Anika Begay
The experience of charging an electric vehicle in the United States could be better, and a major new study lists the biggest infrastructure problems, including failure to report faulty parking spaces, inaccurate station status messages, outdated equipment, and some routinely unreliable network providers (which, sadly, are not named in the study).
The study was conducted by ChargerHelp, a company that offers maintenance and management solutions for electric vehicle chargers. The company also had its findings reviewed and confirmed by Professor Gil Tal, director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at UC Davis. ChargerHelp used four years of data from the 20,000 chargers it monitors, comparing self-reported uptime from networked stations to actual uptime experienced by EV drivers on site.
EV chargers can fail in a variety of ways, the study concludes. These include broken retractor systems meant to protect the cable from damage from vehicle tires, broken screens, and unusable payment systems. There’s also general damage to the casing and, of course, broken cables and connectors.
ChargerHelp estimates that for all registered chargers, actual uptime is only 73.7%, compared to the 84.6% claimed by EV network providers.
The study found that 26 percent of all stations analyzed did not positively match the perceived status of chargers as presented in the networks’ software. That means some charging networks overestimate the number of stations online, which dampens the confidence EV owners should have in their charging infrastructure. It’s especially problematic when you’re in desperate need of a charge and end up at a station that an app said was online but wasn’t.
The study lists several situations where an EV driver can’t connect to a charger properly, including “ghost” station scenarios, where slots appear in an app but aren’t there or are broken. The study also describes “zombie stations,” which exist and work but don’t appear in apps, so drivers don’t go there. And “confused occupancy,” when an app tells drivers that certain slots are available, but they aren’t. “Dead ends” all seem like a walk in the park until you connect and discover that it doesn’t work. ChargerHelp says reliable software interoperability and network data sharing can help solve these problems.
There’s also surprising variation in charger downtime by location. For example, at 4.4 percent, New Jersey had one of the lowest numbers of idle ports in the country at the start of 2023. However, the state only had 27 working public charging ports for every 1,000 registered EVs, which may not be meeting demand. Compare that to Washington, D.C., which had nearly 11 percent of idle ports but had 137 ports for every 1,000 registered EVs.
