Availability of Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations and EV Adoption Rate in the United States

Keywords: Electric Vehicle, Charing Station, Spatial Analysis, United States
Abstract Type: Virtual Poster Abstract

Abstract

Electrifying vehicles could greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. However, the U.S. Electric Vehicle (EV) market has grown slower than Europe and China. In the first quarter of 2022, EVs made up 5.3% of new car sales in the United States (cf. Norway (83.5%), Iceland (51.7%), Sweden (28.7%), and China (16.7%)) (Randall, 2022). Federal/state tax credits and local incentives such as free parking and reduced registration fees have encouraged the sales of EVs (Jia & Chen, 2021), but charging anxiety due to the lack of charging infrastructure could be one obstacle to increasing EV sales in the United States.
Previous studies have examined the association between EV charging station availability and EV sales (Haustein et al., 2021; Jia & Chen, 2021; Morton et al., 2018; Sierzchula et al., 2014). However, their measures of charging availability have remained simple, such as the number of charging stations or the ratio of vehicles to charging stations. These metrics would not accurately represent the geographic distribution of charging stations, nor would they aid in the provision of EV charging stations. Hence, we develop several novel metrics to measure the availability and accessibility of EV charging stations in 384 U.S. metropolitan areas while considering the spatial/geographic characteristics of their distribution. We also assess how each of those measures can affect the current level of EV adoption rate by statistical analysis. Our findings will shed light on the relationship between EV charging availability and adoption rate at the U.S. metropolitan area level.