Exploratory policy analysis for electric vehicle adoption in European countries: A multi-agent-based modelling approach

Abstract

To reach climate neutrality goals, European countries need to reduce their transportation sector emissions. To this end, implementing effective incentive policies to accelerate electrical vehicle (EV) adoption plays a vital role. With this study, we highlight the important role of governments, showing that even with the provision of certain mild non-financial incentives, such as charging infrastructure development, EV adoption rates can be significantly increased. We develop a multi-agent model of EV adoption within European countries up to the year 2030. This integrated framework can capture the interplay between technical, financial, and social aspects of the EV adoption process. We find that an annual increase of only 10% in the charging infrastructure incentives over ten years can increase the average European EV adoption rate to 46%. We observe that countries that have both a low level of charging point density and a high population density would benefit more from the provision of charging infrastructure incentives. Countries with lower overall achieved EV shares, on the other hand, are found to be relatively insensitive to such provisions. We also characterize how a higher level of charging point density will lead to more rapid EV adoption.