Who gets EV chargers?
Electric vehicle charging appears on 89 recent papers across operations research, economics and AI, mostly on where to put chargers to serve demand; only 8 carry an equity, income or rural keyword. Public money now pays for much of the network. Are poorer and rural areas left with charging deserts, and does that slow electric vehicle adoption there?
What prompted this#
Since October 2025, 89 papers carry a charging-station, charging-infrastructure or EV-charging keyword (36 in operations research journals, 32 in economics, 20 in AI): "electric vehicle charging" on 21, "charging infrastructure" on 19, "charging stations" on 8, "charging station location" on 5. Only 8 also carry an equity, income, disadvantaged, rural, justice, access or inequality keyword.
Questions#
- Per resident or per car, how unequal is public charger coverage by neighbourhood income and between urban and rural areas?
- Did subsidy programmes with equity goals (such as those requiring a share of funds in disadvantaged areas) change where chargers went?
- Does a new public charger raise electric vehicle registrations nearby, and is the effect larger where few people can charge at home?
Data that could help#
Charger locations and installation dates (national charger registries), vehicle registrations by area, census income and housing data, and subsidy award records.
Next step#
Relate charger installations to subsequent electric vehicle registrations by census tract, separately for tracts with mostly apartments and mostly houses.