MSU research contributes to MEDC report of Michigan’s EV charging stations

For those considering buying an electric vehicle, or EV, range anxiety — the fear of not having enough battery charge to arrive at a destination or charging station — is a real concern. Michigan State University researchers have contributed to a recent report from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, or MEDC, and its Office of Future Mobility and Electrification that reveals how many EV charging stations the state needs and where they should be located to meet the current and future demands for EV in the state.

Mehrnaz Ghamami and Ali Zockaie, associate professors in MSU’s College of Engineering, have been studying Michiganders’ travel patterns across the state using information provided by the Michigan Department of Transportation’s road network. They used the travel demand matrix provided by MDOT in combination with data from continuous traffic counting stations (24/7 vehicle counts) to simulate travel patterns across Michigan.

Ghamami and her team talked with EV users, car companies and utility companies to create realistic scenarios to make sure their assumptions were realistic when they created their models. For example, when do EV users stop to charge their vehicles? How often do they use their EVs for long-distance trips? What are the main barriers in EV trips? This led to the team identifying optimal locations throughout the state that minimize investment costs while providing an acceptable level of service to users.

“We are considering things like making sure that our users won’t have to go out of their way to find a charging station or face significant delays while waiting for an available charger,” said Ghamami. “It’s not just the investment that we are considering, but also the EV users; we want to make sure every single EV trip is feasible.”

The challenge was finding as many win-win scenarios as possible by looking at where EV users live, work and travel regularly.

While travel demand increases significantly during summer compared to winter in Michigan, the researchers were surprised to find that due to decreased battery performance in winter, the charging demand increases in colder months, meaning that Michigan needs more EV battery chargers to support winter battery performance.

“Electric vehicle battery performance drops 30% efficiency in winter,” said Ghamami. “So, we ran different scenarios by comparing charging needs in summer to winter, in which battery performance is 70% of what it is in summer.”

Charging station needs and planning are also impacted by Michigan’s tourism. Another interesting finding is that while DC fast chargers charge an EV battery quickly, they are harder on the battery life. The team showed that installing a level 2 charger in multifamily residentials — 20% of Michigan EV users live in multifamily homes — might take longer to charge but it could be less expensive to install, be more accessible to users and would be better for EV battery life overall.

“When we started this project in 2018, Michigan had very limited public EV charging infrastructure to support EV users, but now Michigan has a more robust and accessible charging network across the state,” Ghamami said. “We’ll continue to look for any gaps that need an EV charging station to strengthen this network.”

“These findings from Michigan State University’s research reinforces our commitment to a smart, data-driven approach to expanding Michigan’s EV infrastructure,” said Michigan’s Chief Mobility Officer Justine Johnson. “Understanding how and when EV users travel ensures we can build out Michigan’s mobility ecosystem and increase charging access for users across the state. In Michigan, we will continue to lead through our innovative measures to accelerate the transition to electric mobility and supporting the needs of all Michiganders.”

The “EV Charging Infrastructure Study – Phase 1” report is available on the Office of Future Mobility and Electrification website.