Vehicle charging infrastructure demand for the introduction of plug-in electric vehicles in Germany and the US

Charging infrastructure for plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) is a widespread topic of discussion. Several experts suggest investments are necessary to develop charging infrastructure outside the home, e. g. at public or semipublic locations, while others advise against this. In this paper we analyze the impact of upgrading charging infrastructure on potential PEV-usage. We use two large data sets of driving behavior from the United States and Germany to study the technical possibility of replacing a conventional car with a battery electric vehicle (BEV) and the share of distance driven in electric mode for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in different charging infrastructure scenarios. Our results show that high shares of vehicles (> 65 % in a weekly analysis and > 90% in a daily analysis) could be operated as BEVs with a 20 kWh net capacity assuming only home charging in the US as well as in Germany. The vast majority of drivers (> 90 %) could cope more than 80 % of their daily driving distance in electric mode in both countries in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with a 10 kWh net capacity. These shares could be increased if additional charging infrastructure was installed at nonprivate locations, while increasing the available domestic power rate does not have a significant impact.