Journal of Power and Energy Engineering, 2013, 1, 1-5
doi:10.4236/jpee.2013.11001 Published Online February 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/jpee)
Break-Even Analysis on the Charging and
Battery-Swapped Station of Electric Vehicles
Xiaolei Li1, Huawe i J ia2
1Henan E lectric Po wer Corporation, Zhengzh ou, China ; 2Xinmi Power Supply Bureau, ZhengZhou, China.
Received 2013
ABSTRACT
The constructio n of elec tric vehicle c harging stat ion pla ys an importa nt role in the d evelo pment of electr ic ve hicles and
the promotion of the renewable resource. In the paper, a model to analyze the economic benefit of the charging station
is presented, which is based on the break-even theory. Then the threshold price is calculated based on the model ac-
cording to the construction plans of charging facilities in one district. Finally, the strategy for the development of
charging faculties is proposed to improve t he hea l th gro wth o f elec tric automotive i ndustry.
Keywords: Electric Vehicle; Charging Station; Break-Even; Critical Charging Pr ice
1. Introduction
With the global climate issues and the development of
renewable energy, a new round of global energy revolu-
tion of clean energy and smart grid is rising. Electric
vehicle (EV) is a promising way to reduce the energy
consume and carbon emission. In addition, it can alle-
viate the fundamental dependence on oil and the pressure
on ene rgy co nservati on. C urrently, t he world auto motive
industry is actively engaged in the developing and pro-
moting process of electric vehicles. Governments and
enterprises all over the world have made a great deal of
effort in the field of EV[1-4]. And now the development
of EV has been supported by many governments. In
China, Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shandong and other
provinces have made many strategies to promote the
construction of charging stations. The State Grid Corpo-
ration of China (SGCC) plans to build inter-city smart
charging networks for electric vehicles power service in
the area of around Bohai bay and Yangtze River Delta.
In Chi na, t he co nstr ucti on o f chargin g station is still i n
its pilot stage. At this stage, our major tasks should focus
on the exploring a road of sustainable development
through charging station layout planning, pilot construc-
tion, commercial operations, profit model analysis, etc.
2. Conclusions
2.1. Break-even Theory
Break-even a nalysis i s a technique for which identifying
the point where the total revenue is just sufficient to
cover the total cost. The break-even point (BEP) is the
point at which cost or expenses and revenue are equal:
there is no net loss or gain, and one has "broken even".
As we know, various issues will affect the profit of an
investment action, when the changing of these factors
reaches a critical value, it will ma ke people hard to
choice. Break-even analysis is to find this critical value.
Determining the capacity of investment with variable
factors, it can provide a basis for de c isio n-making [5-10].
As the investment and operation of charging station
have potential losses, we can use break-even analysis to
find the critical charging price in different computing
environment. In the calc ulatio n, the time value of mone y
is not takes into account.
2.2. The Break-even Model of Charging Station
The break-even mode l of charging station is as fo llows:
S= I-OU (1)
S= I-OU S represents the net p rofit within the payba ck
period, I represents the operating inco me, OU represents
the in vestment a nd op erating expenses.
EIA Cr
III I I= +++
(2)
EI
I represents electricity sale income, A I represents
business patter n income, and In addition, C I represents
the revenue of carbon dioxide emission reduction,
r
I
represents a one-time subsidy for the construction of
charging station fr om g overnments.

Break-Even Analysis on the Charging and Battery-Swapped Station of Electric Vehicles
2
W
ME
OUB OUOUOU=+++
(3)
OU represents charging station investment, B
represents the total construction cost, OUM represents
operating expense including equipment operation and
mai n tenance cost, OUM represents maintenance labor
cost, OUE represents power purchase cost (only consi-
dered the electricity service, regardless of the battery
cost).
When the income equals to the investment, which is
reaching the brea k-even balance, t hen the time is the pay-
back period. Taking into account the life of the substation
equipment s , we only analyze the break-eve n in 20 years.
