ALEXANDRIA, VA., October 2, 2023 – Tens of thousands of additional public charging stations will be needed over the next five years to serve the expanding electric vehicle (EV) market in the U.S. These new stations introduce a new business opportunity, but to successfully capitalize on that requires careful analysis of market conditions.
To help interested businesses take a data-driven approach to this new opportunity, the Transportation Energy Institute (TEI) and the Center for Sustainable Energy (CSE) are partnering to deliver data analysis and insights on the optimal locations for charger investments. As part of the new Charging Analytics Program, the institute will license CSE’s Caret® software suite of EV and EV infrastructure forecasting, planning and charger data analysis tools. These tools will help business owners determine where chargers will get consistent use and achieve the best return on investment (ROI).
Because charger utilization is a key ingredient in station profitability, this new program will continuously evaluate market conditions throughout North America to help businesses determine when conditions might be optimal to enter the charging business. In addition, the program will analyze charger utilization data from existing facilities, creating business profiles to help guide decisions regarding the station characteristics that might result in a successful charging station investment.
The Caret software suite includes:
- Caret EV Planner – forecasts EV demand based on incentives in the market and deep, data-driven understanding of consumer behavior.
- Caret EV Infrastructure Planner – pinpoints where EV charging should be sited to achieve the best return on investment (ROI) and the clients’ unique goals and objectives based on blending multiple databases mapping 80+ factors, including traffic volumes and patterns, existing EV charging, utility infrastructure, registered EVs, and proximity to commerce, amenities and multifamily housing.
- Caret EV Charging Knowledgebase – securely aggregates and analyzes anonymized EV charger session and interval data to understand such factors as dwell times, utilization rates and peak demand periods to support future investment decisions such as where to place charging and how many chargers per site.
“Electricity is an important and growing transportation fuel," said Transportation Energy Institute Executive Director John Eichberger. “Teaming with CSE will make valuable data, planning and analytics tools and expertise available to business owners to help them make sound decisions about EV charger investment, which will make more charging available to support the transition to electrified transportation.”
“Retailers can be leaders in promoting and supporting electric vehicle adoption but will do so only if they are making business decisions that make sense – and revenue,” said CSE President Lawrence Goldenhersh. “Partnering with the Transportation Energy Institute to provide the forecasting and planning capabilities of CSE’s Caret software suite to this industry will lead to faster, smarter and more profitable EV charger deployment.”
EV and EV Charging Statistics
- About 1.75 million new light-duty EVs will be sold in 2024, roughly 12% of total sales.
- New EV sales are expected to grow to 21% by 2028.
- Currently, over 33,000 publicly available direct current fast charging (DCFC) ports are available.
- Based on projections, an estimated 210,000 public DCFC will be needed by 2028.
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The Transportation Energy Institute (TEI) is a nonprofit, non-advocacy research organization dedicated to studying transportation energy. Founded by the National Association of Convenience Stores in 2013 as the Fuels Institute, the Transportation Energy Institute publishes fact-based research projects designed to answer relevant market questions for industry stakeholders. Visit https://www.transportationenergy.org/electric-vehicles-research/TEI Electric Vehicle Research.
Center for Sustainable Energy® (CSE) is a national nonprofit that accelerates adoption of clean transportation and distributed energy through effective and equitable program design and administration. Governments, utilities and the private sector trust CSE for its data-driven and software-enabled approach, deep domain expertise and customer-focused team. CSE manages the largest statewide EV charging incentive program in the nation and has designed EV charging infrastructure plans for local and state governments and utilities. CSE used its expertise to develop Caret, its proprietary forecasting, planning and data analytics software suite for EVs and EV charging. Visit CSE website. Learn more about CSE’s Caret suite for EV charging.
