Fig. 2. Conceptual framework to demonstrate the impact of a one-year power outage shock on electric vehicle (EV) adoption and carbon emissions reductions.

a depicts the yearly EV adoption, with orange line representing the EV market share under a perturbed grid and blue line representing the EV market share under a fully reliable grid. The gray shadow in (a) indicates the outage shock. The cumulative adoption curve is constructed based on Grubb et al.⁸⁶ and Rogers et al.⁸⁷, which show that the diffusion curve of EVs should follow an S-curve trajectory. b depicts the yearly avoided emissions from EV adoption, with orange line representing the avoided emissions under a perturbed grid and blue line representing the avoided emissions under a fully reliable grid. The shaded area in (b) is the cumulative increased carbon emissions due to the reduced EV adoption. Key assumptions in this figure: (1) there are no other policy interventions or other shocks after the power outage increase in that year; (2) the delay is 10 years if consumers use their newly purchased fossil fuel vehicles for 10 years; (3) the carbon reduction amount of an EV stays constant over time; (4) the social cost of carbon stays the same. Source data for this figure are available on GitHub.