Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Travel Behaviour and Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tbs

The configuration of charging stations: What do potential users want?

Margarita Gutjar *, Matthias Kowald
RheinMain University of Applied Sciences, Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Kurt-Schumacher-Ring 18, 65197 Wiesbaden, Germany

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: As a considerable amount of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by the transport sector, the German govern­
Electric vehicles ment has initiated programs for the promotion of electric vehicles (EVs) and the installation of charging infra­
Electric mobility structure. A harmonized solution for vehicle authentication, payment methods, and pricing models is required
Charging stations
since currently available charging stations are highly heterogeneous resulting in challenges for EV users and
Public charging infrastructure
Stated preference
potentially in dissatisfying charging experiences. To provide recommendations for charging station operators and
Discrete choice experiment transport policy measures, a stated preference experiment was designed. In computer-assisted personal in­
terviews, 450 respondents were provided with choice tasks with different configurations, where they indicated
their preferences by choosing the most preferred charging station. Results from a mixed multinomial logit model
indicate that future charging stations should enable vehicle authentication via the charging cable (Plug&Charge),
provide card-based payment (debit or credit card), and charge per amount of electricity (kWh). Further, higher
shares of renewable energy at charging stations are preferred and tend to increase the acceptance of EVs.

1. Introduction infrastructure is expanding, a further deployment is required for the

The transport sector is one of the largest sources of the total green­
house gas emissions (GHG) with constant growing trend since 1990
(Buysse et al., 2021; EU, 2018a; IEA, 2022a), while road traffic is the
greatest polluter within this sector (Buysse et al., 2021). Therefore, e.g.
the EU is aiming to decrease emissions caused by the transport sector by
90% in the year 2050 in comparison to 1990 (Buysse et al., 2021; EU,
2018a). To reach this goal, electric vehicles (EVs) (EU, 2014), especially
battery electric vehicles (BEV) (Bieker, 2021), are an important
contributor for the road traffic. Moreover, the life-cycle emissions of EVs
are expected to rapidly decrease in future accordingly to the decar­
bonization of the energy system (Märtz et al., 2021). Although, the
global EV sales are increasing it is not happening equally around the
world (IEA, 2022b). All in all, political action is required to decrease the
emissions by decarbonizing the energy system and achieving a rapid
shift from conventional vehicles to EVs (Märtz et al., 2021). In addition
to monetary incentives (Bjerkan et al., 2016; Buchmann et al., 2021), the
adoption of EVs is closely linked to the installation of charging infra­
structure (Auf der Maur et al., 2020; Brückmann et al., 2021; Buchmann
et al., 2021; Egnér and Trosvik, 2018; Sierzchula et al., 2014; Vogt and
Fels, 2017; Wolbertus et al., 2018). For this reason, the development of
charging stations needs to be pushed forward to overcome the cause-
effect dilemma. Although the global development of the charging
promotion of EVs (IEA, 2022b).
This study aims to investigate potential users’ preferences for public
charging stations and has selected Germany as case study, where the
transport sector is also one of the largest sources of GHG emissions (Salb
et al., 2018). Therefore, the government has committed to drastically
reducing emissions until 2030, by, among other things, promoting
electric vehicles (EVs) (BMU, 2016). Although EV sales are rapidly
growing since mid of the year 2020, the market share of EVs is still low
in Germany (NOW, 2021) in comparison to the top seven countries in
Europe, even though Germany is the largest market in selling EVs (IEA,
2022b). Although Germany is better equipped than the most European
countries and in comparison worldwide (IEA, 2022b), charging stations
are currently sparsely distributed across Germany with the highest
density in a few metropolitan cities (Wolff and Madlener, 2020), and
lower density in eastern Germany in comparison to the west (Auf der
Maur et al., 2020; Bundesnetzagentur, 2022), However, as the diffusion
of EVs requires the installation of nationwide charging infrastructure
(Auf der Maur et al., 2020; Liao et al., 2017), the government initiated
several programs to fund the installation of charging stations, which
lead to a rapid development (Auf der Maur et al., 2020).
Although, in comparison to charging at home and workplace, public
charging is the least frequently used (Hardman et al., 2018) and the least
preferred charging option (Jabeen et al., 2013), it is still required to

* Corresponding author at: Postfach 3251, 65022 Wiesbaden, Germany.

