Planning for the majorities: are the charging needs and preferences of electric vehicle early adopters similar to those of mainstream consumers?

Abstract

The mass deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) may bring significant challenges to the electricity sector. However, many of these challenges can be converted into opportunities depending on how and when consumers decide to charge their vehicles. While there are currently multiple efforts worldwide investigating EV charging behaviour, these efforts measure the behaviour of EV early adopters and may not represent the actual behaviour of the mainstream consumer. The current study uses data from a survey with near a thousand Australian consumers to shed light on the potential similarities and differences between the charging needs and preferences of EV early adopters and mainstream consumers. We..