The break-even model of charging station in the pay-
back period is as follows (
20t≤
):
11
2
2.254
10000
-
-() --0.02-
20
tt t
CO
SIOUNp tAtt
E BE
BrtmgtEtNp t
t
=− =++
++
(4)
where: t is the payback period (Unit: year);
t
S
is the net profit at the period of t;
N is amount of purchasing energy per year,
2
p
is the
price of it;
1
N
is electricity sales per year,
1
NN
η = ×
(
η
is
char ging e fficiency), 1 p is the charging pr ic e;
B is the total construction cost of charging station,
r
is the subsidy proportion by governments;
A is the annual income of business pattern;
C is carbon dioxide reduction i ncome;
E is total equip ment i nvestment;
M
OU
is equipment operation and maintenance costs,
it equals to the 2% of E;
m
is the number of people for the operation and
maintenance of charging station, g is per-capita wage;
According to the principle of zero profit, we can cal-
culate the critical charging price at payback period t:
11
2
1(() 0.02
20
2.254 )
10000
E BE
ptmgE t
Nt t
CO
Np tBrAtt
−
=+ ++
+ −−−
（）
(5)
Similarly, if given the charging price and the electric-
ity purchasing price, the payback period can be calcu-
lated as follows:
11 2
2.254 0.02
10000 20
B EBr
tCO E
N pAmgENp
−−
=
++− −+−（）
(6)
3. Break-even Analysis of Charging and
Battery-swapped Station
According to the electric vehicle development and the
process of charging stati on p lanni n g and the construction,
the charging facilities development can be divided into
pilot stage, urban transport stage, worry free driving
stage, and the break-even sale prices (charging prices)
are calculated in three stages. The different characteris-
tics of the three stages are considered in the calculation,
such as charging station equipment efficiencies, govern-
ment subsidies, the construction costs, etc.
3.1. the Br ea k-even Calculation of Typical
Charging Station at the Pilot Stage
The calculation condition is as follows:
(1) The utilization efficiency of charging station
equipment in this stage is 0.3;
(2) The s tandar d chargi ng stat ion ge nerally c onfig ures
10 chargers and each charger’s power is 102kW. The
char ging e fficiency
η
is 0.85;
(3) The costs of the standard charging station is 19
million Yuan, and the equipment investment is about
50% of the total costs;
(4) The number of people for operation and mainten-
ance is 12, and the average wage of workers is about
27,000 yuan per year;
(5) The cost s of equip ment op erati on and maintena nce
are 2% of the equipment investment;
(6) The government subsidies are 15% of the total
costs;
(7) As the carbon dioxide reductive emission income
and some other incomes can not be implemented cur-
rently, they are no t included in the c alc ulation.
According to the different purchase prices such as
generation price, 10 kV large industrial price and general
commercial p r ice , which is taken from the Development
and Reform Commission of Henan province, cr itical
charging prices are calculated in the different payback
period of 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years. The
calculated results are sho wn in Table 1.
The purchase price used 0.727 yuan(kWh) -1 to calcu-
late consider of the charging station commercial and so-
cial operation. If we take 20 years as the cost recovery
period and the equipment utilization is 100%, the lowest
Table 1. the break-even c harg ing pric e in di ffe re nt payb ac k
periodat the pilot stage.
p2
（
yuan/kWh
）
t（years） 0.3912 0.565 0.727
5 2.043 2.248 2.438
10 1.360 1.565 1.755
15 1.133 1.337 1.528
20 1.019 1.223 1.414

Break-Even Analysis on the Charging and Battery-Swapped Station of Electric Vehicles
3
char ging price is calculated as 0.965 yuan(kWh) -1. Then
we choose 0.9 yuan(kWh) -1 as a benchmark and in-
creased 0.2 yuan(kWh) -1 each time, the relationship
curve bet ween the pa ybac k per iod and eq uipme nt uti liza-
tion is shown in F ig ure 1:
3.2. Break-even Calculation of Typical
Battery- swapped Station at the Pilot Stage
The different calculate conditions between the typical
battery-swapped station and the charging station are as
follows:
(1) Sales power
The charging energy of b atte r y-swapped station
should be calculated based on the average daily mileage
and the battery capacity of electric vehicles. According
to typical design of battery-swapped station, two bat-
tery-swapped positions can swap electric vehicles’ bat-
tery 100 times a day, and the annual c hargin g ene r g y will
reach 1.2 million kWh. In this stage, the equipment uti-
lization facto r is 0.3.
(2) Labor costs
According to the charging station, a typical battery-
swapped station with t wo battery-swapped positions will
need 20 persons, for the battery monitoring requires ad-
ditional staff.
(3) Business mo del
Unlike the charging station, the battery-swapped sta-
tion has an extra batte ry-swapped service. For the con-
venience of calculation, the service fee is 5 yuan each
time tempora rily.
According to the different purchase prices such as
generation price, 10 kV large industrial price and general
commercial price, critical charging prices are calculated
in the different payback period of 5 years, 10 years, 15
years and 20 years. The calculated results are shown in
Table 2.
Figure 1. The relationship curve between the payback
period and equipment util ization.
3.3. Break-even Calculation of Typical Charging
Station at the Urban Transport Stage
According to the planning and research of a charging
station, urba n tra nsport stage electric car ownership has a
rapid growth. So the equipment utilization set equal to
0.5; at the stage, government’s subsidy rate will drop to
10%; the costs of electric vehicle charging stations will
be decreased for the technological progress and cost re-
duction. Construction cost 1 B will be 15 million yua n.
