Impacts of long-haul electric vehicle driving range on Ontario’s optimal charging infrastructure

Optimal planning for long-haul electric vehicle (LHEV) charging infrastructure must address the wide spectrum of operational ranges within a future fleet, where the extended range of newer models is contrasted with the diminished performance of older vehicles affected by battery degradation. Static models that often overlook this variability, alongside seasonal temperature extremes and ancillary power consumptions, risk producing network designs ill-equipped for real-world operations. To address this gap, this study applies an optimization model informed by a dynamic-range analysis of Ontario’s 2040 LHEV fleet. These factors compress the fleet’s operational range well below manufacturer ratings, with winter alone removing about 8% relative to status-quo operations, meaning 143 charging locations are needed to keep long-haul trips feasible. A conventional static-range model sizes the same network at only 82 stations, resulting in a 74% underestimate. The optimal network is composed of core stations located along major freight corridors, supplemented by seasonally critical locations essential for managing different periods of peak demand. Counter-intuitively, winter requires the fewest stations yet the highest on-route charging energy, 67.53 GWh daily. This demonstrates that infrastructure count and grid burden decouple under climate stress, proving that planning must target the worst-case season rather than the annual mean. Such high demand highlights the considerable scale of grid infrastructure upgrades required to support the sustainable electrification of road freight transport in the province. While these magnitudes are Ontario-centric, the dynamic-range framework itself is fully transferable as a planning template for any jurisdiction with pronounced seasonal climates and long-haul freight networks.