Strategic Placement of Charging Stations for Enhanced Electric Vehicle Adoption in San Diego, California

Abstract

California mandated that 100% of vehicles sold must be electric by 2035. As electric vehicles (EVs) reach a higher penetration of the car sector, cities will need to provide publicly accessible charging stations to meet the charging demand of people who do not have access to a private charging spot like a personal garage. We have chosen to limit our scope to San Diego County due to its non-trivial size, well-defined shape, and dependence on personal vehicles; this project models 100% of current vehicles as electric, roughly 2.5 million. By planning for the future, our model becomes more useful as well as more equitable. We anticipate that our model will find locations that can service multiple population centers, while also maximizing distance to other stations. Sensitivity analysis and testing of our algorithms are conducted for Coronado Island, an island with 24,697 residents. Our formulation is then scaled to set the parameters for the whole county.