When it comes to e-mobility charging and urban planning, we pay a lot of attention to the future demand for charging infrastructure. How many charging points will we need? What type and power is required? How and when can we achieve a sound business case and return on investment?

The techniques, models and simulations are different, but they all produce results. These figures feed into national roadmaps, heatmaps or even street-level maps of future charging stations. But very few of them seem to take into account the dynamics of human behaviour. To improve, we need to look at charging an electric car not just from a technical perspective. Above all, charging is a complex interplay of individual decisions and social interaction.

Predicting how future drivers will charge their – future – electric cars is fraught with uncertainty. Therefore, we should acknowledge and respect the unknown. In other words, we need to adopt an adaptive infrastructure strategy. This is good for the user and good for the viability. Great to see that the German Nationale Platform Zukunft der Mobilität is embracing this principle in this report on public charging infrastructure needs. Also, l’Institut Paris Region is recommending such a strategy in its evaluation and perspective on EV charging in the Paris region.