This article explores the potential of using real-world driving patterns to derive PHEV and BEV utility factors and evaluates how different travel and recharging behaviours affect the calculation of the standard SAE J2841 utility factor. The study relies on six datasets of driving data collected monitoring 508,607 conventional fuel vehicles in six European areas and a dataset of synthetic data from 700,000 vehicles in a seventh European area. Sources representing the actual driving behaviour of PHEV together with the WLTP European utility factor are adopted as term of comparison. The results show that different datasets of driving data can yield to different estimates of the utility factor. The SAE J2841 standard method results to be representative of a large variety of behaviours of PHEVs and BEVs' drivers, characterised by a fully-charged battery at the beginning of the trip sequence, thus being representative for fuel economy and emission estimates in the early phase deployment of EVs, charged at home and overnight. However the results show that the SAE J2841 utility factor might need to be revised to account for more complex future scenarios, such as necessity-driven recharge behaviour with less than one recharge per day or a fully deployed recharge infrastructure with more than one recharge per day. •Driving data from 508,607 real-world vehicles and 700,000 synthetic vehicles in EU are analysed.•PHEV and BEV utility factors are calculated with different assumptions.•Different daily driving distances in different geographical areas have an impact on the UF.•Cabin cooling and heating can change significantly the BEV utility factor.•SAE J2841 might need to be revised for more complex future mobility and recharging scenarios.