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1. Optimal planning for electric vehicle fast charging stations placements in a city scale using an advantage actor-critic deep reinforcement learning and geospatial analysis

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.105567  

   Heo, Jae; Chang, Soowon (October 2024, Sustainable Cities and Society)

   The transition to Electric Vehicles (EVs) for reducing urban greenhouse gas emissions is hindered by the lack of public charging infrastructure, particularly fast-charging stations. Given that electric vehicle fast charging stations (EVFCS) can burden the electricity grid, it is crucial for EVFCS to adopt sustainable energy supply methods while accommodating the growing demands of EVs. Despite recent research efforts to optimize the placement of renewable-powered EV charging stations, current planning methods face challenges when applied to a complex city scale and integrating with renewable energy resources. This study thus introduces a robust decision-making model for optimal EVFCS placement planning integrated with solar power supply in a large and complex urban environment (e.g., Chicago), utilizing an advantage actor-critic (A2C) deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approach. The model balances traffic demand with energy supply, strategically placing charging stations in areas with high traffic density and solar potential. As a result, the model is used to optimally place 1,000 charging stations with a random starting search approach, achieving total reward values of 74.30 %, and estimated the capacities of potential EVFCS. This study can inform the identification of suitable locations to advance the microgrid-based charging infrastructure systems in large urban environments. 

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2. Evaluating electric vehicle user mobility data using neural network-based language models

   Alvarez, K.* (January 2019, Proceedings of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) annual meeting)

   By displacing gasoline and diesel fuels, electric cars and fleets offer significant public health benefits by reducing emissions from the transportation sector. However, public confidence in the reliability of charging infrastructure remains a fundamental barrier to adoption. Using large-scale social data and machine learning based on 12,720 U.S. electric vehicle charging stations, we provide national evidence on how well the existing charging infrastructure is serving the needs of the expanding population of EV drivers in 651 core-based statistical areas in the United States. Contrary to predictions, we find that stations at private charging locations do not outperform public charging locations provided by government. We also find evidence of higher negative sentiment in the dense urban centers, where issues of charge rage and congestion may be the most prominent. Overall, 40% of drivers using mobility apps have faced negative experiences at EV charging stations, a problem that needs to be fixed as the market expands. 

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3. Reconfigurable-Intelligent-Surface-Enhanced Dynamic Resource Allocation for the Social Internet of Electric Vehicle Charging Networks with Causal-Structure-Based Reinforcement Learning

   https://doi.org/10.3390/fi16050165  

   Zhang, Yuzhu; Xu, Hao (May 2024, Future Internet)

   Charging stations and electric vehicle (EV) charging networks signify a significant advancement in technology as a frontier application of the Social Internet of Things (SIoT), presenting both challenges and opportunities for current 6G wireless networks. One primary challenge in this integration is limited wireless network resources, particularly when serving a large number of users within distributed EV charging networks in the SIoT. Factors such as congestion during EV travel, varying EV user preferences, and uncertainties in decision-making regarding charging station resources significantly impact system operation and network resource allocation. To address these challenges, this paper develops a novel framework harnessing the potential of emerging technologies, specifically reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) and causal-structure-enhanced asynchronous advantage actor–critic (A3C) reinforcement learning techniques. This framework aims to optimize resource allocation, thereby enhancing communication support within EV charging networks. Through the integration of RIS technology, which enables control over electromagnetic waves, and the application of causal reinforcement learning algorithms, the framework dynamically adjusts resource allocation strategies to accommodate evolving conditions in EV charging networks. An essential aspect of this framework is its ability to simultaneously meet real-world social requirements, such as ensuring efficient utilization of network resources. Numerical simulation results validate the effectiveness and adaptability of this approach in improving wireless network efficiency and enhancing user experience within the SIoT context. Through these simulations, it becomes evident that the developed framework offers promising solutions to the challenges posed by integrating the SIoT with EV charging networks. 

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4. A Generative AI Approach to Pricing Mechanisms and Consumer Behavior in the Electric Vehicle Charging Market

   https://doi.org/10.1609/aaaiss.v2i1.27649  

   Chaturvedi, Sarthak; Chen, Edward W; Sharma, Ila P; Asensio, Omar Isaac (January 2024, Proceedings of the AAAI Symposium Series)

   The electrification of transportation is a growing strategy to reduce mobile source emissions and air pollution globally. To encourage adoption of electric vehicles, there is a need for reliable evidence about pricing in pub-lic charging stations that can serve a greater number of communities. However, user-entered pricing information by thousands of charge point operators (CPOs) has created ambiguity for large-scale aggregation, increasing both the cost of analysis for researchers and search costs for consumers. In this paper, we use large language models to address standing challenges with price discovery in distributed digital data. We show that generative AI models can effectively extract pricing mechanisms from unstructured text with high accuracy, and at substantially lower cost of three to four orders of magnitude lower than human curation (USD 0.006 pennies per observation). We exploit the few-shot learning capabilities of GPT-4 with human-in-the-loop feedback—beating prior classification performance benchmarks with fewer training data. The most common pricing models include free, energy-based (per kWh), and time-based (per unit time), with tiered pricing (variable pricing based on usage) being the most prevalent among paid stations. Behavioral insights from a US nationally representative sample of 13,008 stations suggest that EV users are commonly frustrated with the slower than expected charging rates and the total cost of charging. This study uncovers additional consumer barriers to charging services concerning the need for better price standardization. 

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5. Joint Optimization of Autonomous Electric Vehicle Fleet Operations and Charging Station Siting

   https://doi.org/10.1109/ITSC48978.2021.9565089  

   Luke, Justin; Salazar, Mauro; Rajagopal, Ram; Pavone, Marco (September 2021, 2021 IEEE International Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC))

   Charging infrastructure is the coupling link between power and transportation networks, thus determining charging station siting is necessary for planning of power and transportation systems. While previous works have either optimized for charging station siting given historic travel behavior, or optimized fleet routing and charging given an assumed placement of the stations, this paper introduces a linear program that optimizes for station siting and macroscopic fleet operations in a joint fashion. Given an electricity retail rate and a set of travel demand requests, the optimization minimizes total cost for an autonomous EV fleet comprising of travel costs, station procurement costs, fleet procurement costs, and electricity costs, including demand charges. Specifically, the optimization returns the number of charging plugs for each charging rate (e.g., Level 2, DC fast charging) at each candidate location, as well as the optimal routing and charging of the fleet. From a case-study of an electric vehicle fleet operating in San Francisco, our results show that, albeit with range limitations, small EVs with low procurement costs and high energy efficiencies are the most cost-effective in terms of total ownership costs. Furthermore, the optimal siting of charging stations is more spatially distributed than the current siting of stations, consisting mainly of high-power Level 2 AC stations (16.8 kW) with a small share of DC fast charging stations and no standard 7.7kW Level 2 stations. Optimal siting reduces the total costs, empty vehicle travel, and peak charging load by up to 10%. 

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