Plug-in Electric Vehicle Market Research Articles

Identifying mass market adoption in the transition to electric vehicles

Abstract When plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs)—plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles—reach mass market adoption, their growth may be self-sustaining and their replacement of fossil-fuel vehicles nearly certain. Understanding this milestone is important, because afterward research and policy interventions that support PEVs will be less necessary. In this paper we outline how to identify mass market adoption and show that the PEV market has not reached this point based on two essential criteria: achieving adoption (not sales) of about 16% and the resolution of early market issues (any deficiencies affecting vehicles, infrastructure, and the surrounding ecosystem). The fact that neither of these criteria have been met highlights the early stage of the PEV market and means PEVs will require policy support throughout this decade.

Investigating heterogeneous preferences for plug-in electric vehicles: Policy implications from different choice models

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) adoption has been a promising strategy to address climate change and improve energy security. Understanding consumer preferences for PEV attributes and policies is critical to accelerate mass PEV penetration. This study examines consumer preference heterogeneity in adopting PEVs with mixed logit (MXL), latent class (LC), and latent class-mixed logit (LC-MXL) models based on a stated preference survey in Virginia, U.S. Consistently, all three models indicate that providing a monetary incentive is most effective in increasing the overall PEV market share, followed by deploying more charging infrastructure, while improvement in battery range shows a weak impact. Furthermore, the choice models that capture preference heterogeneity provide more nuanced results on the effectiveness of policies on a specific consumer segment and for a specific vehicle powertrain type. Lastly, when considering various model evaluation measures (e.g., model fit, prediction accuracy, and behavioral interpretation), results show that no model is unanimously superior to the other models. Rather, altogether they uncover a more comprehensive picture of EV preference structure. Findings provide insights into the usefulness of each choice modeling framework for future PEV adoption research. Also, it informs policymakers to be aware of alternative models which can provide different perspectives on policy implications.

Do plug-in hybrid adopters switch to battery electric vehicles (and vice versa)?

Plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) adopters, which include owners of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), have the choice to replace their vehicle with a BEV, PHEV, or conventional vehicle. These replacement choices are important to consider since they can impact PEV market growth. We investigate factors associated with the choice to replace a BEV or a PHEV with a PHEV, BEV, or conventional vehicle using survey responses from 1,446 PEV adopters. Most BEV adopters’ replacement choices are a newer BEV, for around 1/10th the replacement is a PHEV, and around ¼ replace their BEV with a conventional vehicle. PHEV adopters’ replacement choices are split more evenly between BEVs, PHEVs, or conventional vehicles. Replacement choices are correlated with vehicle attributes (e.g., range), satisfaction with vehicle attributes (e.g., charging convenience), home charging access, gas price, demographics, and attitudes toward technology, the environment and travel.

To purchase or lease: Investigating the finance decision of plug-in electric vehicle owners in California

In this paper we explore the factors that influence plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) buyers’ decision to lease or purchase a PEV. We estimate a binary logistic regression model using survey data of 9,472 PEV owners in California, surveyed between 2015 and 2018. Several factors influencing the purchase versus lease decision are identified; battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are more likely to be leased over plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). Results show a positive association between electric range and likelihood of purchasing BEVs, but a negative association for PHEVs. Sociodemographic factors such as living in a single-family home, homeownership, and having at home solar panels are associated with purchasing. An increase in the stated importance of high occupancy vehicle/carpool lane access is associated with the decision to lease, but an increase in state rebate importance is associated with the decision to purchase. The results highlight different factors that influence the decision to purchase or lease a PEV, both of which will be important strategies for growing the PEV market.

The Chinese plug-in electric vehicles industry in post-COVID-19 era towards 2035: Where is the path to revival?

The sudden Coronavirus Disease reported at the end of 2019 (COVID-19) has brought huge pressure to Chinese Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) industry which is bearing heavy burden under the decreasing fiscal subsidy. If the epidemic continues to rage as the worst case, analysis based on System Dynamics Model (SDM) indicates that the whole PEVs industry in China may shrink by half compared with its originally expected level in 2035. To emerge from the recession, feasible industrial policies include (1) accelerating the construction of charging infrastructures, (2) mitigating the downtrend of financial assistance and (3) providing more traffic privilege for drivers. Extending the deadline of fiscal subsidy by only 2 years, which has been adopted by the Chinese central government, is demonstrated to achieve remarkable effect for the revival of PEVs market. By contrast, the time when providing best charging service or most traffic privilege to get the PEVs industry back to normal needs to be advanced by 10 years or earlier. For industrial policy makers, actively implementing the other two promoting measures on the basis of existing monetary support may be a more efficient strategy for Chinese PEVs market to revive from the shadow in post-COVID-19 era.

