Working Paper: NBER ID: w28451
Authors: Fiona Burlig; James B. Bushnell; David S. Rapson; Catherine Wolfram
Abstract: We provide the first at-scale estimate of electric vehicle (EV) home charging. Previous estimates are either based on surveys that reach conflicting conclusions, or are extrapolated from a small, unrepresentative sample of households with dedicated EV meters. We combine billions of hourly electricity meter measurements with address-level EV registration records from California households. The average EV increases overall household load by 2.9 kilowatt-hours per day, less than half the amount assumed by state regulators. Our results imply that EVs travel 5,300 miles per year, under half of the US fleet average. This raises questions about transportation electrification for climate policy.
Keywords: Electric Vehicles; Electricity Consumption; Transportation Electrification
JEL Codes: Q4; R4
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| EV adoption (treatment effects) (C22) | Electricity consumption concentrated in the evening hours (L97) |
| Household electricity consumption (pre-EV adoption) (D10) | Household electricity consumption (post-EV adoption) (D10) |
| EV adoption (O00) | Counterfactual trend for adopting households (D19) |
| Electric Vehicle (EV) adoption (L94) | Household electricity consumption (D10) |