E-mail addresses: margarita.gutjar@hs-rm.de (M. Gutjar), matthias.kowald@hs-rm.de (M. Kowald).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2023.100579
Received 25 May 2022; Received in revised form 23 February 2023; Accepted 4 March 2023
Available online 9 March 2023
2214-367X/© 2023 Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald
encourage vehicle drivers to adopt an EV. Different stakeholders in the
Netherlands also agree that not only private but also semi-public and
public charging points are required for the promotion of EVs (Wolbertus
et al., 2020). Semi-public charging stations are located in a private area
(e.g. supermarkets) and can either be used by everyone or by a restricted
group of people, while public charging stations are open to everybody
(Auf der Maur et al., 2020; Funke et al., 2015). Therefore, there is a large
number of EV users who need to use public EV chargers, e.g. for charging
at home overnight without owning a charging station, charging on the
way, charging during working hours, or during activities (Funke et al.,
2015; Linnemann and Nagel, 2020). In Germany, 70% of surveyed EV
drivers indicate using public charging infrastructure at least once a
month (Vogt and Fels, 2017). Even among users who charge their EVs at
home most of the time, 84% reported using public charging infrastruc­
ture sometimes or often (Sprenger, 2020). These usage patterns show
that (semi-) public EV chargers need to be applicable for a broad type of
users at any time and also for users who are not familiar with stations of
a particular provider in a particular region. At present, in Germany, a
wide variety of providers exists (Auf der Maur et al., 2020), which re­
sults in highly heterogeneous configurations of charging stations making
simple and user-friendly handling difficult (Kistner and Kowald, 2019).
At the same time, findings show, that (potential) consumers are not only
sensitive to the mere presence or density of charging stations, but are
more concerned with attributes such as costs, charging duration (Glo­
bisch et al., 2018; Jabeen et al., 2013; Wolff and Madlener, 2020, 2019),
location, waiting times (Wolff and Madlener, 2020), and the share of
renewable energy in the energy mix (Wolff and Madlener, 2019).
Yet, preferences for the configuration of charging stations have not
been fully studied. While there is a large body of research on the
charging infrastructure itself and its spatial distribution (see e.g. Funke
et al., 2015; Wolff and Madlener, 2020), the impact on power grids (see
literature review by Hardman et al. (2018), the attractiveness (Globisch
et al., 2018), on willingness-to-pay (Nienhueser and Qiu, 2016; Wolff
and Madlener, 2020, 2019), and charging behavior (Wolbertus et al.,
2018), there is only little research focusing the configuration in partic­
ular. The configuration, however, plays an important role in the inter­
action between the user and the charging station. To promote EVs and to
provide customer-friendly charging, attributes such as authentication,
pricing, and payment methods are important and need harmonization
between charging stations and regions (Funke et al., 2015; Hardman
et al., 2018). Since recent studies have shown that these attributes seem
to have the largest discrepancy between desired configuration and the
current situation (Vogt and Fels, 2017), the preferences of potential
customers need to be investigated. As long as the EV market diffusion is
in its early stages in Germany (Plötz and Dütschke, 2020; Sprenger,
2020), it is highly important to come up with a standardized solution for
the configuration of charging stations across regions (Hardman et al.,
2018) as early as possible and avoid charging stations with inconvenient
handling.
The fact that user-friendly public charging is key for the diffusion of
EVs was recognized by the political authorities. The directive 2014/94/
EU (EU, 2014) of the European Union (EU) established a common
framework for the member states and sets minimum requirements to
achieve the installation of alternative fuels infrastructure. The EU
member states are obliged to adopt a national policy framework to meet
these requirements. For public charging of EVs, the directive aims to
achieve.
• ad hoc charging without the necessity of a contract with the operator
or the electricity supplier;
• prices have to be reasonable, comparable, transparent, and non-
discriminatory.
Further, the Directive 2018/2001/EU (EU, 2018b) obliges the EU
member states to ensure that the share of renewable energy in the total
consumption of energy in the transport sector is at a minimum of 14% by
2
Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579
2030.
Given these regulations and the outlined heterogeneity in the
configuration of charging stations, this study aims to investigate public
preferences for the authentication method, pricing models, payment
methods, and the share of renewables in the energy mix charged at a
charging station. The results will enable an evaluation of national pol­
icies adopted in Germany on the one hand and derive further political
implications on the other hand. The insights and policy implications will
be transferable to the configuration of charging stations worldwide
under consideration of culturally specific differences.
2. Background
It is important to introduce two relevant actors for the deployment of
EV charging (Auf der Maur et al., 2020):
1) A charge point operator (CPO) is responsible for the installation of
charging stations, their maintenance, for the electricity supply and
access to the charging point
2) An e-mobility provider (EMP) is responsible for the authentication
methods, pricing, and payment options
A CPO can act as an EMP at the same time. Currently, different EMPs
provide different options for authentication, pricing, and payment
methods (Kistner and Kowald, 2019; Wolbertus et al., 2020), which
results in an user-unfriendly handling. In the following, the heteroge­
neity in the configuration of charging stations in Germany will be dis­
cussed, and policies designed by the German government to meet the
requirements of the EU directives will be introduced (see Fig. 1).
Moreover, current research on preferences for the selected attributes
will be outlined.
2.1. Authentication
To enable the charging and payment, an authentication of the EV
user and vehicle is required, since the system needs to recognize that a
valid payment method is available. Users can authenticate via a smart­
phone app (Kistner and Kowald, 2019). In case the EV user has a contract
with the provider, a card with a radio-frequency identification (RFID)
chip can be used, which stores all required data (Lei et al., 2012).
Another option is Plug&Charge when the authentication happens auto­
matically by connecting the charging cable to the charging station
(Kistner and Kowald, 2019) and further allows automatic payment if the
EV user has stored any payment details (e.g. credit card) in the vehicle
(Jacob, 2021). However, currently, this method is only possible for a
limited number of vehicles and charging stations (Schaal, 2020) due to
the requirement of a secure data transfer between the vehicle, charging
station, energy supplier, and payment service provider (Jacob, 2021).
Stakeholders established a group of standards (ISO 15118) to facilitate
communication between the vehicle and the charging station (Jacob,
2021; Schaal, 2020).
Recently, the German government updated the charging station
regulation (§4 LSV – “Ladesäulenverordnung”), which makes a card-
based authentication and payment with a debit or credit card manda­
tory for all charging stations installed after July 2023 to allow users ad
hoc charging and payment (Bundesgesetzblatt, 2021).
Despite the new regulation in the future, currently, the variety of
options and differences across EMPs results in EV drivers’ dissatisfaction
(Sprenger, 2020). Surveys show on average a low satisfaction with
current authentication options (Vogt and Fels, 2017): Among all options,
an RFID card is the most preferred method, followed by an app and
Plug&Charge. However, in focus group discussions, participants criti­
cized a large number of RFID cards from different providers and claimed
a standardized solution. The participants reported misfunctions in
smartphone apps (e.g. failed internet connections, low battery, cold
weather) and as not everybody owns a smartphone authentication via an
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald
Fig. 1. Directives on the EU level and political regulations in Germany.
app cannot be the sole option. In the focus groups, authentication via
Plug&Charge was discussed positively and was the desired scenario for
the future (Vogt and Fels, 2017). In a Dutch survey with stakeholders’
perspectives on infrastructure, the respondents showed a clear
consensus on the idea that the interoperability of different charging
cards should be ensured at the European level to allow easy access to the
charging stations for everybody (Wolbertus et al., 2020). Summarizing
the findings below makes clear, that ease of use is an important factor
and people prefer a charging process similar to traditional refueling.
Thus, charging via Plug&Charge seem to be the most comfortable
option.
2.2. Payment
A range of different payment methods exists for charging stations
(Kistner and Kowald, 2019): A web–based payment happens via an online
payment system (e.g. PayPal). If a customer has a contract with the
provider, a direct debit transfer after charging is an option. If an RFID card
from a given provider is available, users can use this for payment.
Further, an EMP can allow payment via a card–based method with a
regular credit or debit card, or paying cash. However, offering cash
payments requires high administrative and personal costs. Since
charging stations are occupied for a longer time than refueling stations,
cash payments are too costly to be offered and thus, won’t be considered
in this study. Currently, the charging station regulation requires EMPs to
offer only cash, app, or card-based payments. However, the resulting
user confusion at different charging stations was recognized by the
German legal authorities and, as reported above, card-based payment
will be mandatory for all charging stations installed after July 2023 (§4
LSV).
Vogt and Fels (2017) did not differentiate between the single
methods in their survey but grouped them into categories, such as non-
anonymous (card-based, PayPal), anonymous (cash, prepaid card), and
methods requiring a contract with the operator. The respondents
preferred the ad hoc payment methods more than those requiring a
contract, while the non-anonymous methods were most preferred. In
Norway, results from a survey of EV owners show, that they prefer RFID
card payment over other methods, such as text messages or mobile apps,
whereby card-based payment methods were not offered as an option
(Lorentzen et al., 2017). In Germany, a recent survey showed that be­
tween vehicle drivers that are willing to adopt an EV, 79% preferred
card-based methods, while only 8% preferred to pay with an RFID card
or via an app at a charging station (IDZ, 2021). Moreover, 67% of bat­
tery EV drivers agreed that ad hoc payments with card-based methods
would be easier than former options (ADAC, 2021a). For payments in
general, findings from a diary of consumer payment choices (Kim et al.,
2020) show, that most payments were performed with card-based
methods (54% debit and credit card), followed by cash (26%) and
3
Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579
electronic payments (11%). While cash is usually used for low amounts,
the use of card-based and electronic methods increases with higher
purchase amounts. In the same study, consumers’ stated preferences
clearly show that card-based methods are preferred most, since 42% of
the respondents prefer debit card and 29% credit card payments, while
23% prefer cash and only 7% prefer other methods. All in all, it is ex­
pected that respondents prefer ad hoc payment with card-based method
most, which is in line with the new German regulatory.
2.3. Pricing
Currently, different EMPs set up different processes for charging
(ADAC, 2021b; Auf der Maur et al., 2020; Kistner and Kowald, 2019;
Linnemann and Nagel, 2020). One option is to pay by time, which means
the longer you charge, the more you pay. Another option is to pay by the
amount of electricity charged (per kilowatt-hour (kWh)). Pricing as fla­
trate means you pay a fixed price for a limited period and can charge as
often and as much as you want, whereas a fixed fee is when you pay a
fixed price for one charging process independently of the kWh charged
and the charging duration. Although currently, some EMPs allow
charging for free, this option is for economic reasons not predicted to be
available in future (Linnemann and Nagel, 2020), and therefore, won’t
be considered in this study. The EMPs choose freely, which option, how
many different options, and which combination of the options they
provide to their customers (e.g. fixed fee combined with payment by
time) (Auf der Maur et al., 2020). This results in a lack of transparency
and dissatisfaction among EV drivers (Sprenger, 2020).
To achieve transparency and comparable prices as required by the
EU directive, the German government updated regulations in 2019
(§3 MessEG – “Mess- und Eichgesetz”; §3 MessEV – “Mess- und Eich­
verordnung”). The electricity counters at charging stations need to be
calibrated regularly. Further, the regulation on price indication
(§14 PAngV – “Preisangabenverordnung”) was recently updated as well
and is valid since May 2022. It obliges the EMPs to charge by the amount
of electricity and to report the electricity price per kWh on or close to the
charging station. While it is allowed to charge additional output-
dependent or non-consumption-dependent prices (e.g. by time at park­
ing slots, flatrate, fixed fee), EMPs need to indicate the additional fees
transparently next to the regular price per kWh.
For pricing, the only method rated positively in the EV driver survey
was pricing by electricity followed by pricing by time, fixed fee, a
combination of time and electricity, and flatrate as the least preferred
method (Vogt and Fels, 2017). When respondents were asked to choose
the first preference for the payment method, 47% chose to pay per kWh,
42% chose the option flatrate or a fixed monthly fee, while only 5%
chose to pay per minute (Wolff and Madlener, 2019). No matter, which
option is implemented, it has to be communicated in full transparency to
the consumer in Germany (§14 PAngV). Concluding previous research
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald
and the common habit to pay for the amount at refueling stations, it is
expected that respondents mostly prefer to pay per kWh.
2.4. Electricity
In general, public electricity comes from different resources (Burger,
2021a), which has to be considered when promoting EVs. Over the
entire life cycle of an EV, the use of renewable electricity from wind
power offers a reduction potential of over 70% of greenhouse gas
emissions compared to fossil electricity from brown coal (IAV, 2020). In
the year 2021, in Germany, 47% of the net public energy was provided
by renewable energy (e.g. wind, hydropower) (Burger, 2021b), while
the rest still comes from nuclear and fossil energy (Burger, 2021a). To
our best knowledge, there are no statistics on the share of energy from
renewable sources specifically provided at charging stations. However,
in 2021, the share of renewables in the energy consumption in the
transport sector was 6.8% (Umweltbundesamt, 2022). While the EU
directive obliges the member states to ensure a minimum of 14%
renewable energy in the energy consumption in the transport sector by
the year 2030 (EU, 2018b), the German government is planning to up­
date the current regulation on renewables energy for the year 2023. The
new regulatory (EEG – “Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz”) sets goals to
ensure that 80% of the energy consumption will be from renewable
energy sources by 2030 (BMWK, 2022).
Vogt and Fels (2017) provided several statements to EV users con­
cerning the importance of charging renewable energy, which showed
high agreements by the respondents in general with slightly higher
agreements by EV users compared to those interested in EVs. Results of a
stated preferences experiment show higher willingness to pay values for
higher shares of renewable energy when charging an EV (Wolff and
Madlener, 2020, 2019). In the US, 37% of EV divers stated that they
bought an EV for environmental reasons as the primary motivation and
22% as secondary (Nienhueser and Qiu, 2016). In a survey in Germany,
79% of EV drivers indicated to have purchased an EV for ecological
reasons (Sprenger, 2020). These results demonstrate that EV customers
are concerned about the environment and therefore a higher share of
renewable energy is important to increase the intention to adopt an EV.
Regarding the presented preferences, it is hypothesized that the re­
spondents prefer a higher share of energy from renewable sources in the
energy mix they would charge at a charging station.
To sum up, the current charging stations are highly heterogeneous
and include different combinations of the introduced options provided
by the different CPOs and EMPs in Germany and various other countries.
This can lead to confusion and unsatisfactory experiences among EV
drivers’ and those thinking about integrating an EV into their household
fleet (Kistner and Kowald, 2019; Linnemann and Nagel, 2020). Inves­
tigating the preferences of the public will enable an evaluation of the
German regulatory revisions and allow recommendations for transport
policy measures on an international level. As EVs need to be promoted to
the whole population to meet the climate goals, it is important to assess
the preferences of the general population and not only of EV users or
those interested in EVs. Early adopters differ from the population con­
cerning socio-demographic and -economic characteristics (Plötz and
Dütschke, 2020), are expected to behave differently (Hardman et al.,
2018), have shown different preferences and lower cost-sensitivity for
charging station services (Wolff and Madlener, 2019) and have adopted
the EV for mainly for environmental reasons (Nienhueser and Qiu,
2016). Therefore, preferences can change with future adopters and thus
need to be investigated for the broad population. This study concen­
trates on assessing the preferences for charging station attributes in
order to provide recommendations for user-friendly handling at
charging stations. Moreover, respondent’s sociodemographic charac­
teristics (e.g. age, sex) and attitudes (e.g. environmental consciousness,
technophilia) have an impact on preferences for charging infrastructure
(Globisch et al., 2018) and on willingness to pay for renewable energy
(Nienhueser and Qiu, 2016). Therefore, to get deeper understanding of
4
Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579
the choice behavior and preferences for charging station configurations,
the taste difference based on these characteristics will be estimated in
the analytical procedure.
3. Methods
3.1. Data
This study analyses survey data from respondents living in Russel­
sheim am Main, a medium-sized city in South-Western Germany, sur­
rounding municipalities, and the city of Wiesbaden. The survey is part of
a large-scale study within the project “Electric City Russelsheim” initi­
ated by the German government, where Russelsheim will be equipped
with dense charging infrastructure (Gutjar et al., 2021; Gutjar and
Kowald, 2021a). For recruitment, a list of 6,107 addresses and phone
numbers was employed as sampling frame. It included contact details for
individuals in six municipalities in Russelsheim and surrounding areas
and was stratified in terms of inhabitants, age, gender, and income.
From this sample frame, a random sample was drawn. The households
were contacted via an invitation letter in the first step and a follow-up
recruitment phone call in the next step, whereby one adult household
member, 18 years and older, was invited for participation. An incentive
of 20 Euros was offered to the respondents. Data were collected in
computer-assisted personal interviews (CAPI) in the period from
January to December 2020. The survey started as face-to-face interviews
in respondentś households from January to March and continued via an
online video-based communication tool in the period from May to
December due to COVID–19. Since the willingness of participation
decreased during COVID-19, additional efforts have been made to in­
crease the sample size. Residents of Russelsheim were personally
approached at major car parking areas. The field work was terminated
after one year for research economic reasons. However, a total sample of
n = 466 respondents was achieved, while data of 450 respondents will
be considered after data cleaning. For the experiment (see subsections
below), a rule of thumb for sample size requirements was applied: N ≥
max
500 • LJ•S (Orme, n.d.; Rose and Bliemer, 2013), with J as number of
alternatives without “none” alternative (here: 2), S as number of choice
tasks per respondent (here: 12), and Lmax as largest product of levels of
two attributes (here: 12). Following this rule, a minimum sample size of
N = 250 respondents is required. Furthermore, a D-efficient design was
created (see next subsection), which requires smaller sample size than
random orthogonal designs to obtains statistically significant estimates
(Hensher et al., 2015; Rose and Bliemer, 2014). Consequently, the ob­
tained sample size of 450 respondents after data cleaning can be
considered as sufficient.
At this stage, it is relevant to highlight that most of the previously
reported political regulations in Germany have been revised during or
after the fieldwork period in the year 2020 (PAngV, LSV, EEG).
3.2. Experiment design
As this survey aims to assess the preferences of EV adopters and
potential future users, a survey on revealed preferences and actual
behavior is impossible (Train, 2009). A stated preferences (SP) approach
needs to be applied (Louviere et al., 2000; Train, 2009) and different
options have been considered for this study with reference to method­
ological literature (Louviere et al., 2010, 2000, pp. 25–33): The scale-
based rating of every option provides some order of preferences, but it
makes strong assumptions about the cognitive abilities of the respon­
dent, which might result in invalid models. The ranking of options makes
weaker assumptions and provides a stronger order of options on the one
hand, on the other hand it lacks of information about the preference
degree and differences. Moreover, this technique comes with some un­
clear reliability and validity issues, e.g. about ranking of options, which
would not be chosen in any circumstances. Consequently, the scholars
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579

