Electric vehicle (EV) drivers’ satisfaction with Level 2 and Level 3 public charging stations has reached its lowest point since J.D. Power began tracking customer satisfaction in 2021. This decrease in happiness is primarily due to the increasing unreliability of public charging points across the US. In 2022, one in five charging attempts at public stations failed, and this rate has been steadily rising since 2021.
J.D. Power attributes this widespread failure to the country’s aging charging stations and the lack of routine maintenance. This is a significant challenge for the automotive industry, as it comes at a time when EV adoption is growing at twice the rate of charger installation.
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“We can’t just install new chargers and neglect the maintenance of the old ones,” said Brent Gruber, executive director of global automotive at J.D. Power. “We must manage their upkeep as well, if we want to meet consumer demand.”
Although J.D. Power declined to publicly name the networks with the best and worst reliability records, it revealed that drivers failed to charge 40% of the time at the network with the least reliable chargers, while the failure rate was just 3% on the network with the best reliability.
The study analyzed more than 26,500 public chargers in all 50 states and found that the reasons for a charging session failure ranged from software glitches and payment processing errors to vandalism. Some failures were minor, but it could take technicians up to 48 hours to repair a broken charger.
A lack of information from the station could also exacerbate the problem. Sometimes, a charging session would fail simply because the plug wasn’t fully inserted, but the customer would receive the same error message as if there was an issue with the charger.
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Several providers are working to improve their networks. EVgo recently announced EVgo Renew, a program aimed at better handling issues at its stations. The company plans to upgrade, replace, or retire hundreds of its units this year. Regulators are also taking notice, and under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, charging companies will be required to track network reliability. Some states, such as California, may soon enforce uptime requirements to ensure that drivers can reliably charge their vehicles.
