vehicle profiles can technically be fulfilled by battery electric vehicles (BEVs) with an electric driving range of about 110km while plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) with an electric range of 40km could obtain an electric driving share of 60% on average. In moderate energy price scenarios, PEVs can reach a market share of 2–4% in the German commercial passenger car sales by 2020 and especially the large commercial branches (Trade, Manufacturing, Administrative services and Other services) are important. However, our analysis shows a high sensitivity of results to energy and battery prices as well as electric consumptions.