recommend to strive not to use these techniques with underlying chal­
lenging assumptions, but better to ask respondents to make a discrete
choice of one option from a set of different options. Moreover, rating-
based choices are more likely to measure the attitude towards attri­
butes, while discrete choices are more likely to represent respondent’s
preferences and represent a more realistic choice process, which in­
volves trade-off between attributes (Wijnen et al., 2015). In addition,
while conjoint analysis (rating/ranking) is relying on mathematical
theories, discrete choices analysis is based on an underlying well-tested
behavioral theory to represent behavioral choices of humans (Louviere
et al., 2010), which will be presented in the next subsection. However,
single discrete choices do not allow to assess the order of preferences and
thus, data collection of more discrete choices per individual is required
(Louviere et al., 2000).
For given reasons, in order to provide preferences for charging sta­
tions, a discrete choice experiment has been constructed, where re­
spondents were faced with several pre-defined configurations of
charging stations, while in each choice task they could choose between
two pre-defined alternatives (discrete choice). To define the alternatives
of charging station configurations, relevant attributes together with
possible levels (Louviere et al., 2000; Rose and Bliemer, 2014) were
specified previously by referring to the current heterogeneity issues at
charging stations as discussed in previous section. The attributes
authentication, payment, pricing, and share of renewables are presented
in Table 1 together with their variation.
The respondents stated their preferences as discrete choices (Rose
and Bliemer, 2014) between two alternative configurations of charging
stations presented as generic unlabeled alternatives “Configuration 1”
and “Configuration 2” (Louviere et al., 2000). Further, a labeled alter­
provided a briefing on the attributes and attribute levels, the respondent
was asked to answer the choice situations. A choice task example is
presented in Fig. 2.
Accompanying the choice experiment, the questionnaire collects
information on respondents’ demographic characteristics, mobility
behavior, and attitudes (e.g. environmental awareness, intention to buy
an EV) on the one hand. On the other hand, information on the house­
hold’s socioeconomic characteristics, living situation, and detailed in­
formation on all mobility tools (e.g. vehicles, motorcycles, public
transport abonnements) were collected. For all variables and topics
covered in the survey please see previous work (Gutjar et al., 2021;
Gutjar and Kowald, 2021a).
3.3. Model specification
Discrete choice data on a set of competing alternatives are analyzed
by applying the random utility maximization theory (RUM), which as­
sumes rational behavior so that respondents choose the alternative with
the highest associated utility (Adamowicz et al., 1994; Louviere et al.,
2010; Mariel et al., 2021). An individual n confronted with j alternatives
in t choice tasks associates an indirect utility Unjt for an alternative j in a
choice task t and chooses the alternative with the highest utility. The
indirect utility Unjt of an alternative j is decomposed as
(1)
′
Unjt = Vnjt + εnjt = x njt β + εnjt
where Unjt is not observed, Vnjt is the deterministic utility of alternative j,
and εnjt is a random component not included in Vnjt ; Vnjt can be specified
by x njt β, where x is a vector of explanatory variables (e.g. attribute
′

