Data and Code for: Show Me the Money! A Field Experiment on Electric Vehicle Charge Timing

We use a field experiment to measure the effectiveness of financial incentives to shift the timing of electric vehicle (EV) charging. EV owners respond strongly to financial incentives, reducing charging during peak hours by 49% by shifting to off-peak hours. In contrast, a pro-social information treatment has no discernible effect. When financial incentives are removed, charge timing reverts to pre-intervention behavior, reinforcing that "money matters". Our findings highlight the substantial flexibility of EV charging compared to other forms of electricity demand. Such flexibility has the potential to greatly reduce future electric system costs arising from a rapidly decarbonizing transportation sector.

本研究采用实地实验，评估财务激励措施对调整电动汽车（Electric Vehicle，EV）充电时段的有效性。研究结果显示，电动汽车车主对财务激励措施反应强烈，通过将充电时段转移至非高峰时段，将高峰时段的充电量降低了49%。与之形成鲜明对比的是，亲社会信息干预未产生可观测的效果。当移除财务激励措施后，充电时段恢复至干预前的行为模式，进一步印证了"金钱确实发挥作用"这一结论。本研究结果凸显了相较于其他电力需求形式，电动汽车充电所具备的极强灵活性。此类灵活性有望大幅降低因交通领域快速脱碳而产生的未来电力系统运营成本。