An agent-based simulation study for escaping the “chicken-egg” dilemma between electric vehicle penetration and charging infrastructure deployment

Although charging infrastructure is a prerequisite for widespread electric vehicle (EV) penetration, its deployment is prone to a "chicken-egg" dilemma in the early stages of electrification. Previous studies mainly applied game theoretical approaches to identify the optimal strategy for escaping the dilemma, with minimal attention paid to the complex interactions between EV adoption and charging infrastructure deployment, which is the intrinsic cause of the "chicken-egg" dilemma. Hence, this study establishes an agent-based model to capture the dynamic interactions among EV adoption decisions, EV charging activities, and charging infrastructure investment and operation. Empirical data from Beijing is further applied to calibrate and validate the model before conducting simulation experiments to examine the effectiveness of financial subsidies and environmental factors for resolving the dilemma. The findings suggest that either purchase subsidies for EV adopters or operation subsidies and construction subsidies for charging point operators can help escaping the dilemma only if their subsidy level is within a reasonable range. Otherwise, subsidy strategies may lead to a heavy fiscal burden or an overallocation of charging resources. A substantial change in external factors such as EV sales prices, gasoline prices, and EV driving range can also initiate a virtuous circle between EVs and charging infrastructure, indicating that policy interventions towards these factors may shed light on tackling the dilemma.