native “I do not choose configuration 1 or 2” was given to the respondent levels, socio-demographics), and β are the unknown coefficients to be
to avoid forced decisions. Although, for the not to choose alternative no estimated. The presented experiment has J = 3 alternatives (configu­
attributes are presented, it might have some associated utility to the ration 1, configuration 2, none) resulting in three utility functions (Vnjt ).
respondent (e.g. see discussion in Hensher et al., 2015, p. 53). Moreover, The equations for the unlabeled alternatives (configuration 1, configu­
it makes the choice more realistic and applicable to the marketplace, ration 2) are identical since the utility is equal for generic alternatives
where users can decide between products or decide not to use any. In (Hensher et al., 2015; Louviere et al., 2010; Rose and Bliemer, 2014).
case charging stations are not satisfying, the respondent/user would For the labeled opt-out alternative (none) an alternative-specific con­
consider e.g. not to use public charging stations at all, use another option stant (ASC) (Train, 2009) was estimated. The estimation of ASC for one
or charge at home. of the unlabeled alternatives was removed during the estimation pro­
The alternatives were defined by an experimental design, where for cedure due to a small effect, which indicates that respondents are
each attribute one of the possible levels was assigned. The previously indifferent about whether an alternative is presented first or second
mentioned D-efficient experimental design (Rose and Bliemer, 2014) (Hensher et al., 2015).
was generated with the software Ngene (Rose et al., 2018). For the attributes authentification, payment, and pricing the L levels
The applied experiment design resulted in 72 choice tasks split into of each attribute were transformed into L–1 dummy variables to include
six blocks. One block including 12 choice tasks was randomly assigned them in the estimation. Hereby, one level is omitted and serves as the
to each respondent during the interview. Finally, after the interviewer reference category with a utility of size zero, while the parameter esti­
mates for the L-1 dummy variables capture the utility differences to the
Table 1 omitted reference category (Louviere et al., 2000; Mariel et al., 2021).
Stated Preferences experiment: attributes, levels, and description. The attribute share of renewables was specified as linear since previous
analyses have shown an approximately equal distance between the
attribute level description of the level
categorical level estimates (0%, 50%, 100%) (Mariel et al., 2021) and a
authentication Plug&Charge automatically by connecting the better model fit than a model with dummy-coded effects (for recom­
charging cable to the charging station
RFID by using a card from the provider with
mendations see Train (2009, p. 177)).
an RFID chip* To account for taste heterogeneity between individuals interactions
app via an app installed on a smartphone* (multiplication) of the attribute levels with individual characteristics
payment web-based via web-based services (e.g. PayPal) were specified in the utility functions of the unlabeled alternatives,
card-based via card-based services (e.g. credit card)
while the variables entered directly into the utility function for the opt-
debit transfer automatically via direct debit transfer*
pricing by electricity price is based on the actual amount of out option (for recommendations see Hensher et al. (2015)). Taste het­
electricity charged erogeneity was tested for respondents’ gender, age, education, housing
by time price is based on the time at charging status (renting vs. owning), intention to buy an EV, and environmental
station cognition. As the ‘intention to buy an EV’ and the ‘environmental
fixed fee fixed price for a charging process
flat rate unlimited charging at a fixed price (e.g.
cognition’ are latent not directly observable constructs (Brown, 2015),
monthly)* four items were defined per construct (see Table 2).
share of electricity from 0% 0% from renewable energy sources Firstly, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (Brown, 2015; Byrne,
renewables 50% 50% from renewable energy sources 2010) was estimated for every construct. Results of the CFA together
100% 100% from renewable energy sources
with the summary statistics of the resulting factor scores are presented in
*option possible only with a provider-based contract. Table 3. All standardized factor loadings (β) are greater than 0.4 and

5
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579

Which configuration would you prefer for a charging station?

Authentication RFID Plug&Charge
Payment web-based debit transfer
Pricing fixed fee by electricity
% of renewable energy 100% 50%
○ ○ ○
Configuration 1 Configuration 2 I do not choose
configuration 1 or 2

Fig. 2. Example of a choice task; Source: (Gutjar and Kowald, 2021b)

renewable energy with increasing age. Hereby, an estimate of size zero

Table 2
means that there is no interaction. A negative value indicates that the
Items for the latent constructs with descriptive statistics.
sensitivity towards renewables decreases with higher age, whereas a
item mean sd positive value indicates that the sensitivity increases with age. βrenewables
intention to buy an EV
gives the marginal utility of changes in the attribute share of renewables
I1 I am thinking of switching to an electric vehicle* 3.65 2.32
at the mean age.
I2 The next time I buy a vehicle, I will consider buying an 4.78 2.27
electric vehicle*
I3 I have a strong intention to buy an electric vehicle* 3.07 2.14 4. Results
I4 I have already done some research on buying an 3.50 2.53
electric vehicle* All data analyses were performed with R (Hess and Palma, 2019; R
environmental cognition Core Team, 2020; Rosseel, 2012). In the following, descriptive statistics
EC1 There are natural limits to growth that our 5.52 1.72
on the participants and their choices are presented followed by results
industrialized world has reached long ago*
EC2 For the environmental benefit, we should all be 5.65 1.48 from an estimated choice model.
willing to restrict our current standard of living*
EC3 We need more economic growth, even if it pollutes the 5.60 1.52 4.1. Sample: Descriptive statistics
environment
EC4 More environmental protection also means more 6.32 1.22
quality of life and health for all* Descriptive statistics (Table 4) show that the total sample (n = 450)
is imbalanced concerning gender with about 71% males and only 29%
Scale: 1 strongly agree – 7 strongly disagree; *scale reversed for analyses to ease
females. Most participants (52%) are 60 years and older, 40% are
interpretation.
middle-aged (40–59 years), while only 8% are young adults (18–39
Source of items: intention – constructed based on the Theory of Planned Behavior
(Ajzen, 1991); environmental cognition – BMU (2019). years). When comparing to the German population aged 18 years and
older, the sample overrepresents males and persons aged 60 and older,
while females and young adults are underrepresented. However, the
therefore are considered as high (Brown, 2015). With CFI >0.99,
data collection was driven for research aiming to estimate parameters
RMSEA < 0.05, and SRMR < 0.02 both measurement models show a
for preferences for charging stations and for decisions on adoption of
good model fit (Brown, 2015; Schreiber et al., 2006), and therefore, the
electric vehicle for the household fleet by running inferential analyses
factor scores were stored. In the next step, dummy variables for every
(see [anonymized]). Thus, to make the decisions more realistic, the
attitudinal construct were created to indicate high and low attitudes.
sampling strategy was aiming to collect information from household
Since the resulting factor scores are z-transformed (zero mean), values
members who are more likely to be involved in household decisions on
greater than zero were coded 1 for high attitude, while values of zero or
vehicle ownership, which in turn comes at the cost of representative­
lower were coded 0 for low attitude.
ness. However, models estimated on large samples of size 500 obtain
For the taste heterogeneity in the share of renewables by age a
estimates close to the population (Bujang et al., 2018).
continuous interaction was specified (Hess et al., 2007) as
68% of respondents live in urban and 32% in suburban/rural areas.
( )λage,renewables
age 21% of the respondents reported a low education-level, 19% a middle,
U = ⋯ + βrenewables renewables + ⋯ (2) and about 60% a high education-level. 60% of the participants are
age
currently employed or in education. Most respondents (92%) have a
where λage, renewables indicates the sensitivity towards the attribute share of driving license, and a vehicle is available often or anytime (90%), while
only about 15% have a public transport subscription. For the number of

Table 3
Results of the confirmatory factor analyses.
factor loadings model fit factor score
item β B se t-value CFI RMSEA SRMR min max sd

intention 0.996 0.049 0.012 − 2.65 3.48 2.082

I1 0.939 1.000
I2 0.715 0.746 0.037 20.386
I3 0.715 0.829 0.036 22.721
I4 0.503 0.584 0.052 22.721
environmental cognition 0.991 0.033 0.018 − 2.61 0.89 0.745
EC1 0.563 1.000
EC2 0.487 0.743 0.152 4.876
EC3 0.472 0.742 0.124 5.970
EC4 0.536 0.678 0.138 4.910

Note: Full information maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors (Brown, 2015; Rosseel, 2012); β = standardized parameter estimates (latent and
observed variables are standardized); B = unstandardized parameter estimates; CFI = comparative fit index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation;
SRMR = standardized root mean square residual; sd = standard deviation

6
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579

Table 4
Descriptive statistics of the sample (n = 450).
respondent variables n % household variables n %

Gender* Household income [€]

male 320 71.11 <900 5 1.11
female 130 28.89 900 - <1,500 15 3.33
Age* 1,500 - <2,00 24 5.33
18–39 years 34 7.56 2,000 - <3,000 55 12.22
40–59 years 180 40.00 3,000 - <4,000 93 20.67
60 years and older 236 52.44 4,000 - <5,000 85 18.89
Education** 5,000 - <6,000 55 12.22
Low 95 21.11 6,000 - <7,000 42 9.33
Medium 87 19.33 7,000 and more 39 8.67
High 268 59.56 No answer 37 8.22
Employment/education Vehicles in household
Yes 267 59.33 No vehicle 34 7.56
No 181 40.22 1 car 220 48.89
Driving license 2 cars 155 34.44
Not available 14 3.11 3 cars or more 41 9.11
Available 433 96.22 Vehicle type available
Car availability Gasoline vehicle(s) 341 75.78
Often or anytime 406 90.22 Diesel vehicle(s) 149 33.11
Rarely or never 27 6.00 BEV(s) 11 2.44
Not applicable 17 3.78 PHEV(s) 11 2.44
Public transport abo Annual VMT
None 375 83.33 Mean 18,110
Yes 66 14.67 Median 15,000
Trips 300 + km per year Distance charging infrastructure
Leisure trips <100 m 16 3.56
Mean 4.55 100–199 m 13 2.89
Median 3 200–299 m 21 4.67
Work trips (n = 273) 300–499 m 43 9.56
Mean 5.46 500–1000 m 85 18.89
Median 1 more than 1000 m 88 19.56
don’t know 184 40.89
Residential area
urban 305 67.78
suburban / rural 145 32.22

