Power supply disruptions deter electric vehicle adoption in cities in China

Electrification plays a crucial role in deep decarbonization. However, electrification and power infrastructure can cause mutual challenges. We use nationwide power outage and electric vehicle adoption data in China to provide empirical evidence on how power infrastructure failures can deter electrification. We find that when the number of power outages per district increases by 1 in a given month, the number of new electric vehicles adopted per month decreases by 0.99%. A doubling of power outages in one year on average across the nation can create a depressed adoption rate for up to a decade, implying a decline of more than $31.3 million per year in carbon reduction benefits from electric vehicle adoptions. This paper adds to the policy discussion of the costs of increased power outages due to extreme weather and natural disasters, and the urgency for policy to address this issue to facilitate wide adoption of electrification.

Yueming (Lucy) Qiu, Nana Deng, Bo Wang, Xingchi Shen, Zhaohua Wang, Nathan Hultman, Han Shi, Jie Liu, Yi David Wang