Public rapid-charging infrastructure and BEV adoption: Drivers of spatially heterogeneous impacts

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) offer environmental benefits, but range anxiety remains a barrier to adoption. Public chargers help alleviate this concern. This paper provides causal evidence on how public rapid-charging infrastructure influences BEV adoption across local authorities in England. Instrumenting endogenous charger placement using the historical distribution of public car parks, we estimate that the elasticity of BEV adoption—measured as the annual net change in privately registered BEV stock—with respect to public rapid-charger stock is approximately 0.3. The effect is spatially heterogeneous—stronger in more deprived areas or those with better road-network connectivity, but weaker in rural areas or those with larger baseline charger stocks. It also weakens where on-street parking is widespread and home charging is consequently difficult, suggesting that public rapid-charging expansion may need complementary investment in non-rapid residential kerbside charging. These findings support geographically targeted public rapid-charger investment, an approach used in recent UK policies.