University of California Institute of Transportation Studies

Public electric vehicle (EV) chargers are unevenly distributed in California with respect to income, race and education-levels. This creates inequitable access to electric mobility especially for low-income communities of color, which. are less likely to have access to home charging stations. These vulnerable communities are also more likely to be located in areas with poor air quality and would therefore benefit from EV adoption. Currently programs exist in California that fund incentives for public EV chargers in “Disadvantaged Communities” but the process for identifying these communities does not consider key characteristics such as housing type, potential for local emission reduction, and the degree of access to private chargers that would maximize economic benefits to these areas and the state. This study develops a model-based

tool that incorporates key additional information to predict economic benefits and health impacts to local communities to guide the location of public charging infrastructure. This tool will improve the equitable distribution of public funds by identifying three types of expected benefits: economic benefit to EV owners/users, economic benefit to infrastructure operators, and greenhouse gas and PM2.5 emission reductions.