Mobility at the crossroads – Electric mobility policy and charging infrastructure lessons from across Europe

• Study of electric mobility policy and charging infrastructure effect on PEV uptake. • Panel data on 32 European countries from 2009 to 2019 are used. • Results strongly suggest that charging infrastructure increases PEV market share. • Fast charging in particular is a key enabler for higher PEV market shares. • Electric mobility policy packages increase PEV shares more than single policies. The transportation sector accounts for a significant part of European emissions and is one of the few sectors with rising emissions. Thus one crucial part of the European strategy to reduce overall emissions is a shift, in the transportation sector, to low-emission mobility and electric mobility in particular. As European governments and policymakers consider feasible ways of supporting the transition, one central question is whether the policies and actions they enact should aim for creating incremental or structural change, here operationalized as personal incentives vs. charging infrastructure. Therefore, this analysis investigates the effects of electric mobility policies and charging infrastructure on plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market shares in Europe from 2009 to 2019. Charging infrastructure, and fast charging infrastructure in particular, demonstrate by far the strongest and most robust results of the analysis, having a significant positive effect on PEV market shares in all models. The analysis also suggests that purchase incentives, ownership tax benefits, and the policy packages for electric mobility tested have a positive and significant effect on PEV adoption. However, these effects are notably weaker and exhibit far less robust findings across the models in the analysis. Thus, while the study cannot conclusively come down on the side of infrastructure over personal incentives, it persuasively points to the crucial importance of charging infrastructures for the electrification of transportation. Theoretically, this makes sense—personal incentives will increase the market shares of PEV, but only incrementally, running the risk of merely supplementing the old fossil fuel-based transportation system rather than replacing it. Charging infrastructure on the other hand creates the potential for structural change, implying that a more active and coordinated build-out of charging infrastructure is needed to ensure a rapid transition to low-emission mobility.

Plug-in electric vehicle diffusion in California: Role of exposure to new technology at home and work

• Neighborhood effect plays an important role in plug-in electric vehicle diffusion. • Peer effect at the workplace has an important impact on the diffusion process. • Positive effect of charging infrastructure on PEV sales. • Targeted policies like Clean Car 4All can encourage PEV adoption. The market for plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) --including both battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs)--has been rapidly growing in California for the past few years. Given the targets for PEV penetration in the state, it is important to have a better understanding of the pattern of technology diffusion and the factors that are driving the process. Using spatial analysis and Poisson count models we identify the importance of a neighborhood effect (at home locations) and a workplace effect (at commute destinations) in supporting the diffusion of PEV technology in California between 2014 and 2016. In the case of new BEV sales, we find that exposure to one additional BEV or PHEV within a 1-mile radius of a census block group centroid is associated with a 0.2% increase in BEV sales in the block group. Interestingly, for new PHEV sales- the neighborhood effect of BEV sales is negative, suggesting that enhanced exposure to this type of technology (which is differentiated in distinctive ways from PHEVs) may impact new PHEV sales through a substitution effect. Specifically, higher BEV concentration in an area can have an overall negative effect on new PHEV sales. While the neighborhood effect at residential locations is important, a workplace effect also has a notably important influence on new PEV sales. Both effects work in combination with socioeconomic, demographic, policy, and built environment factors in encouraging PEV adoption. These results, insightful not just for California but other regions in early phases of the PEV market, suggest that policymakers should consider targeted programs and investments that can attract a wider group of early adopters (in terms of sociodemographic characteristics and spatial location) to boost the impact of neighborhood and workplace effects on PEV sales.

Evaluating Electric Vehicle Policy Effectiveness and Equity

In this article, I review the academic literature on the economics of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), with a focus on PEV policy, benefits, and equity. PEVs are one of the most promising technologies for decarbonizing the transportation sector. As such, many government policies exist to promote their adoption. Understanding the effectiveness and equity of existing policies, what the realized environmental benefits are, and how these benefits compare to costs is crucial to improving future PEV policy. This review suggests that consumer PEV subsidies are not cost-effective and are often expensive relative to estimated environmental benefits. Furthermore, higher-income households who make up a larger share of the PEV market receive both a disproportionate amount of government subsidies as well as PEV benefits. There is considerable room for policy improvement.

