OptICS-EV: A Data-Driven Model for Optimal Installation of Charging Stations for Electric Vehicles.

As the demand for electric vehicles continues to surge worldwide, it becomes increasingly imperative for the government to plan and anticipate its practical impact on society. In particular, any city/state needs to guarantee sufficient and proper placement of charging stations to service all current/future electric vehicle adopters. Furthermore, it needs to consider the inevitable additional strain these charging stations put on the existing power grid. In this paper, we use data-driven models to address these issues by providing an algorithm that finds optimal placement and connections of electric vehicle charging stations in the state of Virginia. Specifically, we found it suffices to build 10,733 additional charging stations to cover 75 % of the population within 0.33 miles (and everyone within 2.5 miles). We also show optimally connecting the stations to the power grid significantly improves the stability of the network. Additionally, we study 1) the trade-off between the average distance a driver needs to travel to their nearest charging station versus the number of stations to build, and 2) the impact on the grid under various adoption rates. These studies provide further insight into various tools policymakers can use to prepare for the evolving future.