In the 1920s, the production of petroleum fuel (petrol and diesel) vehicles entered mass production to satisfy the market needs. From that point, the companies in the automotive cars industry started competing on which makes the best car. In the 1980s, an attempt from car companies to seek an alternative to petroleum fuel vehicles due to the air pollution. They started developing clean transportation [1, 2].
In the last 20 years, the world became more interested in using clean transportation, which is based on electric vehicles (EV) instead of petroleum fuel vehicles after the awareness about air pollution problems started to grow year after year. Therefore, it is a great solution to minimize pollution emissions such as CO2 emission from petroleum fuel vehicles to help the world get rid of polluted gases. The EVs became widely used nowadays, but they still face some problems that prevent them from completely replacing petroleum fuel vehicles. One problem is the mileage that EVs can afford per one full charge cannot be compared to conventional petroleum fuel vehicles. Besides, the charging speed and time are one of the main problems that face EVs. This problem can be overcome by building a sufficient number of fast-charging stations. However, that cannot happen rapidly due to the negative impact that puts on the grid and the losses of energy that occurs in the charging stations because of high charging currents. Therefore, developing charging stations is required to cope with the increase in the use of EVs [3].
Improving the charging stations’ locations and technology can support expanding the use of EVs. These stations are usually part of the infrastructure that provides the electric energy required to recharge the EVs’ batteries. There are mainly two types of charging stations used in charging electric vehicles. They are residential charging stations and public charging stations [4]. To deploy a public charging station efficiently, appropriate infrastructure is required. The charging stations infrastructure should recognize the best parking locations to build the charging stations based on EVs mobility and drivers’ behaviors. Besides, it is essential to calculate the allowed amount of power needed for EVs’ charging to determine the number of needed charging stations, which satisfies the needs for charging as much EVs as possible without affecting the quality of the power distribution system (grid).
[1] G. Georgano, Vintage Cars, 1886 to 1930, Sweden: Tiger Books International, 1985.
[2] K. G. Høyer, “The history of alternative fuels in transportation: The case of electric and hybrid cars,” Utilities Policy, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 63-71, 2008.
[3] Z.-H. Zhu, Z.-Y. Gao, J.-F. Zheng and H.-M. Du, “Charging station location problem of plug-in electric vehicles,” Journal of Transport Geography, vol. 52, pp. 11-22, 2016.
[4] W. Khan, A. Furkan and M. S. Alam, “Fast EV charging station integration with grid ensuring optimal and quality power exchange,” Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 143-152, 2019.