The relationship between public charging infrastructure deployment and other socio-economic factors and electric vehicle adoption in France

To shed light on the main barriers, and based on an extensive state-of-the-art, we used an original database and we statistically analyzed the relationship of 21 sociodemographic, technical, and economic factors on BEV and PHEV market shares, separately, in 94 French departments from 2015 to 2019, using mixed-effect regression. We found different covariates related to BEV and PHEV sales, respectively, suggesting the two markets respond to different incentives. The number of available BEV/PHEV models and energy prices are positively correlated with BEV and PHEV adoption. Fast, ultrafast charger density and local incentives positively relate with BEV sales, while slow-and-normal charger density to PHEV sales. Contrarily, national subsidies, relative to vehicles’ prices, are negatively correlated with PHEVs sales. Based on the results, policy recommendations are considered for the automotive industry, charging operators, and local authorities to draw a roadmap for electric mobility transition in France.