China's vehicle electrification impacts on sales, fuel use, and battery material demand through 2050: Optimizing consumer and industry decisions

SummaryThe promotion of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) is pivotal to China's carbon neutrality strategy. Therefore, it is important to understand the vehicle market evolution and its impacts in terms of costs, sales, industry fuel economy, and PEV's battery material demand. By examining vehicle technologies, cost, policy incentives, infrastructure, and driver behavior, this study quantitatively projects the dynamics of China's passenger vehicle market from 2020 to 2050 under multiple technology evolution scenarios. By 2050, battery electric vehicles could gain significant market share—as much as 30.4%–64.6%; and the industry's sales-weighted average fuel consumption could reach 1.81–3.11 L/100 km. Cumulative battery demand from PEVs could soar to over 700 GWh by 2050, whereas battery recycling alone could satisfy about 60% of the demand by 2050. The key metal supplies—lithium, cobalt, and nickel—for China's PEV market are projected, and nickel should be concerned more over the coming decades.

Taking into account greenhouse gas emissions of electric vehicles for transportation de-carbonization

Plug-in electric vehicles pose great potentials to de-carbonize the transportation sector. To jump-start their market deployment, regulations in China, the U.S., and the European Union provide preferential treatments, including counting a single plug-in electric vehicle with multipliers (super-credits) in calculating sales-averaged emissions (regulation dilution effect) and considering zero emissions for the electric mileage by omitting electricity generation emissions (regulation leakage effect). This study quantifies greenhouse gas emission increases due to these two effects in the three markets. We show that plug-in electric vehicles sold in 2012–2025 in the three markets will result in greenhouse gas emission increases of more than 1 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through 2050 relative to the case without the two effects. The increase is 671, 280, and 143 million tonnes in China, the U.S., and the EU, respectively. The dilution effect causes an increase of 615 million tonnes, and the leakage effect 479 million tonnes. As the plug-in electric vehicle market grows, their super-credits should be gradually withdrawn, and well-to-wheels emissions need to be considered to achieve holistic greenhouse gas emission reductions. Future regulations should be carefully designed to incentivize new technologies while mitigating the risk of increasing emissions elsewhere so that the intent of environmental regulations is not compromised.

Global perspective on CO2 emissions of electric vehicles

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are a promising option for greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation in the transport sector - especially when the fast decrease in carbon emissions from electricity provision is considered. The rapid uptake of renewable electricity generation worldwide implies an unprecedented change that affects the carbon content of electricity for battery production as well as charging and thus the GHG mitigation potential of PEV. However, most studies assume fixed carbon content of the electricity in the environmental assessment of PEV and the fast change of the generation mix has not been studied on a global scale yet. Furthermore, the inclusion of up-stream emissions remains an open policy problem. Here, we apply a reduced life cycle assessment approach including the well-to-wheel emissions of PEV and taking into account future changes in the electricity mix. We compare future global energy scenarios and combine them with PEV diffusion scenarios. Our results show that the remaining carbon budget is best used with a very early PEV market diffusion; waiting for cleaner PEV battery production cannot compensate for the lost carbon budget in combustion vehicle usage.

Modeling charging infrastructure impact on the electric vehicle market in China

The plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) is deemed as a critical technological revolution, and the governments are imposing various vehicle policies to promote its development. Meanwhile, the market success of PEVs depends on many aspects. This study integrates one’s use of charging infrastructure at home, public place and workplace into the market dynamics analysis tool, New Energy and Oil Consumption Credits (NEOCC) model, to systematically assess the charging infrastructure (home parking ratio, public charging opportunity, and charging costs) impact on PEV ownership costs and analyze how the PEV market shares may be affected by the attributes of the charging infrastructure. Compared to the charging infrastructure, the impact of battery costs is incontrovertibly decisive on PEV market shares, the charging infrastructure is still non-negligible in the PEV market dynamics. The simulation results find that the public charging infrastructure has more effectiveness on promoting the PEV sales in the PEV emerging market than it does in the PEV mature market. However, the improvement of charging infrastructure does not necessarily lead to a larger PEV market if the charging infrastructure incentives do not coordinate well with other PEV policies. Besides, the increase of public charging opportunities has limited motivations on the growth of public PEV fleets, which are highly correlated to the number of public fast charging stations or outlets. It also finds that more home parking spaces can stimulate more sales of personal plug-in hybrid electric vehicles instead of personal battery electric vehicles.

Public charging infrastructure for plug-in electric vehicles: What is it worth?

