A new paper commissioned by a pair of nonprofit organizations, the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) and the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), compares the current state of EV adoption in the three most important markets – the US, Europe and China – with an emphasis on charging infrastructure, and makes recommendations to help policymakers to encourage electrification as efficiently as possible.

The authors chose to highlight sub-regions within each of the three economic blocs. In the US, the report examines California, Massachusetts, and Michigan, and within the EU, it looks at France, Germany, Spain, the UK and Denmark. In just about every region, authorities have established ambitious targets for EV registrations, and so far, actual EV adoption is falling short of the goals. This is mainly due to the high purchase prices and operating limitations of current EVs, according to the paper.

The report has a lot to say about utility regulation, which needs to be modernized to encourage not only EV adoption, but renewable energy use as well. Among many policy changes, it recommends that governments: amend the rules to foster participation by non-generators in electricity markets; create policies to separate utility earnings from energy sales, in order to reverse incentives for regulated entities to sell more electricity; create open and transparent electricity markets; and encourage time-of-use (TOU) pricing plans.

Image: Jim Orsini
Source: Green Car Congress