Public electric vehicle charger access disparities across race and income in California

Abstract

Widespread electric vehicle (EV) adoption is crucial for achieving California's climate goals. The inclusion of marginalized populations in this process is important and will require that they have access to charging infrastructure. Public EV charging stations may help reduce the EV adoption barriers affecting these populations. This study combines public charging station location data with American Community Survey data at the census block group level in California, finding that public charger access is lower in block groups with below-median household incomes and in those with a Black and Hispanic majority populations. These public charger access disparities are more pronounced in areas with a higher proportion of multi-unit housing, where they are critical for EV operation due to a lower likelihood of residential charger access. Controlling for distance to the nearest highway or freeway, multi-unit housing unit rate, and median household income, we find that Black and Hispanic majority block groups are the only race and ethnicity group that is significantly less likely to have access to any public charger in their block groups compared to the rest of the state. The odds of having public charger access for the group is 0.7-times that of the no majority reference group. The access gap is even larger for the publicly-funded charging stations where Black and Hispanic majority block groups are approximately half as likely as the no-majority reference group to have access. Hence directing a larger portion of the funding to underserved communities and further government involvement in filling the public charger access gap can be crucial in achieving widespread and equitable EV adoption.