Note: *Distribution of German population based on Zensus 2011 (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2014): gender: 49% males and 51% females; age: 18–39 years (37%), 40–59
years (34%), 60 and older (29%).
**highest education aggregated according to the International Standard Classification of Education (eurostat, n.d.).

trips > 300 km per year, the mean for leisure purposes is 4.55% and
Table 5
5.46% for work. About half of the sample (52%) have a household in­
Descriptive statistics of choices.
come between 2,000 and 5,000 €. While 8% of the households have no
vehicle, 49% have one vehicle, 35% have two vehicles, and 9% have variable n %
three or more. 76% households have one or more gasoline vehicles, 33% individuals 450
diesel, 2% have a battery electric vehicle (BEV), and 2% have a Plug-In- choice tasks 5,400
Hybrid (PHEV). These characteristics demonstrate the low diffusion of no choice made 20 0.37
choice made 5,380 99.63
EVs in Germany during the fieldwork period in 2020. On average, the “Configuration 1” 1,933 35.93
households travel 18,110 annual vehicle miles (VMT). Remarkably, “Configuration 2” 1,987 36.93
around 20% indicated that the distance to the next charging station for “I do not choose configuration 1 or 2” 1,460 27.14
an EV is 1 km or more, while 41% do not know. In general, the
awareness of charging infrastructure availability is low in the population
configurations’ was included in the utility function. It aims to demon­
not owning an EV (Hardman et al., 2018).
strate the shift in ASC when both alternatives had 0% renewables.

4.2. Descriptive analysis of choices

450 individuals were asked to answer 12 choice tasks, which resulted
in 5,400 observations. The respondents completed 5,380 (99.63%)
choice tasks, which were considered in the analyses. As presented in
Table 5, respondents choose the alternative “Configuration 1” in 36%,
“Configuration 2” in 36%-37%, and “I do not choose configuration 1 or
2” in 27% of all choice tasks. Under the assumption that an individual
makes a trade-off between the attributes and chooses the alternative
with the highest associated utility (Train, 2009), it is remarkable that in
almost one-third of choice tasks the highest utility was associated with
the not choose the presented charging stations (none). Descriptive an­
alyses indicate that this option was frequently chosen, when both un­
labeled configurations (1 & 2) were defined to have 0% of renewable
energy. For this reason, a dummy indicating ‘0% renewables in both
4.3. Estimation results
A multinomial logit model (MNL) (Ben-Akiva and Lerman, 1985;
Louviere et al., 2000; Mariel et al., 2021; Train, 2009) with alternative-
specific attributes and ASC for the opt-out option was incorporated as
the baseline model (as reported in previous analyses (Gutjar and
Kowald, 2021b)). The results are presented in Table 6. In a step-wise
procedure, this model was extended to account for taste heterogeneity
in particular for gender, age, education, housing status, high intention to
buy an EV, and high environmental cognition. Hereby, education and
housing status neither showed any effects nor improvement in the model
fit and therefore were no longer included in the model. However, the
ASC estimate remained significant indicating that respondents associate
higher utility with this alternative in comparison to the labeled

7
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579

Table 6
Estimation results.
MNL MMNL
estimate s.e. t-value estimate s.e. t-value

authentication (Reference: App)

Plug&Charge 0.2688 0.0614 4.3740 0.2520 0.0919 2.7418
x high intention 0.1298 0.1272 1.0207
RFID 0.1411 0.0395 3.5730 0.3288 0.0586 5.6140
x high intention − 0.3373 0.0820 − 4.1111
payment (Reference: debit transfer)
web-based − 0.0799 0.0536 − 1.4910 0.1406 0.1693 0.8306
x age squared − 0.0001 0.0000 − 3.1724
x high intention 0.3609 0.1112 3.2467
card-based 0.1770 0.0519 3.4100 0.2261 0.1647 1.3729
x age squared − 0.00004 0.0000 − 1.0471
x high intention 0.1765 0.1091 1.6184
pricing (Reference: flat rate)
by electricity 0.8682 0.0693 12.5230 1.0291 0.0747 13.7818
by time − 0.2751 0.0705 − 3.9010 − 0.2919 0.0739 3.9488
fixed fee − 0.3570 0.0710 − 5.0250 − 0.4031 0.0744 − 5.4172
renewable energy [%] 0.0156 0.0007 27.7010 0.0211 0.0017 12.6789
λage,renewables − 0.8513 0.1388 − 6.1346
x males − 0.012 0.0019 − 6.0396
x males × high EC 0.0147 0.0019 7.8743
ASC (none)(μ) 0.7013 0.0769 9.1180 − 0.2021 0.1785 − 1.1318
ASC (none)σ − 2.6549 0.1465 − 18.1247
Shift by 0% renewables in both config. 0.5546 0.1219 4.5500
Individuals: 450 450
Observations: 5,380 5,380
log-likelihood(Null): − 5,910.53 − 5,910.53
log-likelihood(Final): − 5,301.52 − 4,423.67
Adjusted ρ2: 0.102 0.248
AIC: 10,621.03 8,887.35
BIC: 10,680.35 9,019.16

Note: s.e. = standard error; AIC = Akaike Information Criterion; BIC = Bayesian Information Criterion; x = interaction.

configurations due to some unobserved heterogeneity.
Since it is impossible to identify all possible sources of taste hetero­
geneity a mixed multinomial logit model (MMNL) was employed. It al­
lows the parameter estimate of the ASC for the opt-out option (neither
configuration 1 nor 2) to be drawn from a distribution (Hensher et al.,
2015). For βASC(none) = μ +σ • ξ a normal distribution with 1,000 Halton
draws was used for ξ (βASC(none) N(σ, μ)). The final MMNL is presented in
Table 6. The increase in adjusted rho squared (ρ2) from 0.102 to 0.248,
and the Likelihood ratio test = 1701.1 indicate a significant improve­
ment in the model (Hensher et al., 2015; Train, 2009). Fig. 3 visualizes
the marginal utility for the parameter estimates. The results of a MMNL
without interaction effects but inter-individual random parameters are
available upon request.
For authentication (see Fig. 3a), the marginal utility of Plug&­
Charge is higher in comparison to an app-based authentication and RFID
for persons with high intention to buy an EV. Persons with low intention
to buy an EV prefer RFID over Plug&Charge. However, persons with
high intention dislike RFID most. This difference might be due to the
circumstance that persons with high intention to buy an EV are more
aware of the uncomfortable fact that one needs different RFID cards for
different EMPs than people with a low intention.
For payment, estimates in the base MNL indicate a higher preference
for web-based and even higher for card-based methods in comparison to
debit transfer. However, the inclusion of taste variation shows another
picture. Firstly, the marginal utility of web and card-based methods
indicates a decreasing preference with an increasing age (negative sign
for age squared). Secondly, for people with high intention to buy an EV,
the marginal utilities reveal that web-based payment (0.1406 + 0.3609
= 0.5015) is even more preferred than a card-based payment (0.2261 +
0.1765 = 0.4026) when comparing to debit transfer. Fig. 3b presents the
estimated utility for the options depending on age and intention to buy
an EV. It becomes obvious that web-based is the least preferred method
only for older people and not in general. For respondents with low
intention to buy an EV, a card-based method is preferred over a web-
based payment and is the most preferred option for adults until the
age of about 76. For elderly, the debit transfer is the most preferred
method closely followed by card-based methods. This is reasonable since
both are options requiring the least affinity for technology, which might
be most comfortable for the elderly. Further, respondents with low
intention to buy an EV prefer the web–based method over debit transfer
only until the age of about 34. Persons with a high intention show the
highest utility for web-based methods until the age of about 35. After
this age, the highest utility is associated with card-based methods. For
persons with a high intention to buy an EV, the debit transfer is more
preferred than web-based solutions only after the age of about 64.
For pricing, respondents did not show any taste variation in the
socio-demographic variables considered. In comparison to the option
flatrate, the results show a positive effect only for the option to pay for
the electricity charged (per kWh), while paying for the charging dura­
tion and a fixed fee are the least preferred methods (see Fig. 3c), which is
in line with the expectations.
For the sensitivity towards the share of renewable energy in the
provided energy mix at a charging station, the continuous interaction
with age was specified and shows that the estimated marginal utility of
this attribute at mean age (xage = 59) is 0.0211 and positive (see Fig. 3d).
The negative sign for λage,renewables shows that a person with higher age are
less sensitive about the share of renewables in the electricity provided at
charging stations. Further, an interaction of the attribute with males was
specified. The negative parameter shows that males are less concerned
about the share of renewables. However, the three-way interaction with
high environmental cognition shows a positive sign.
Fig. 3e shows that within the group of people with a low environ­
mental cognition, females show a higher associated utility with a higher
share of renewables. However, for people with a high environmental
cognition, males associate a higher utility with an increasing share of
renewables than females, while the difference is small. It can be
concluded, that once males are concerned about the environment, they
become even more sensitive toward environmental attributes than

