Does electric mobility display racial or income disparities? Quantifying inequality in the distribution of electric vehicle adoption and charging infrastructure in the United States

Abstract

Based on high-resolution spatial and temporal analysis, we quantify and evaluate the equality of plug-in electric vehicle adoption and public charging infrastructure deployment in the United States, examining current and historical trends, as well as racial and income-based disparities. Our results show that the current and historical distribution of conventional vehicle ownership and gas stations shows much more equality, in contrast to electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. With regards to the distribution of electric vehicle adoption, the more electrified vehicle technology is adopted, the more significant income inequality becomes, on a national scale. Over the last several years, almost all states ameliorated income and racial/ethnic inequality for plug-in electric vehicle adoption, but that is not the case for charging infrastructure. The income inequality of the distribution of nationwide charging infrastructure is three times larger than that of gas stations. Individual states, as well as some of the largest urbanized areas, demonstrate a wide range of inequality associated with income and race/ethnicity. There is a need to better understand what drives this significant spatial heterogeneity, as it implies that additional strategies tailored to local and regional contexts may be necessary to achieve more equal distribution of infrastructure as electric vehicles become common beyond early adopters. Improving consistency and coordination of development of charging infrastructure across different states/regions would likely benefit inter-state travelers.