Allocation of e-car charging: Assessing the utilization of charging infrastructures by location

Abstract

The availability of charging infrastructure forms the basis for the enforced market penetration of electric cars. This paper aims to examine the distribution of the allocation of future charges to the various types of charging stations in order to provide a starting point for the evaluation of the need for charging infrastructure, i.e. its number, design and cost-effectiveness. For the case study of Austria, a new approach to derive the allocation of charging processes is applied by using demographic variables and decision rules. As a result, it is found that 88% of the charges are conducted when the user is at home, which is in line with literature. Significantly, fewer charges, approx. 8.8%, are carried out at the workplace. It is a relevant finding of this work relativizing the importance of workplace charging. Only 1.7% are conducted at ‘public charging infrastructure’ (e.g. public car parks, supermarkets, etc.; note that also charging at assigned and freely selectable parking lots when the owner is at home is considered home charging) and 1.5% are conducted at ‘fast charging infrastructure’ (i.e. motorways). It is observed that ‘public charging infrastructure’ is only used for a small proportion of the charges. In conclusion, it can be deduced that some ‘public’ or fast charging stations are unable to recover their costs through charging processes but are subject to other business models.