8
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald
Fig. 3. Visualization of the estimated (marginal) utility.
females.
The estimate for the shift of ASC(none) in case both configurations
included 0% of renewables is positive and significant indicating that in
the case of 0% renewables respondents associate higher utility with not
to choose such charging stations. This demonstrates the high importance
of renewables to the respondents since they even do not make a trade-off
between the other attributes. This could be due to the reason that (some)
respondents are aware of the fact, that EVs are more sustainable than
conventional vehicles especially when run on renewable energy sources
(Märtz et al., 2021) and thus, they would strongly avoid charging sta­
tions with zero renewable energy. After specifying the ASC as random in
the MMNL, results show that on average the estimate is no longer sig­
nificant, while the standard deviation in ASC(none) σ accounts for the
taste heterogeneity across individuals.
5. Discussion
Fast deployment and building of charging stations is required to
promote EVs, which are one factor in reducing greenhouse gas emissions
produced in the transport sector (BMU, 2016). At the same time, current
charging stations are highly heterogeneous providing different authen­
tication methods, different payment methods, and various pricing
models, which can result in challenges for EV drivers, dissatisfying
charging experiences, and confusion (Auf der Maur et al., 2020; Linne­
mann and Nagel, 2020; Vogt and Fels, 2017). To provide recommen­
dations for future implementation of charging stations, a stated
preferences experiment was conducted to assess public preferences in
Germany in order to derive political recommendations. Further, the
9
Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579
study was aiming to understand person’s behavioral choice by consid­
ering attitudinal factors as some persons might adopt EVs faster than
others. Namely, according to a robust behavioral theory, persons with
higher intention to perform a behavior are more likely to do so (Ajzen,
1991). It has been shown that a person’s intention to buy an EV is
positively related to the stated willingness to perform vehicle kilometres
to a greater extent with an EV (Gutjar and Kowald, 2022). At the same
time, a person’s intention to buy an EV is positively predicted by its
environmental concern (Bhutto et al., 2021). Therefore, it is likely that
persons with high environmental concern and high intention to buy an
EV are very likely to adopt an EV and thus, public charging infrastruc­
ture needs to be appealing to them as soon as possible to avoid any
cause-effect problems.
The results demonstrate the most convenient authentication via
Plug&Charge is preferred over an app-based solution in general and over
RFID-card by persons with a high intention to buy an EV. People with
low intention to buy an EV prefer RFID. All in all, the estimated utility
emphasizes the importance of the fast implementation of Plug&Charge
options. This is in line with the statements in the focus group discussion
with EV drivers reported by Vogt and Fels (2017). Therefore, even
though it is a tedious and costly process (Schaal, 2020) all stakeholders
like CPOs, suppliers of charging stations, and car manufacturers are
encouraged to work on the fast implementation of the standards
(ISO 15118) in all vehicles and at all charging stations. Further, political
contribution to the fast development and implementation of this method
is essential.
The results for payment reveal that card-based payment is essential
and dominates all other alternatives. Therefore, card-based payment at
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald
charging stations is mandatory, with possible one card terminal being
sufficient for nearby charging stations. Web-based methods could be
provided for younger people. To ease the payment process for the
elderly, EMPs are further encouraged to offer contracts allowing direct
debit transfer.
Overall, the results show that potential users clearly prefer ad-hoc
methods. This is in line with previous results (ADAC, 2021a; IDZ,
2021; Kim et al., 2020) and is very similar to the procedure at fossil fuel
stations. To sum up, providing Plug&Charge together with card-based
and web-based payment methods makes provider-specific methods (e.
g. RFID-cards, smartphone apps) obsolete.
Pricing according to the charged amount of electricity is the clearly
preferred option. This is in line with previous research (Vogt and Fels,
2017) and is evaluated as the most customer-friendly and fair model
(Linnemann and Nagel, 2020) since it ensures transparent and compa­
rable prices.
However, it needs to be acknowledged that this option is not free of
challenges as EV drivers might misuse the charging spot for parking
(Linnemann and Nagel, 2020; Wolbertus et al., 2020). Linnemann and
Nagel (2020) suggest combinations with parking fees, time-based pric­
ing, or limiting parking duration. However, as EVs differ in terms of
battery capacity (in kWh) and in the duration needed to recharge, ve­
hicles that can charge faster would have an advantage over other, mostly
smaller, vehicle types when paying by time (Linnemann and Nagel,
2020; Vogt and Fels, 2017). Therefore, a combination with time-based
pricing is not recommended. However, charging fees need to be differ­
entiated from parking fees. If charging stations are in paid parking zone
areas, it is eligible to charge parking fees in addition to the charging
price per kWh. In a survey, 73% of EV drivers agreed on fees for parking
after the completed charging process (ADAC, 2021a). Further, as flatrate
was the second preferred option, EMPs are encouraged to provide this
option, while fixed fees are not recommended. To avoid parking-blocked
charging stations a limited parking duration seems to be the fairest
model at the current stage of knowledge.
In addition, a higher share of electricity from regenerative sources
is preferred especially for persons with high environmental cognition,
even though people become less sensitive when getting older. CPOs that
are able to provide higher shares of renewables should do so and use this
for marketing purposes. Moreover, as people show high sensitivity to­
wards renewables, it demonstrates the importance of communication
about the role and potential of EVs for more sustainable road traffic. At
the same time, it does not necessarily mean that charging stations with a
high share of renewables can take higher prices for charging. Although
respondents are willing to pay for higher shares of renewable energy
(Nienhueser and Qiu, 2016; Wolff and Madlener, 2020, 2019) we cannot
be sure that future EV drivers will be willing to pay for this, since early-
adopters differ from future users (Plötz and Dütschke, 2020; Sprenger,
2020). Moreover, the likelihood of choosing a charging station with
renewable energy in comparison to no is lower for EV drivers who
bought the EV for cost savings (Nienhueser and Qiu, 2016). Policy­
makers should support CPOs and EMPs in providing renewable energy to
meet the preferences and first of all to achieve environmental goals.
This study is not free of limitations. As mentioned previously, the
sample is recruited from a particular region in Germany and is not
representative for the German population. Therefore, application to
other countries and cultures needs to be transferred carefully by
comparing the results with country-specific studies on preferences. In
addition, conducting an SP experiment has methodological advantages
and disadvantages. On the one hand, it allows assessing the preferences
of EV users and non-users, but on the other hand, it determines people’s
stated but not actual choices and thus, raises uncertainty about real
choices in the future (Louviere et al., 2010; Train, 2009). However, all in
all, the reported results are in line with previous research and expecta­
tions as presented in section 2. Further, it does not distinguish between
slow and fast charging infrastructure and does not consider inductive
charging (Auf der Maur et al., 2020). The benefit of the presented work,
10
Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579
however, is its model-based approach, which allows analysis of multiple
effects at the same time. Results show that people’s preferences are
similar to the behavior they are used to from refueling a conventional
vehicle.
At the same time, the objectives of different stakeholders are ex­
pected to be different: While EV drivers are interested in unlimited
mobility at limited additional costs, infrastructure operators consider
charging stations as a business model, and local/national authorities are
responsible to provide the infrastructure as a required public service
(Funke et al., 2015). These different interests cumulate especially in
pricing issues. To address the different views the authors of this study
are conducting qualitative interviews with charging station users and
different stakeholders around electric mobility to gain a deep under­
standing of chances and challenges and in turn, to be able to derive the
most convenient recommendation for users and providers of charging
stations. Results will be available at the beginning of the year 2023 and
interested readers are encouraged to contact the authors.
This study was focusing on the qualitative configuration of charging
stations to improve user experience and to increase the acceptance and
usage of EVs. Conducting a SP survey, it was impossible to address all
important aspects of public charging infrastructure to avoid cognitive
burden of the respondents. However, after recommendation for
charging station configuration have been provided, further research
could e.g. investigate monetary attributes and provide willingness to pay
parameters for the share of energy from renewable sources in the energy
mix at charging stations. This attribute has been shown to be very
important to the respondents above and in previous research (Vogt and
Fels, 2017; Wolff and Madlener, 2019). For the same reason, further
research could investigate the impact of the share of renewables in the
energy mix on the willingness to adopt an EV. To our best knowledge,
such research has not yet been conducted. In addition, willingness-to-
pay can be measured for charging duration (alternating current, direct
current) and charging option (inductive vs. cable) (Visaria et al., 2022;
Wolff and Madlener, 2019) in upcoming research.
Funding
This work is part of the project “Electric City Rüsselsheim” funded by
the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action,
Germany [Grant No. 01MZ18008B].
8. Author statement
Each of the mentioned authors has substantially contributed to
conducting the underlying research and drafting this manuscript.
Additionally, none of the authors has any conflict of interest, financial or
otherwise.
Please confirm that all authors acknowledge that the material pre­
sented in this manuscript has not been previously published, except in
abstract form, nor is it simultaneously under consideration by any other
journal.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Margarita Gutjar: Data curation, Formal analysis, Validation,
Visualization, Writing – original draft. Matthias Kowald: Conceptual­
ization, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald
Acknowledgement
This work is part of the project "Electric City Rüsselsheim" funded by
the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action,
Germany [Grant No. 01MZ18008B]. Further, the authors would like
thank the anonymous reviewers for providing helpful comments on the
earlier draft of the manuscript.
References
ADAC, 2021a. ADAC Umfrage zum Schnellladen auf Langstrecken [WWW Document].
ADAC.de. URL https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/elektromobilitaet/laden/
umfrage-schnellladen-langstrecke/ (accessed 12.15.21).
ADAC, 2021b. Ladestationen für Elektroautos: Das kostet der Strom [WWW Document].
ADAC. URL https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/elektromobilitaet/laden/
elektroauto-ladesaeulen-strompreise/.
Adamowicz, W., Louviere, J., Williams, M., 1994. Combining revealed and stated
preference methods for valuing environmental amenities. J. Environ. Econ. Manag.
26, 271–292. https://doi.org/10.1006/jeem.1994.1017.
Ajzen, I., 1991. The theory of planned behavior. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 50,
179–211.
Auf der Maur, A., Brüggeshemke, N., Kutschera, M., 2020. Lade-Report: Entwicklung der
öffentlich zugänglichen Ladeinfrastruktur für die Elektromobilität sowie Vergleich
der Ladetarife in Deutschland. Prognos, Basel.
Ben-Akiva, M., Lerman, S.R., 1985. Discrete choice analysis: theory and application to
travel demand, MIT Press Series in Transportation Studies. Transportation Studies,
London, England.
Bhutto, M.H., Shaikh, A.A., Sharma, R., 2021. Factors Affecting the Consumers’ Purchase
Intention and Willingness-to-Pay More for Electric-Vehicle Technology, in.
International Consortium for Electronic Business, Nanjing, China.
Bieker, G., 2021. A global comparison of the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of
combustion engine and electric passenger cars. ICCT – International Council on
Clean Transportation Europe.
Bjerkan, K.Y., Nørbech, T.E., Nordtømme, M.E., 2016. Incentives for promoting Battery
Electric Vehicle (BEV) adoption in Norway. Transp. Res. Part Transp. Environ. 43,
169–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2015.12.002.
Bmu, 2016. Klimaschutzplan 2050 - Klimaschutzpolitische Grundsätze und Ziele der
Bundesregierung. Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare
Sicherheit (BMU), Berlin.
Bmu, 2019. Umweltbewusstsein in Deutschland 2018: Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen
Bevölkerungsumfrage. Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare
Sicherheit (BMU), Berlin.
