Abstract Electric vehicles (EV) are treated as a breakthrough technology in the automotive market. The novelty of this technology also implicates that the incidence of these vehicles worldwide is still low. An important issue regarding EVs is the existence of proper charging infrastructure as waiting at charging stations due to an inadequate number of chargers can discourage EV owners. However, as the number of EVs and charging stations are low at present, real world experience is not available, so computer simulations are required for the planning of such charging stations. We developed a stochastic model in this paper that includes driving and charging behaviour of EV owners in Japan. The model is based on Monte Carlo methods and was implemented in MATLAB. We conducted simulations with this model to find out whether the existing infrastructure is adequate for the charging of a large number of EVs. The results indicate that Japan is well prepared for an increase in plug-in vehicles (PHEVs) in the near future: currently the country has 6 fast chargers for 100 electric cars and for this ratio - on average -, waiting probability at DC (direct current) fast chargers ranges lower than 5%, which is an acceptable value for EV owners. If, however, the ratio decreases, waiting probability increases exponentially.