Electric Vehicles (EVs) have been big news in Georgia over the past few years, be it the planned Rivian factory just east of Social Circle, Kia’s announced plans to manufacture its electric-powered SUV in West Point, the Hyundai plant under construction in Bryan County, the new SK battery facility in Commerce, or the various other battery plants under construction around the state. To be sure, EV and related manufacturing is a boon for Georgia’s workers, but how ready is our infrastructure to accept EVs as part of our daily life? Or, as a prospective EV purchaser might wonder and worry, “If my battery runs low while I’m out, will I be able to find a place to charge? “[1]
To answer this question, we turn to data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center.[2] We will consider these data for the area covered by Atlanta’s Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), the entity responsible for developing transportation plans for our region.[3] The Department of Energy database registers 1,120 public EV charging locations within the MPO, or about 70% of the 1,600 stations statewide.[4] As Figure 1 below shows, the vast majority of the stations in the MPO (853, or about 76%) are located within a 1-mile buffer of a major expressway (either an interstate highway or Georgia 400); 101 of the stations inside the MPO located within that buffer offer at least one DC Fast charging port.
Figure 1: EV Charging and Expressways (Source: U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center; ARC RAD)
So the fairly numerous locations shown above are good news for drivers passing through the region, but what does access look like for our residents? The answer depends some on an individuals’ needs: will a level-2 charger suffice for them, or do they require the capabilities of fast DC charging?[5] And how much capacity should a station have in order to “count” as accessible? After all, no one wants to use their last bit of battery power getting to a charging station that is already occupied! Given these questions, we’ll look at a few different scenarios. In all cases, drive times are estimated for normal (i.e., non-rush hour) traffic using Caliper’s Maptitude software calculated over the HERE streets network.
Our first scenario (in Figure 2) considers all public sites with a Level-2 or better charger. As the map below shows, the vast majority of the MPO’s territory—about 71%— is within a 10-minute drive of an EV charging station of Level 2 or better. About 90% of the population resides within this 10-minute drive zone, according to 2020 Census data.[6]
Figure 2: Resident Drivetimes to Level 2 (or Better) Chargers (Source: U.S. DoE Alternative Fuels Data Center; ARC RAD)
The picture changes somewhat if we restrict the universe of chargers to the DC Fast variety of charger(s). Figure 3 below illustrates that about 40% of the MPO territory and 66% of the population falls within a 10-minute drive of such a charging station. Most of the interstate corridors remains within five minutes of a charging station, but there are quite a few gaps where the drive stretches to the 5 to 10-minute range. And areas at the periphery of the MPO, especially north Cherokee, most of Barrow, Newton, east Henry, southwest Fulton, southwestern Coweta, and all of Paulding lack reasonable access to charging.
Figure 3: Resident Drivetimes to DC Fast chargers (only)(Source: U.S. DoE Alternative Fuels Data Center; ARC RAD)
For the next scenario, if we relax the charger type back to Level-2, but require that a station offer at least four charging ports[7] to be counted in our access measures, the map (Figure 4 below) looks quite similar to the previous DC Fast one in Figure 3 above. About 39% of the MPO territory falls within a 10-minute drive of such a charging station, an area inhabited by about 64% of the MPO population.
Figure 4: Resident Drivetimes to Level 2 (or Better) Chargers with Four or More Available Ports (Source: U.S. DoE Alternative Fuels Data Center; ARC RAD)
Finally, the picture looks significantly less rosy if we look at drive times to stations with at least four DC Fast chargers[8]. Only about 20% of the MPO territory and 40% of the population lies within a 10-minute drive of this charging station type. Accessibility remains good in the northern 75/85 corridors and out I-20 to the east, but it is rather poor in most other areas:
Figure 5: Resident Drivetimes to NEVI-Compliant Charging Stations (Source: U.S. DoE Alternative Fuels Data Center; ARC RAD)
The upshot of all this is: While EV charging stations themselves are reasonably well distributed throughout the MPO, these stations will need to be upgraded– both in terms of the charging systems and the number of ports available at each one– in order to adequately serve the Atlanta region.
Footnotes:
[1] So called “range anxiety” needn’t be a worry for most Atlantans under normal circumstances. According to the most recent estimates of ARC’s own Atlanta Regional Activity-Based Travel Demand Modeling Forecasting Model (or ABM for short), our per capita daily vehicle travel is 26.4 miles. That is less than 20% of the 149-mile rating of the base-level 2024 Nissan Leaf. Still, you could need to quickly find a charging station for any number of reasons: you might have more than one car at your home but only one charging port; you could reside in an apartment complex lacking charging stations; or you may simply have forgotten to plug the car in the night before.
[2] This Data Center offers an Alternative Fueling Station Locator (https://afdc.energy.gov/stations/) that you can use to find nearby stations if you need to fill up with biodiesel, CNG, hydrogen, or other alternative fuels, not to mention if your EV needs a charge.
[3] All metropolitan areas with population greater than 50,000 must have an MPO under Federal law. Atlanta’s MPO covers thirteen counties (Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Paulding, and Rockdale) in their entirety, plus parts of seven more (Barrow, Carroll, Dawson, Newton, Pike, Spalding, and Walton). For more information, see https://cdn.atlantaregional.org/wp-content/uploads/arc-cep-mpo-guide-red-final.pdf.
[4] For these purposes, we are only counting public stations with unrestricted access. Stations reserved for patrons of a particular business, such as guests staying at a hotel, are excluded from this analysis.
[5] An hour of charging at level 2 charger fuels a 10 to 20-mile drive, while a DC Fast charger provides for 180-240 miles in the same hour of charging. See https://www.transportation.gov/rural/ev/toolkit/ev-basics/charging-speeds for an overview of EV chargers.
[6] Recall that population density is higher in the urban core, which is also where the EV chargers are most concentrated.
[7] Admittedly, four is an arbitrary number. But to be eligible for government funds under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program, a charging station must offer at least four fast DC ports, so it seems like a good benchmark. For more information about the NEVI program, see https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/nevi/.
[8] This represents the service level that must be provided in order to qualify for NEVI funding– see footnote #7.