Bmwk, 2022. Referentenentwurf: Entwurf eines Gesetzes zu Sofortmaßnahmen für einen
beschleunigten Ausbau der erneuerbaren Energien und weiteren Maßnahmen im
Stromsektor. Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz (BMWK), Berlin.
Brown, T.A., 2015. Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Applied Research, Second Edition.
The Guilford Press, New York.
Brückmann, G., Willibald, F., Blanco, V., 2021. Battery Electric Vehicle adoption in
regions without strong policies. Transp. Res. Part Transp. Environ. 90, 102615
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2020.102615.
Buchmann, T., Wolf, P., Fidaschek, S., 2021. Stimulating E-Mobility Diffusion in
Germany (EMOSIM): An Agent-Based Simulation Approach. Energies 14, 656.
Bujang, M.A., Sa’at,, N.,, Sidik,, T.M.I.T.A.B.,, Joo,, L.C.,, 2018. Sample Size Guidelines
for Logistic Regression from Observational Studies with Large Population: Emphasis
on the Accuracy Between Statistics and Parameters Based on Real Life Clinical Data.
Malays. J. Med. Sci. MJMS 25, 122–130. https://doi.org/10.21315/mjms2018.25.
4.12.
Statistisches Bundesamt, 2014. Bevölkerung. Ergebnisse des Zensus am 9. Mai 2011.
Bundesgesetzblatt, 2021. Zweite Verordnung zur Änderung der Ladesäulenverordnung:
Vom 2. November 2021. Bundesgesetzblatt, Bonn.
Bundesnetzagentur,, 2022. Ladesäulenkarte [WWW Document]. accessed 5.5.22. https
://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Fachthemen/ElektrizitaetundGas/E-Mobilitaet/
Ladesaeulenkarte/start.html.
Burger, B., 2021a. Öffentliche Nettostromerzeugung in Deutschland in Woche 50 2021
[WWW Document]. accessed 12.14.21 Energy-Chartsinfo. https://www.energy-ch
arts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE.
Burger, B., 2021b. Jährlicher Anteil erneuerbarer Energien an der Stromerzeugung in
Deutschland [WWW Document]. accessed 12.14.21 Energy-Chartsinfo. https://www
.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&year=2021.
Buysse, C., Miller, J., Díaz, S., Sen, A., Braun, C., 2021. The role of the European Union’s
vehicle CO2 standards in achieving the European Green Deal (Briefing).
International Council on Clean. Transportation.
Egnér, F., Trosvik, L., 2018. Electric vehicle adoption in Sweden and the impact of local
policy instruments. Energy Policy 121, 584–596. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
enpol.2018.06.040.
Eu, Directive 2014/94/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October
2014 on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure 2014.
Eu,, 2018. A Clean Planet for all: A European long-term strategic vision for a prosperous,
modern, competitive and climate neutral economy – Sino-German Cooperation on
Climate Change, Environment, and Natural Resources. European Commission,
Brussels.
11
Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579
EU, 2018b. Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of
11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources
(Text with EEA relevance.).
eurostat, n.d. International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) - Statistics
Explained [WWW Document]. URL https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/International_Standard_Classification_of_Education_(ISCED)
#Implementation_of_ISCED_2011_.28levels_of_education.29 (accessed 2.16.21).
Funke, S.Á., Gnann, T., Plötz, P., 2015. Addressing the different needs for charging
infrastructure: An analysis of some criteria for charging infrastructure set-up. E-
Mobility in Europe. Springer 73–90.
Globisch, J., Plötz, P., Dütschke, E., Wietschel, M., 2018. Consumer evaluation of public
charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Working Paper Sustainability and
Innovation.
Gutjar, M., Kowald, M., 2022. Human factors and political price regulations to enhance
electric vehicle miles traveled. Presented at the 13th International Conference on
Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE New York 2022 NY US.
Gutjar, M., Kistner, R., Reckermann, H., Kowald, M., 2021. Befragungsdesign zur
sozialwissenschaftlichen Begleitforschung in „Electric City Rüsselsheim“,
Arbeitsberichte Fachgruppe Mobilitätsmanagement No. Hochschule RheinMain,
Wiesbaden.
Gutjar, M., Kowald, M., 2021a. Electro mobility acceptance: The influence of political
bonus and malus factors. Presented at the Symposium of the European Association
for Research in Transportation, Symposium of the European Association for Research
in Transportation. Lyon, France.
Gutjar, M., Kowald, M., 2021b. Electro mobility acceptance: The influence of political
bonus and malus factors and preferences for charging stations, Presented at the 6th
International Conference on Road and Rail Infrastructure. https://doi.org/10.5592/
CO/cetra.2020.1047.
Hardman, S., Jenn, A., Tal, G., Axsen, J., Beard, G., Daina, N., Figenbaum, E.,
Jakobsson, N., Jochem, P., Kinnear, N., Plötz, P., Pontes, J., Refa, N., Sprei, F.,
Turrentine, T., Witkamp, B., 2018. A review of consumer preferences of and
interactions with electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Postprint Artic. Transp.
Res. Part Transp. Environ. 62, 508–523. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2018.04.002.
Hensher, D.A., Rose, J.M., Greene, W.H., 2015. Applied Choice Analysis, 2nd ed.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.1017/
CBO9781316136232.
Hess, S., Adler, T., Polak, J.W., 2007. Modelling airport and airline choice behaviour
with the use of stated preference survey data. Transp. Res. Part E Logist. Transp. Rev.
43, 221–233.
Hess, S., Palma, D., 2019. Apollo: A flexible, powerful and customisable freeware
package for choice model estimation and application. J. Choice Model. 32, 100170
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocm.2019.100170.
IAV, 2020. Wie der Strommix die Ökobilanz von E-Autos beeinflusst [WWW Document].
IAV. URL https://www.iav.com/was-uns-bewegt/wie-der-strommix-die-oekobilanz-
von-e-autos-beeinflusst/ (accessed 12.14.21).
Idz, 2021. Befragung zur Ladesäulenverordnung [WWW Document]. Initiat. Dtsch,
Zahlungssysteme EV https://www.initiative-deutsche-zahlungssysteme.de/presse/
pressemitteilungen/2021/15092021/ (accessed 12.15.21.
IEA, 2022a. Transport – Topics [WWW Document]. IEA. URL https://www.iea.org/
topics/transport (accessed 12.1.22).
IEA, 2022b. Trends in charging infrastructure – Global EV Outlook 2022 – Analysis
[WWW Document]. IEA. URL https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2022/
trends-in-charging-infrastructure (accessed 12.1.22).
Jabeen, F., Olaru, D., Smith, B., Braunl, T., Speidel, S., 2013. Electric vehicle battery
charging behaviour: findings from a driver survey, in: Proceedings of the
Australasian Transport Research Forum.
Jacob, H., 2021. Plug & Charge: Dahin entwickelt sich die E-Auto-Ladeinfrastruktur
[WWW Document]. -Electron. URL https://www.all-electronics.de/e-mobility/
laden/der-weg-zu-plug-charge-so-entwickelt-sich-die-ladeinfrastruktur-weiter-378.
html (accessed 5.5.22).
Kim, L., Raynil, K., O’Brien, S., 2020. 2020 Findings from the Diary of Consumer
Payment Choice. Cash Product Office (CPO).
Kistner, R., Kowald, M., 2019. Ladelust oder Ladefrust – Ausgestaltungsmöglichkeiten
bei der Interaktion zwischen Mensch und Ladesäule. Straßenverkehrstechnik 7,
478–484.
Lei, P.-W., Wu, Q., Wu, W., 2012. Estimation in Structural Equation Modeling. In:
Handbook of Structural Equation Modeling. Guilford Press, New York, pp. 164–179.
Liao, F., Molin, E., van Wee, B., 2017. Consumer preferences for electric vehicles: a
literature review. Transp. Rev. 37, 252–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/
01441647.2016.1230794.
Linnemann, M., Nagel, C., 2020. Preisgestaltung und Abrechnung an der Ladesäule, in:
Linnemann, M., Nagel, C. (Eds.), Elektromobilität und die Rolle der
Energiewirtschaft: Rechte und Pflichten eines Ladesäulenbetreibers. Springer
Fachmedien, Wiesbaden, pp. 57–78. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-30217-7_6.
Lorentzen, E., Haugneland, P., Bu, C., Hauge, E., 2017. Charging infrastructure
experiences in Norway-the worlds most advanced EV market, in: EVS30 Symposium.
pp. 9–11.
Louviere, J.J., Hensher, D.A., Swait, J.D., 2000. Stated choice methods: analysis and
applications. Cambridge University Press.
Louviere, J.J., Flynn, T.N., Carson, R.T., 2010. Discrete choice experiments are not
conjoint analysis. J. Choice Model. 3, 57–72.
Mariel, P., Hoyos, D., Meyerhoff, J., Czajkowski, M., Dekker, T., Glenk, K., Jacobsen, J.B.,
Liebe, U., Olsen, S.B., Sagebiel, J., Thiene, M., 2021. Environmental Valuation with
Discrete Choice Experiments: Guidance on Design, Implementation and Data
Analysis, SpringerBriefs in Economics. Springer International Publishing, Cham.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62669-3.
M. Gutjar and M. Kowald
Märtz, A., Plötz, P., Jochem, P., 2021. Global perspective on CO2 emissions of electric
vehicles. Environ. Res. Lett. 16, 054043 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/
abf8e1.
Nienhueser, I.A., Qiu, Y., 2016. Economic and environmental impacts of providing
renewable energy for electric vehicle charging–A choice experiment study. Appl.
Energy 180, 256–268.
Now, 2021. Auswertung KBA-Zahlen. Nationale Organisation Wasserstoff und
Brennstoffzellentechnologie, Berlin.
Orme, B., n.d. Getting Started with Conjoint Analysis: Strategies for Product Design and
Pricing Research., Fourth. ed. Research Publishers LLC., Madison.
Plötz, P., Dütschke, E., 2020. Electric Vehicle Adoption in Germany: Current Knowledge
and Future Research, in: Contestabile, M., Tal, G., Turrentine, T. (Eds.), Who’s
Driving Electric Cars: Understanding Consumer Adoption and Use of Plug-in Electric
Cars, Lecture Notes in Mobility. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp.
189–211. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38382-4_10.
R Core Team, 2020. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R
Foundation for Statistical Computing.
Rose, J.M., Bliemer, M.C.J., 2014. Stated choice experimental design theory: the who,
the what and the why, in: Handbook of Choice Modelling. Edward Elgar Publishing,
pp. 152–177.
Rose, J.M., Bliemer, M.C.J., 2013. Sample size requirements for stated choice
experiments. Transportation 40, 1021–1041. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-013-
9451-z.
Rose, J.M., Collins, A.T., Bliemer, M.C.J., Hensher, D.A., 2018. Ngene (Version 1.2.1.).
Rosseel, Y., 2012. Lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling and more.
Version 0.5–12 (BETA). J. Stat. Softw. 48, 1–36.
Salb, C., Gül, S., Cuntz, C., Monschauer, Y., Weishäupl, J., 2018. Klimaschutz in Zahlen
(2018) – Fakten. Trends und Impulse deutscher Klimapolitik, Bundesministerium für
Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit (BMU), Berlin.
Schaal, S., 2020. Plug&Charge: Was noch zum Durchbruch fehlt [WWW Document].
electrive.net. URL https://www.electrive.net/2020/12/14/plugcharge-was-noch-
zum-durchbruch-fehlt/ (accessed 12.14.21).
Schreiber, J.B., Nora, A., Stage, F.K., Barlow, E.A., King, J., 2006. Reporting Structural
Equation Modeling and Confirmatory Factor Analysis Results: A Review. J. Educ.
Res. 99, 323–338. https://doi.org/10.3200/JOER.99.6.323-338.
12
Travel Behaviour and Society 32 (2023) 100579
Sierzchula, W., Bakker, S., Maat, K., Van Wee, B., 2014. The influence of financial
incentives and other socio-economic factors on electric vehicle adoption. Energy
Policy 68, 183–194.
Sprenger, A., 2020. Kundenerwartungen an die Produkte und Dienstleistungen der
Energiewirtschaft in der E-Mobilität, in: Doleski, O.D. (Ed.), Realisierung Utility 4.0
Band 2: Praxis der digitalen Energiewirtschaft vom Vertrieb bis zu innovativen
Energy Services. Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden, pp. 759–779. https://doi.org/
10.1007/978-3-658-25589-3_51.
Train, K.E., 2009. Discrete choice methods with simulation. Cambridge University Press,
New York, NY, US.
Umweltbundesamt, 2022. Erneuerbare Energie im Verkehr [WWW Document].
Umweltbundesamt. URL https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/energie/
erneuerbare-energie-im-verkehr (accessed 5.4.22).
Visaria, A.A., Jensen, A.F., Thorhauge, M., Mabit, S.E., 2022. User preferences for EV
charging, pricing schemes, and charging infrastructure. Transp. Res. Part Policy
Pract. 165, 120–143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2022.08.013.
Vogt, M., Fels, K., 2017. Bedarfsorientierte Ladeinfrastruktur aus Kundensicht.
ATZelektronik 12, 56–61. https://doi.org/10.1007/s35658-017-0036-z.
Wijnen, B.F., van der Putten, I.M., Groothuis, S., de Kinderen, R.J., Noben, C.Y.,
Paulus, A.T., Ramaekers, B.L., Vogel, G.C., Hiligsmann, M., 2015. Discrete-choice
experiments versus rating scale exercises to evaluate the importance of attributes.
Expert Rev. Pharmacoecon. Outcomes Res. 15, 721–728. https://doi.org/10.1586/
14737167.2015.1033406.
Wolbertus, R., Kroesen, M., van den Hoed, R., Chorus, C.G., 2018. Policy effects on
charging behaviour of electric vehicle owners and on purchase intentions of
prospective owners: Natural and stated choice experiments. Transp. Res. Part
Transp. Environ. 62, 283–297. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2018.03.012.
Wolbertus, R., Jansen, S., Kroesen, M., 2020. Stakeholders’ perspectives on future
electric vehicle charging infrastructure developments. Futures 123, 102610. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102610.
Wolff, S., Madlener, R., 2019. Charged up? Preferences for Electric Vehicle Charging and
Implications for Charging Infrastructure Planning (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID
3491629). Social Science Research Network, Rochester, NY. https://doi.org/
10.2139/ssrn.3491629.
Wolff, S., Madlener, R., 2020. Willing to Pay? Spatial Heterogeneity of e-Vehicle
Charging Preferences in Germany (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 3676410). Social
Science Research Network, Rochester, NY. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3676410.