Pricing mechanism design for future EV charging station with hybrid fixed and mobile charging modes

The widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) renders conventional EV charging modes unable to relieve the spatial and temporal charging inconvenience of drivers. To tackle this issue, we consider a promising business model for charging stations providing hybrid fixed and mobile EV charging modes in this paper. According to factors such as personal preferences and distance to charging stations, EV drivers are divided into two types: fixed charging drivers who only consider choosing the fixed charging mode, and mobile charging drivers who only choose mobile charging mode. We first characterize the utility functions of these two types of drivers, respectively. The characterization relies on the unit waiting costs and charging valuations of drivers, which are often estimated empirically. To facilitate more accurate estimation, we employ a data-driven computational model to quantify these two factors based on the qualitative choice theory. Next, under the rationality assumption of EV drivers, integrating the estimated results into the utility functions allows us to calculate the equilibrium fractions of fixed and mobile charging drivers who ultimately charge their EVs. Furthermore, to maximize the revenue of EV charging stations, we derive optimal prices for fixed and mobile charging modes. Finally, numerical analyses validate the effectiveness of our proposed future business model for EV charging stations.