Strategic Opportunity Charging for On-route Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles (EVs) for pick-up and delivery services using opportunity charging are routed in response to a task request for package or person pick-up and drop-off. A candidate EV for the task is determined based on a preliminary route analysis of routes between the pick-up and drop-off locations including an estimate of point-to-point travel time and electrical power consumption for each candidate EV. The candidate EVs are winnowed by determining which candidate EV is available during a time window of service that has sufficient state of charge to reach at least the pick-up location. Routing calculations are performed for each remaining candidate to develop an individual route between the pick-up location and the drop-off location and a predicted power consumption for the individual route. A candidate EV is assigned to service the task request that has sufficient state of charge, with minimal recharging delay, to meet the predicted power consumption for its individual route.