Electric Vehicles Empowering the Construction of Green Sustainable Transportation Networks in Chinese Cities: Dynamic Evolution, Frontier Trends, and Construction Pathways

As the global ecological environment faces serious challenges and extreme climate change threatens the survival of humankind, the promotion of green development has become the focus for all countries in the world. As one of the world’s major greenhouse gas emitters, China has put forward the “twin goals” of achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality and is committed to promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of its cities. As the core of economic and social development, cities are the main source of carbon emissions. In response to the dual challenges of carbon emission control and traffic growth, it is particularly important to promote the development of green transportation. With the acceleration of urbanization, urban traffic pollution is becoming more and more serious. As a zero-emission transportation mode, electric vehicles have become a key way to achieve the carbon peak and carbon neutrality targets. In order to deeply analyze the research status of electric vehicles in the field of the green and low-carbon transformation of urban transportation in China and to explore the research hot spots, evolution trends, and their roles and strategies in the construction of green transportation networks, this paper uses the CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Tableau analysis tools to review and analyze the 2460 articles and reviews in the Web of Science Core Collection (WOS) and 2650 articles and reviews in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), including the “publication volume and publication trend”, “subject citation path”, “countries cooperation and geographical distribution”, “author cooperation and institution cooperation”, “keyword co-occurrence and keywords clusters”, and the “evolution trend of research hot spots in timeline”. The results show that: (1) Since 2010, the research focus on electric vehicles has gradually increased, and especially in the past three years, the number of such publications has increased significantly. (2) China holds the lead in research output regarding electric vehicles and related fields, but its international cooperation needs to be strengthened. (3) In recent years, the research has focused on “energy transformation”, “energy-saving technology”, “carbon emissions”, “battery recycling”, and other relevant topics. The promotion and development of electric vehicles will continue to usher in new opportunities concerning technological innovation, policy support, and market expansion. Finally, based on the research hot spots and evolution trends of electric vehicles in the field of urban green transportation and low-carbon transportation in China, this paper discusses the key paths and strategies for electric vehicles to promote the transformation of urban transportation in China to green and low-carbon types and looks forward to future research directions. The research in this paper can provide theoretical support and practical guidance for China to promote electric vehicles, build low-carbon cities, and realize green transportation. It is expected to act as a useful reference for relevant policy formulation and academic research.