Minimum-Cost Fast-Charging Infrastructure Planning for Electric Vehicles along the Austrian High-Level Road Network

Given the ongoing transformation of the transport sector toward electrification, expansion of the current charging infrastructure is essential to meet future charging demands. The lack of fast-charging infrastructure along highways and motorways is a particular obstacle for long-distance travel with battery electric vehicles (BEVs). In this context, we propose a charging infrastructure allocation model that allocates and sizes fast-charging stations along high-level road networks while minimizing the costs for infrastructure investment. The modeling framework is applied to the Austrian highway and motorway network, and the needed expansion of the current fast-charging infrastructure in place is modeled under different future scenarios for 2030. Within these, the share of BEVs in the car fleet, developments in BEV technology and road traffic load changing in the face of future modal shift effects are altered. In particular, we analyze the change in the requirements for fast-charging infrastructure in response to enhanced driving range and growing BEV fleets. The results indicate that improvements in the driving range of BEVs will have limited impact and hardly affect future costs of the expansion of the fast-charging infrastructure. On the contrary, the improvements in the charging power of BEVs have the potential to reduce future infrastructure costs.