---
title: "Who gets EV chargers? (research idea)"
description: "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?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/who-gets-ev-chargers
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/who-gets-ev-chargers.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "Who gets EV chargers? (research idea): 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."
date: "2026-10-26"
updated: "2026-10-26"
status: "seed"
tags: ["operations research", "economics", "transport"]
keywords: ["charging infrastructure", "charging stations", "electric vehicles"]
---

# 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.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| charging infrastructure | 3 | #776 | 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 0, 1, 0, 2, 0, 3, 3, 1, 1, 3, 0, 1, 1, 3, 1, 1, 3, 5, 4, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3 | 50 |
| charging stations | 0 | – | 3, 0, 2, 1, 0, 1, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 1, 0, 2, 3, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0 | 36 |
| electric vehicles | 7 | #242 | 1, 6, 11, 9, 6, 5, 5, 9, 6, 6, 5, 2, 5, 9, 3, 6, 10, 7, 12, 10, 9, 7, 5, 7, 12, 7, 10, 4, 7, 8, 11, 8, 6, 10, 9, 4, 6 | 257 |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Who gets EV chargers?. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 26, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/who-gets-ev-chargers

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-who-gets-ev-chargers,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Who gets EV chargers?},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/who-gets-ev-chargers}},
  urldate = {2026-10-26},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).