Consumer Preferences for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Based on the Text Mining Method

Yuan-Yuan Wang, Yuan-Ying Chi, Jin-Hua Xu and Jia-Lin Li
Additional contact information
Yuan-Yuan Wang: School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Yuan-Ying Chi: School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Jin-Hua Xu: Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Jia-Lin Li: China Datang Group New Energy Science and Technology Research Institute, Beijing 100124, China

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-20

Abstract: The construction of charging infrastructure has a positive effect on promoting the diffusion of new energy vehicles (NEVs). This study uses natural language processing (NLP) technology to explore consumer preferences for charging infrastructure from consumer comments posted on public social media. The findings show that consumers in first-tier cities pay more attention to charging infrastructure, and the number of comments accounted for 36% of the total. In all comments, consumers are most concerned about charging issues, national policy support, driving range, and installation of private charging piles. Among the charging modes of charging piles, direct current (DC) fast charging is more popular with consumers. The inability to find public charging piles in time to replenish power during travel or high energy consumption caused by air conditioning is the main reason for consumers’ range anxiety. Increasing battery performance, improving charging convenience, and construction of battery swap station are the main ways consumers prefer to increase driving range. Consumers’ preference for charging at home is the main reason for their high attention to the installation of private charging piles. However, the lack of fixed parking spaces and community properties have become the main obstacles to the installation of private charging piles. In addition, consumers in cities with different development levels pay different amounts of attention to each topic of charging infrastructure. Consumers in second-tier and above cities are most concerned about charging issues. Consumers in third-tier and above cities pay significantly more attention to the installation of private charging piles than consumers in fourth-tier and fifth-tier cities. Consumers in each city have almost the same amount of attention to driving range.

Keywords: charging infrastructure; natural language processing; public comment assessment; consumer preferences; regional differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4598/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4598/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:15:p:4598-:d:604240

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().