The growth of electric vehicle sales during the past year, propelled by government regulations, is adding stress to an already beleaguered public vehicle charging infrastructure, according to the second annual J.D. Power U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) Public Charging Study.

Owners in high EV volume markets like California, Texas, Washington, and elsewhere are finding the charging infrastructure inadequate and plagued with non-functioning stations.

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.

The lack of progress points to the need for improvement as EVs gain wider consumer acceptance because the shortage of public charging availability is the No. 1 reason vehicle shoppers reject EVs.

According to the study, Tesla Destination, which offers more than 35,000 wall connectors across North America, 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,” says Brent Gruber, executive director of global automotive at J.D. Power in Troy. “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.”

The study measures EV owners’ satisfaction with two types of public charge point operators: Level 2 charging stations and DC fast charger stations. Satisfaction is measured across 10 factors: ease of charging; speed of charging; cost of charging; ease of payment; ease of finding this location; convenience of a given location; things to do while charging; how safe one feels at this location; availability of chargers; and physical condition of the charging location.

Following are key findings of the 2022 study:

“Everyone knows that the landscape of gas stations is focused on convenience — readily available, fast fueling, and quick convenience items,” Gruber says. “Although fast charging is seemingly getting faster by the day, to expedite the charging process vehicles will need to accommodate the newest ultra-fast chargers. Currently, only a handful of vehicles can take advantage of the fastest charging speeds. And no matter how fast their vehicle charges, EV owners still indicate they need more options for things to do during each charging session to enhance convenience and fill the down time.”

Other limitations holding back EV sales are range anxiety, long charging times, rising vehicle costs due to inflation and supply chain delays, the cost to have charging stations installed at homes and businesses, electric grid limitations, the sourcing of some battery materials through child labor, high battery replacement costs, and battery recycling concerns.

The J.D. Power study also ranked EV charging offerings, including:

Tesla Destination ranks highest among Level 2 charging stations with a score of 680. Volta (667) ranks second, and ChargePoint (639) ranks third.

Tesla Supercharger ranks highest among DC fast chargers with a score of 739. It is the only DC fast charger brand to rank above industry average.

The 2022 U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) Public Charging Study is driven by a collaboration with PlugShare, the leading EV driver app maker and research firm. The study examines consumer attitudes, behaviors and satisfaction, and setting the standard for benchmarking the overall experience of public EV charging.

Respondents included 11,554 owners of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The study was fielded from January through June 2022. Drivers who visited the charging location but didn’t charge their vehicle were asked why they decided not to charge.

For more information about the U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) Public Charging Study, click here.

Editor: R.J. King Associate Editor: Jake Bekemeyer