Battery electric vehicles in Japan: Human mobile behavior based adoption potential analysis and policy target response

With the pressing demand of climate change mitigation, the rapid technological development and market adoption of battery electric vehicles are imperative. However, the diverse consumption attitudes and their interactions, which are rarely considered, can significantly affect the adoption potential of battery electric vehicles. On the basis of three years of global positioning system data of 1.6 million people, we estimated the travel and adoption demands of battery electric vehicles in Japan considering diverse consumption attitudes. Under the current construction conditions for public charging systems and charging technologies, the adoption potential of battery electric vehicles may not be as promising as previously expected, and the government still faces great pressure to respond to the market share target. Given the current level of battery technology, technical and policy improvements such as fast charging, reducing the production cost, perfecting the public charging infrastructure, and increasing purchasing subsidies were found to be more effective than improving the battery capacity at increasing the adoption potential of battery electric vehicles.