Growing Electric Vehicle Market Threatens to Short-Circuit Public Charging Experience

The growth of electric vehicle (EV) sales during the past year has been remarkable but has added stress to an already beleaguered public vehicle charging infrastructure. In this growth spurt, owners in high EV volume markets like California, Texas and Washington, for instance, are finding the charging infrastructure inadequate and plagued with non-functioning stations. These are among the key findings in the second annual J.D. Power U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) Public Charging Study,^SM released today.

Despite that more public charging stations are in operation than ever before, customer satisfaction with public Level 2 charging declined from last year, dropping to 633 (on a 1,000-point scale) from 643 in 2021, while satisfaction with the speedier DC (direct current) fast charger segment remains flat at 674. This lack of progress points to the need for improvement as EVs gain wider consumer acceptance because the shortage of public charging availability is the number one reason vehicle shoppers reject EVs. Tesla Destination ranks highest among Level 2 charge point operators with a score of 680 and Tesla Supercharger ranks highest among DC fast chargers with a score of 739.

“Public charging continues to provide challenges to overall EV adoption and current EV owners alike,” said Brent Gruber, executive director of global automotive at J.D. Power. “Not only is the availability of public charging still an obstacle, but EV owners continue to be faced with charging station equipment that is inoperable. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program promises to provide funds to states for building out their EV public charging infrastructure. This will lead to sizable growth in the availability of EV charging stations, but just adding stations isn’t the answer. Stations need to be added to areas where there are currently gaps in heavily traveled routes and in high-density areas for people who don’t have access to residential charging, but most importantly, designed with things for users to do while charging—regardless of the use case. Then, we need to make sure those stations are reliable.”

Which brands ranked highest in customer satisfaction? Read the full press release for study rankings and additional insights. 

What does this mean for electric utilities? 

Adrian Chung, Director of Utilities Intelligence at J.D. Power, weighs in:

With EV sales and interest growing at pace, and travel / commuting resuming, the state of public charging continues to be a major concern.  Overall, it has not improved to adequate levels commensurate with the requirements of existing EV owners or to give confidence to those in the market to purchase one. 

Utilities can continue to support the EV ecosystem through their partnerships with charging station operators, states agencies and others.  Infrastructure builds to position charging stations both locally and along major highways and corridors across the country are vital, but even more important are operational needs.  General maintenance to ensure stations are fully functional seems to be often overlooked and this is contributing to poor experiences for consumers.

Lack of public charging infrastructure is a fundamental barrier for potential EV customers, which is hampering progress towards a fully electric future.  Existing public charging stations sit in the service territories of utilities, giving them a prime opportunity to be part of the solution and change current perceptions.  Customer education is imperative to help ease concerns of public charger availability and costs, while supporting future EV adoption and driving customer satisfaction.