Driving Change to Electric Vehicles: A Comprehensive Study of Electric Vehicle User Segmentation and Charging Behaviors

Global automakers are implementing strategies to increase the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) due to environmentally friendly policies. While extensive research has been conducted on various aspects of EVs, there is a lack of understanding from the perspective of human factors that could impact EV usability. This study, therefore, aimed to fill this gap by identifying the distinct characteristics of EV users’ charging behaviors and varying needs across different user groups. Our extensive surveys gathered information about EV users’ socio-demographics and overall charging behavior. After preprocessing the data of 114 participants, we derived the “Minimum Charging Frequency (MCF)” index, the distance driven per month divided by the vehicle’s range. The average MCF was used to segregate participants into two groups, and we found statistically significant differences in several characteristics. This underscores the importance of human factors in several stakeholders regarding EVs to meet diverse user preferences better.