Strategic investment in electric vehicle charging service: Fast charging or battery swapping

With the increasing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), there is a growing need for public charging infrastructure. As a result, significant investments have been made in charging services, particularly, fast-charging (FC) and battery-swapping (BS) services. This paper examines the impact of technical and operational factors, as well as market conditions, on the pricing and profitability of each service to explore whether and how EV charging service providers should invest in these emerging charging services. The analysis with benchmark to private-use slow-charging (SC) services reveals that if the valley electricity price is high and the potential market size is small, lowering service costs does not make BS services a viable option. When the valley electricity price is low, reducing battery loss will not give FC services an advantage. However, in such scenarios, BS services can gain an edge by decreasing service costs. Interestingly, even if both SC and BS services are negatively affected by higher valley electricity prices, the impact on the profitability of BS services is more severe. The authors' results provide implications for the development of public EV charging service infrastructure. The authors recommend that implementing energy storage solutions can help alleviate the negative consequences of escalating valley electricity prices and wider peak–valley electricity price differences on BS services and FC services, respectively.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2023.109136
• Record URL:
  • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527323003687
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/09255273
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Zhang, Yudi
  • 0000-0001-6246-8432
  • Wang, Xiaojun
  • 0000-0002-5788-9387
  • Zhi, Bangdong
  • 0000-0002-8530-1317
• Publication Date: 2024-2

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 109136
• Serial:
  • International Journal of Production Economics
  • Volume: 268
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0925-5273
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09255273

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Costs; Electric vehicle charging; Electric vehicles; Energy storage systems; Infrastructure; Pricing
• Subject Areas: Economics; Energy; Finance; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01911652
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 12 2024 9:32AM