Lack of charging infrastructure is an important barrier to the growth of the plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market. Public charging infrastructure has tangible and intangible value, such as reducing range anxiety or building confidence in the future of the PEV market. Quantifying the value of public charging infrastructure can inform analysis of investment decisions and can help predict the impact of charging infrastructure on future PEV sales. Estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) based on stated preference surveys are limited by consumers’ lack of familiarity with PEVs. As an alternative, we focus on quantifying the tangible value of public PEV chargers in terms of their ability to displace gasoline use for PHEVs and to enable additional electric (e−) vehicle miles for BEVs, thereby mitigating the limitations of shorter range and longer recharging time. Simulation studies provide data that can be used to quantify e-miles enabled by public chargers and the value of additional e-miles can be inferred from econometric estimates of WTP for increased vehicle range. Functions are synthesized that estimate the WTP for public charging infrastructure by plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles, conditional on vehicle range, annual vehicle travel, pre-existing charging infrastructure, energy prices, vehicle efficiency, and household income. A case study based on California’s public charging network in 2017 indicates that, to the purchaser of a new BEV with a 100-mile range and home recharging, existing public fast chargers are worth about $1500 for intraregional travel, and fast chargers along intercity routes are valued at over $6500.

An in-depth examination of electric vehicle incentives: Consumer heterogeneity and changing response over time

Abstract We investigate the impacts of a combination of incentives on the purchase decision of electric vehicle buyers in California from 2010 through 2017. We employ a comprehensive survey on over 14,000 purchasers of electric vehicles in the state of California. The survey covers a swath of purchase intentions, general demographics, and importance of various incentives. Our results indicate that the most important incentives for plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owners are the federal tax credit, the California state rebate, and high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane access. In addition, the importance of the incentives and their associated effect on purchase behavior has been changing over time: respondents are less likely to not change their decision and more likely to not buy a vehicle at all as time passes and the technology moves away from early adopters. Incentives are becoming more important for vehicle adopters as PEV market entry progresses.

The Role of Infrastructure for Electric Passenger Car Uptake in Europe

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) can be a main lever towards a decarbonised road transport system. The PEV market uptake needs to be nurtured by appropriate support measures for users, for technological advances related to the vehicle and its components, and for all relevant recharging infrastructure deployment. This paper focuses on the role of PEV recharging infrastructure for electric passenger car uptake in Europe. It examines the status of road transport electrification, relevant policies, incentives and national plans. We find that the status and plans of PEV and recharging infrastructure and the corresponding support measures vary significantly between countries. The PEV share in the various analysed countries ranged in 2017 from 0.01% to 5.49% and is estimated to reach values between 0.05% and 12.71% in 2020. The corresponding ratio of PEV per one publicly accessible recharging point ranged between 1 and 60 and is estimated to vary between 3 and 161 in 2020. Diverging plans could lead to market fragmentation in the European Union (EU) and impede the EU-wide circulation of PEVs. The appropriate level of recharging infrastructure should be determined to both support PEV deployment and to prevent sunk investments. Different country experiences vis-à-vis PEV and infrastructure support could be useful to identify best practices.

What do consumers think of smart charging? Perceptions among actual and potential plug-in electric vehicle adopters in the United Kingdom

Widespread adoption of Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) would add substantially to overall electricity demand, while increasing deployment of renewable supply sources will make supply-demand balancing more difficult. Early PEV market experience suggests that users preferentially charge their vehicles in the early evening, when other demands are high. Managed (or Smart) charging aims to shift PEV charging load to times when other demands are low, to facilitate better integration into the wider energy system, operation within network constraints, and minimisation of future network reinforcement costs. However, material effectiveness would require mass engagement with managed charging. To gain initial insight into the potential for managed charging, 60 semi-structured interviews were carried out with actual or potential UK PEV users. Interviews explored present charging behaviour and responses to two types of managed charging schemes, user-managed charging (UMC) based on time-of-use tariffs, and supplier-managed charging (SMC). Participants’ willingness to engage with either was conditional on large reductions in charging costs. UMC was preferred over SMC, because of perceived personal control and lower perceived risk that a vehicle might not be fully charged at the required time. Preference for SMC was based mainly on perceived advantages to society as a whole.

