Examining the Impact of Charging Infrastructure on Electric Vehicle Diffusion

The introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) is considered an effective strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. In China, the role of charging infrastructure in the process of EV diffusion and the regional differences are not very clear. In this study, a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model was used to investigate the influence of charging infrastructure on the market share of EVs and the spatial distribution patterns associated with this influence. The results show that the selected variables are able to explain 71.8% of the observed variation in EV market share. This is more than 17 percentage points higher than the result of the ordinary least squares regression. The regional differences in the coefficients of the charging infrastructure in the GWR model are very clear. For each additional charging station per 10,000 inhabitants, the market share can increase by 0.886% in the highest case and by only 0.043% in the lowest case.