Impacts of charging pricing schemes on cost-optimal logistics electric vehicle fleet operation

Confronted with limited driving range and insufficient charging infrastructure, logistics companies owning electric vehicles (EVs) have to conduct comprehensive route planning. Meanwhile, in open-transaction electricity markets, diversified charging pricing schemes increase the complexity of cost-effective business and operational decisions. To this end, an extended EV routing model embedded with price-responsive charging decisions is proposed with three variants considering the contract, spot, and time-of-use (TOU) schemes. The price signals of the heterogeneous pricing schemes have different degrees of granularity. Furthermore, a thorough experimental study enabled by regional-level logistics instances and real-world electricity prices is conducted. The results demonstrate the cost-saving potential of the TOU and spot schemes. Additionally, the shifting of charging demands to low-priced periods is found in the spot and TOU schemes, thus enhancing the environmental benefits of charging events. These results provide insights into cost-effective logistics EV fleet operations, as well as policy making for logistics-related charging pricing.