According to the different purchase prices such as
generation price, 10 kV large industrial price and general
commercial price, critical charging prices are calculated
in the different payback period of 5 years, 10 years, 15
years and 20 years. The calculated results are shown in
Table 3.
Table 2. the break-even charging price in the different
payback period at the pi lot stage.
p2（yuan/kWh）
t（years） 0.3912 0.565 0.727
5 3.760 3.965 4.155
10 2.414 2.619 2.809
15 1.966 2.170 2.361
20 1.741 1.946 2.137
Table 3. the bre ak-even charging price in the different
payback period at the urban transpor t stag e.
p2（yuan/kWh）
t（years） 0.3912 0.565 0.727
5 1.265 1.470 1.660
10 0.923 1.127 1.318
15 0.809 1.013 1.204
20 0.752 0.956 1.147
The purchase price used 0.727 yuan(kWh) -1 to calcu-
late consider of the charging station commercial and so-
cial operation. If we take 20 years as the cost recovery
period and the equipment utilization is 100%, the lowest
charging price is calc ulated a s 0.965 yuan(kWh) -1. T hen
we choose 0.9 yuan(kWh) -1 as a benchmark and in-
creased 0.2 yuan(kWh) -1 each time, the relationship
curve between the payback period and e quip ment uti liz a-
tion i s sho wn in Figure 2:
3.4. The Break-Even Calculation of Typical
Battery- Swapped Station at the Urban
Transport Stage
Compared with the previous stage, this stage we set the

Break-Even Analysis on the Charging and Battery-Swapped Station of Electric Vehicles
4
equipment utilization equal to 0.5. According to the dif-
ferent purchase prices such as generation price, 10 kV
large industrial price and general commercial price, crit-
ical charging prices are calculated in the different pay-
back period of 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years.
The calculated results are shown in Table 4.
3.5. Break-Even Calculation of Typical Charging
Station at Worry Free Driving Stage
According to the planning and construction program of
an electric vehicle charging station, at wo rry free driving
stage, the technology of electric vehicles will have been
developed, and t he struct ure of power grid ha s been ab le
to meet the needs of distributed charging, at the stage,
the development of charging stations will be the main-
st re am.
At thi s s tage, the ownership of elec tric vehicles growth
continuously, so set equipment utilization of this stage
equal to 0.7, the con struction cost 1 B will be 12 million
yuan; government subsidies will be dropped to 5%. Ac-
cording to the different purchase prices such as genera-
tion price, 10 kV large industrial price and general com-
mercial price, critical charging prices are calculated in
the different payback period of 5 years, 10 years, 15
years and 20 years. The calculated results are shown in
Table 5.
The purchase price used 0.727 yuan(kWh) -1 to calcu-
late consider of the charging station commercial and so-
cial operation. If we take 20 years as the cost recovery
period and the equipment utilization is 100%, the lowest
charging price is calc ulated a s 0.965 yuan(kWh) -1. T hen
we choose 0.9 yuan(kWh) -1 as a benchmark and in
creased 0.2 yuan(kWh) -1 each time, the relationship
curve bet ween the pa ybac k per iod and eq uipme nt uti liza-
tion i s sho wn in Figure 3.
Figure 2. The relationship curve between the payback
period and equipment util ization.
Table 4. Break-even charging price i n the diffe rent pay bac k
period at t he urban tra nsport st ages.
p2（yuan/kWh）
t（years） 0.3912 0.565 0.727
5 3.160 3.365 3.555
10 2.098 2.302 2.493
15 1.744 1.948 2.139
20 1.566 1.771 1.962
Table 5. the break-even charging price in the different
payback period at the urba n transport stage .
p2（yuan/kWh）
t（yea r s） 0.3912 0.565 0.727
5 0.954 1.158 1.349
10 0.747 0.952 1.142
15 0.678 0.883 1.073
20 0.644 0.848 1.039
Figure 3 . Equipment ut ilization and investment pa yback
curve.
4. Conclusions
At the present time, due to the fewer vehicles, low
equipment and weak technological reliability, the con-
struction and operation of the electric vehicle charging
station project is at a loss. To ensure the full cost recov-
ery of the charging station and its healthy development,
governments need to increase policy support for the
electric vehicle charging station, introducing a special
charging price and giving preferential treatment in the
charge of land and taxation. The operators of charging
station should strive to expand the scope and variety of

Break-Even Analysis on the Charging and Battery-Swapped Station of Electric Vehicles
5
services, develop the market to increase revenue. Only in
this way can the operation cost of charging station be
reduced and the industries of electric vehicles will be
thrived.
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