The impact of ambitious fuel economy standards on the market uptake of electric vehicles and specific CO2 emissions

Fuel economy regulation is a powerful instrument to reduce CO2 emissions of vehicles. CO2 emissions from transport have to be dramatically reduced to reach ambitious CO2 targets, but fuel economy standards below 75 gCO2/km (72.8 MPG) cannot be reached with combustion engine vehicles but require plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). However, the specific relationship between stringent fuel economy standards and PEV market share is unclear. Here, we analyse CO2 fleet targets in Europe where Regulation (EU) 2019/631 sets a target of 59.4 gCO2/km (90.9 MPG) in 2030. We use data of 3.2 million records with model-specific car sales in Europe from 2010 to 2016 to project future sales and CO2 emissions of all major vehicle manufacturers. We analyse the required PEV sales for these manufacturers to fulfill the CO2 targets and compare them to the manufacturers' announced sales targets. Our results demonstrate that regulation's target leads to PEV sales shares between 27 and 41% in 2030. The lower value is required if all manufacturers only sell BEV and the upper if only PHEV. In conclusion, ambitious CO2 fleet regulation leads to fast market diffusion of PEVs, but the current regulation is less ambitious than car maker targets in 2025.

How large is the effect of financial incentives on electric vehicle sales? – A global review and European analysis

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEV), both as battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles have noteworthy potential to reduce global and local emissions. However, several barriers still hinder a fast market diffusion of this new technology. Governments around the world have implemented monetary and non-monetary policies to accelerate PEV market diffusion. Their effectiveness is established in the literature, yet the effect size has been only scarcely estimated empirically and only for the US. Here, we review econometric studies on the effect size of purchase incentives and analyse data on PEV sales from 32 European countries from 2010 to 2017 with respect to the effect of financial incentives. We apply panel data regressions and control for other factors such as income and fuel prices. We find energy prices and financial incentives to influence PEV adoption positively. The range of point estimates for the effect of incentives is 5–7% relative sales share increase in different model specifications. Methodologically, the inclusion of a trend variable proved important to capture overall changes in the diffusion of this new technology. Our findings indicate that financial incentives have an impact on PEV sales and thus can facilitate their diffusion.

Who is buying electric vehicles in California? Characterising early adopter heterogeneity and forecasting market diffusion

The successful market entry of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) is contingent on them being adopted by consumers, the first of which will be early adopters. The current understanding of these early adopters is based on small samples of PEV buyers gathered at one point in time. Here we present multi-year (2012–2017) questionnaire survey data on the socio-demographic profile of 11,037 PEV adopters in California. Latent class cluster analysis reveals four heterogeneous groups of PEV buyers. 49% are High income families, 26% Mid/high income old families, 20% Mid/high income young families, and about 5% are Middle income renters. Using the latent classes as input factors in Bass diffusion models we show that high income families may not continue to be the largest group of PEV adopters, while high income families are 49% of the PEV market today, they only represent 3.6% of California households. For market growth to continue the mid/high- and middle-income clusters need to begin adopting PEVs in greater numbers than they are doing today. Policymakers will need to consider the different needs these consumers have for infrastructure and incentives compared to high income families.

An early look at plug-in electric vehicle adoption in disadvantaged communities in California

Prior research on plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) adoption has revealed that early adopters tend to be wealthy consumers, this may mean that the benefits of PEVs are not being equitably distributed. Extensive research has shown that low-income and minority commutes are disproportionately impacted by environmental and transportation injustice. PEVs can contribute to importing air quality and could provide lower cost and more reliable transportation to low-income and minority communities if they are deployed there. This paper takes an early quantitative look at PEV adoption in disadvantaged communities (DACs), which are census tracts in California that suffer from a combination of economic barriers and environmental burden. We use six datasets to examine PEV market share, socioeconomic characteristics of PEV owners, and PEV charging infrastructure. Analysis confirms that adoption of both new and used PEVs in DACs occurs at very low rates - 5.7% and 8.7% of all PEV sales, respectively - that are disproportionate with the number of households that reside in these areas. Owners of new or used PEVs in DACs have slightly lower incomes than PEV owners in non-disadvantaged communities. However, as a group they have higher incomes, are higher educated, and fewer are home-renters than the DAC average, indicating that they are not representative of their surrounding community. Encouragingly, charging infrastructure is present in DAC census tracts, suggesting that further PEV adoption could be supported. Additionally, there are higher proportions of used PEVs in DACs than new PEVs, which may indicate potential for adoption of these lower-priced vehicles, however rates of adoption are still low. Despite the considerable benefits that PEVs could offer in DACs, there are still substantial barriers to PEV. Key barriers for policy-makers to continually address are the prohibitive price of the technology, lack of knowledge about or ease of accessing PEV incentives, and lack of access to public or private charging infrastructure located near multi-unit housing.