The Future of Electric Vehicle
Charging Infrastructure
Prepared for
Dr. Francisco Haces Fernandez
Texas A&M University Kingsville
College of Business Administration
Final Project for
Introduction to Business Intelligence BUAD 3366
Fall 2023
Prepared By Jared Salazar
November 27th, 2023
Abstract
The goal of this report is to assess the past, present, and future state of
electric vehicle charging stations within the United States, and to evaluate whether
companies and organizations within the electric vehicle industry should seek to
invest in the development and installation of additional charging stations within
different regions across the country.
Table of Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................ 1
Section I: Introduction to the Study.............................................................................. 2
Statement of the Problem........................................................................................... 2
Significance of the Study.............................................................................................2
Scope of the Study....................................................................................................... 2
Limitations of the Study..............................................................................................3
Methods of the Study.................................................................................................. 3
Section II: Findings......................................................................................................... 4
Site Distribution.......................................................................................................... 4
Rate of Growth............................................................................................................. 5
Animated Visualization.............................................................................................. 7
Section III: Conclusions..................................................................................................8
Predictive Analysis...................................................................................................... 8
Marketing Potential.....................................................................................................8
Final Reccomendations...............................................................................................9
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Section I: Introduction to the Study
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Over the past decade, electric vehicles have become much more mainstream
as a means of personal transportation, especially as alternatives to
gasoline-powered automobiles. With this new form of transportation, there comes
a need to facilitate the refueling, or rather, recharging of these electric vehicles
through appropriately emplaced infrastructure. Much like gas stations, electric
vehicle charging stations would in theory need to be as plentiful and just as
functional in order to accommodate travelling. The question is, however, where
exactly should electric vehicle charging stations be installed? Which parts of the
country should electric vehicle companies and organizations prioritize developing?
Should electric vehicle companies endeavor to bring electric vehicles and their
infrastructure to areas where they are less common? If so, how should electric
vehicle companies do so?
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The purpose behind this study is to analyze the history and current state of
the development and installation of electric vehicle charging stations to project a
future model based on relevant sets of collected data. This projected model is
designed to be an accurate statistical prediction of what the future of electric
vehicle charging stations could look like according to current and past
geographical information. The findings and results of this study are meant to help
support and inform future operational decision-making processes (budgeting,
marketing, etc.) related to the further expansion of nationwide electric vehicle
infrastructure development and installation projects made by electric vehicle
companies.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
For the purposes of this study, only the 48 contiguous states of America
were examined along with the addition of Alaska which will be referred to as the
United States, meaning that the state of Hawaii was not included within the
confines of the report. Only the geographic locations of each electric vehicle
charging station were collected and
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LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Furthermore, the dataset which this study is based on does not include the
financial records detailing the financial profitability or cost expenditure
information of individual electric vehicle charging stations. Therefore, this study
cannot draw any conclusions regarding the success or failure of an electric vehicle
charging station within a particular area or region of the United States. While this
information would be useful for marketing purposes, such details were not
included within this study.
METHODS OF THE STUDY
The methods of research contained within this study consisted of analyzing
several thousands of entries within a dataset containing many different sorts of
properties pertaining to individual electric vehicle charging station locations
throughout the United States. This was achieved through utilizing a multitude of
data analysis tools provided by Microsoft Excel, including pivot tables, charts,
graphs, projections, and 3D map plotting. Some fields of data within the dataset
were not present during the initial stages of research. Therefore, supplemental
datasets were required to fill in the gaps of information. Within Microsoft Excel, all
the necessary data was able to be compiled all within one uniform and
homogeneous spreadsheet to construct and analyze models. Once all the required
data had been collected, the relevant fields of data were transposed into pivot
tables, which allows for dynamic modular reconfiguration that supports greater
levels of control and granularity over our results. Several tables, ranging between
different magnitudes of variables and granularity, were then plotted onto charts,
graphs, and maps that help illustrate the effectiveness of the findings through data
analysis. This methodology proved to be very beneficial as it serves to not only
provide visual representations of results to the researchers, but also to any reader
so that they may make sense of conclusions that were drawn.
