Electric vehicles in emergencies and evacuations: a review of resilience and future research directions

Abstract

Disasters often require large-scale evacuations, and damage key infrastructure (e.g., power, transportation). With growing electric vehicle (EV) adoption and electrification of transportation, governments and utilities may face significant power challenges during disasters, especially during the evacuation stage. Low state-of-charge, sporadic charging infrastructure, or power outages could significantly hamper safe and effective evacuations. Yet, EVs also offer possible resilience benefits to emergency response by more easily charging electronics or sending power back to the grid through vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology. This paper focuses on the opportunities, benefits, and drawbacks of EVs in disasters and evacuations through a systematic review of current literature, reports, and sources. Overall, this review discovered EVs show promise as modes of transportation and mobile energy supply units. However, crucial challenges such as charging infrastructure locations, upfront cost of resilience technologies, and user behavior necessitate more dedicated research to overcome shortcomings and guide more realistic implementation of benefits.