Impact of Public Charging Infrastructure on the Adoption of Electric Vehicles in London

The discussion on the importance of public charging infrastructure is usually framed around the ‘chicken-egg’ challenge of consumers feeling reluctant to purchase without the necessary infrastructure and policy makers reluctant to invest in the infrastructure without the demand. However, public charging infrastructure may be more crucial to EV adoption than previously thought. Historically, access to residential charging was thought to be a major factor in potential for growth in the EV market as it offered a guaranteed place for a vehicle to be charged. However, these conclusions were reached through studies conducted in regions with a high percentage of homes that have access to residential parking. The purpose of this study is to understand how the built environment may encourage uptake of EVs by seeking a correlation between EV ownership and public charging points in an urban and densely populated city such as London. Using a statistical approach with data from the Department for Transport and Zap Map, a statistically significant correlation was found between the total (slow, fast and rapid) number of public charging points and number of EV registrations per borough—with the strongest correlation found between EV registrations and rapid chargers. This research does not explicitly prove that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between public charging points EVs but challenges some of the previous literature which indicates that public charging infrastructure is not as important as home charging. The study also supports the notion that the built environment can influence human behaviour

A critical evaluation of cathode materials for lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries

There has been an intensive research and development focus on lithium-ion batteries, which have revolutionized the electric vehicle market due to the batteries’ high energy and power density, longer lifespan, and increased safety than compa-rable rechargeable battery technologies. The performance of lithium-ion batteries is achieved by packaging design, electrolyte, and electrodes material’s selection. This study focuses on cathode materials as they currently need to overcome criti-cal challenges. In fact, cathode materials affect energy density, rate capability and working voltage that led to the cathode currently costing twice as much as the anode. For this reason, this study reviews cathode materials for electric vehicle lithium-ion batteries under economic and environmental perspectives to optimize the batteries’ structures and properties. Findings reveal that presently there is no commercially installed battery that can satisfy both, economic and environmental concerns while offering an overall excellent performance.Postprint (published version

Risks and Challenges of Adopting Electric Vehicles in Smart Cities

Oil prices and increased carbon emissions are two of the key issues affecting mainstream transportation globally. Hence, EVs (Electric VehiclesElectric Vehicles) are becoming popular as they do not depend on oil, and the GHG (Greenhouse Gases) do not contribute to GHG emissions. In fact, their integration with smart grids makes them even more attractive. Although EVEV adoption is becoming widespread, three groups of challenges need to be addressed. These challenges are associated with EV technology adoption, integration of EVs and smart grids, and the supply chain of EV raw materials. Regarding the EV technology adoption, the risks and challenges include EV battery capacity, drivers’ range anxiety, the impact of auxiliary loads, EV drivers’ behavior, EV owners’ unwillingness to participate in the V2GV2G (Vehicle-to-Grid) program, economic barriers to adopting EVs, difficult EV maintenance, EV performance mismatch between the lab and the real world, need for government regulation, lack of charging infrastructure such as not enough charging stations, and expensive batteries. There are additional challenges concerning the integration with the smart grids such as system overload, high-cost investment in V2G technology, load mismatchLoad mismatch, and unmanaged recharging of EV batteries. Finally, there are challenges regarding the consistent supply of the raw materials needed for EVs. This chapter examines these risks and challenges, suggests solutions and provides recommendations for future research