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Section II: Findings
SITE DISTRIBUTION
One of the first and simplest ways that we can use graphs and figures to
gain an understanding of how our data can help inform decision making processes
is by taking the count of electric vehicle charging stations and plotting them onto a
bar graph. Doing so results in the following chart:
As we can see, this graph shows us a very basic visualization of the
distribution of electric vehicle charging stations across the United States. One
characteristic that stands out about this particular chart is that the state of
California is shaded noticeably darker than any of the other states, indicating that
there are more electric vehicle charging stations within the state of California than
in any other state. With this information in mind, we can introduce a more
advanced and detailed type of map chart that can offer more information at a
glance at a later time. For now, we will remain with these findings.
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In addition to charting the distribution of electric vehicle charging stations,
we can also chart the rate at which electric vehicle charging stations were installed
and opened across the country. Graphing the “date opened” fields will result in the
following figure:
As we can see, not only does this graph provide a count of electric vehicle charging
stations within each state, it also ranks each state from highest to lowest count,
which can offer a clear visual of just how many more electric vehicle charging
stations exist in the state of California compared to others. future rate
RATE OF GROWTH
Now, having identified the geographical regions in which electric vehicle
charging stations are most abundant, we can begin shifting our focus onto the
topic of what the future growth of electric vehicle charging stations will look like
based upon past data and records. The figure below represents the total number of
new electric vehicle charging stations opened between the years of 2009 and 2021
across the United States.
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From the information gathered, a conclusion can be drawn from this chart that the
number of electric vehicle charging stations was on a steady rise from 2009 to 2021,
with the latter year of which being the peak year of new electric vehicle charging
station locations. The chart below takes a closer look at the growing rate of new
electric vehicle charging stations and draws a trendline from 2011 to 2021.
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From what we can gleam from this chart, the trendline shows that the rate of new
electric vehicle charging stations is trending upwards as more charging stations are
being installed every year.
ANIMATED VISUALIZATION
Now that we have identified the geographical and growth information, we
can use a computer-generated animation that combines our data into a
visualization of how electric vehicle charging station infrastructure developed over
the years.
From this visualization, we can clearly see not only the rate at which new electric
vehicle charging stations were installed, we can also identify which regions of the
United States are more densely packed with charging stations, and which are more
lacking. The east and west coasts of the country and highly populated metropolitan
cities are most noticeably equipped with the infrastructure necessary to support a
population that can reliably make use of electric-powered vehicles.
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Section III: Conclusions
PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS
If we were to project a forecast of what the trend would look like if this rate
of growth were to continue throughout the next decade, we could analyze the
projection and use it to inform future decision-making processes. The forecast of
the future growth rate of electronic vehicle charging stations over the next decade
is as follows:
As demonstrated by this forecast, the number of new electric vehicle charging
stations opened per year is likely to increase at an exponential rate over the next
decade.
MARKETING POTENTIAL
After observing the animated visualization demonstrating the growth rate
of electric vehicle charging stations throughout the United States, it is apparent
that some regions of the country are more densely populated with charging
stations than others. If the objective of a company were to expand electric
vehicle-centric infrastructure to areas of the country where charging stations are
relatively less abundant, they could potentially tap into a demographic of
customers whose needs are not currently being met by conducting research into
those specific regions to better understand how to appeal to that market. One
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approach may be to begin exploring options within surrounding areas of big cities
and to then expand outwards. This could potentially allow for surveying data to be
collected and analyzed further to select the best regions to expand into.
FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS
After assessing the information that has been collected for this study,
reasonable conclusions and potential applications can be hypothesized and
evaluated for further consideration for the purpose of expanding the United States’
electric vehicle charging infrastructure into areas that may be considered as
underdeveloped in this regard. Data shows that the likelihood of expanding the
electric vehicle charging infrastructure shows positive exponential growth
throughout the United States over the next decade, with an abundant amount of
new potential regions of the country to survey for further deliberation.
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