Report

Mature, flourishing, equitable EV charging ecosystem

November 1, 2021
Authors: Esther van Bergen, Chris Rimmer, Jacob Roberts, Roisin Hickey, Jeff Allen, Eric Huang, Whit Jamieson, Parmeet Singh, Ashish Rawat, Hiten Parmar

The Global Sustainable Mobility Partners (GSMP) was commissioned by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) on behalf of the International Zero-Emission Vehicle Alliance ahead of COP26. The purpose of the research was to identify key policy requirements to create a mature, flourishing, equitable electric-vehicle charging ecosystem across the world.

The report describes what a mature charging ecosystem looks like from a user’s perspective—serving their needs at specific charging locations equipped with the right number and types of chargepoints. From a policy perspective, four common factors for a mature market include—a specific government brief, a published infrastructure strategy, flexible and nuanced targets, and consumer representation.

The top-five barriers from across the world that need to be overcome to enable a mature ecosystem to flourish are highlighted—public charger (un)reliability, interoperability, lack of coordinated policy, electricity network constraints and poor business cases.

The research focuses on how to ensure a flourishing business case is not at the expense of disadvantaged communities. It recommends an equity-focused approach as the best way to achieve the long-term benefits of EV charging and highlights private residential charging and rural charging as priority areas to be addressed.

The report also identified what policies are needed to overcome barriers to the development of a market for commercial vehicles charging. These include; uncertainty in charging technology, high infrastructure costs, electricity network constraints and lack of infrastructure coordination.

The Global Sustainable Mobility Partnership is a network of independent, not-for-profit organisations with extensive, practical and real-world experience in implementing low and zero emission mobility. Network partners include Cenex in the UK and Netherlands, Forth in the USA, and uYilo in South Africa.

 

Focus Areas

Mature, equitable charging ecosystem