The infrastructure supporting this growth—specifically, America’s network of public chargers—has struggled to keep pace with this inadequacy being a significant factor in the slowing of projected EV sales. A 2023 poll revealed that over half of Americans would not consider purchasing an EV, with 80% of respondents citing insufficient charging infrastructure as the primary deterrent. Existing EV drivers are frustrated by the unreliability of the current network, with one in every five charging attempts at public stations failing. Until now, there has been a lack of comprehensive data explaining the reasons behind these failures and how to address them.
ChargerHelp, a leading provider of Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) operations and maintenance services, has conducted an in-depth analysis of public charging infrastructure to pinpoint the causes of persistent reliability issues. The findings are detailed in their report, ChargerHelp Annual Reliability Report: The State of EV Charging and the Driver Experience, published in June 2024.
This report, which received a review and endorsement from Professor Gil Tal, director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at UC Davis, analyzed data from five primary sources. It utilized two sets of first-party data from ChargerHelp's direct EVSE operations and maintenance experience, third-party data from Paren, Inc., and public data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) database, each focused on public charging infrastructure. In total, more than 19 million individual data points were analyzed to provide a detailed picture of current charging infrastructure challenges.
Through four years of data collection from 20,000 chargers, ChargerHelp identified several key areas for improvement to better meet the needs of today's EV drivers. Kameale Terry, co-founder and CEO of ChargerHelp, emphasized the necessity of ensuring true uptime through standardized and synchronized approaches to data, maintenance, and communication networks. For the EV market to continue flourishing, establishing reliable uptime as the standard is essential.
UC Davis researchers have highlighted charging reliability as a critical barrier to creating a dependable network capable of supporting long-distance travel comparable to gas-powered vehicles. Ensuring that EV drivers can travel without concerns about charging reliability is vital for mass adoption. This study is a crucial step in understanding the technical difficulties and developing solutions to overcome them. ChargerHelp is well-positioned to evaluate the data and produce a reliable report with actionable plans for policymakers and industry leaders.
While the report identifies various issues, the lack of interoperability emerges as a significant threat to system reliability and broader EV adoption in the United States. Interoperability involves the compatibility of key system components, including vehicles, charging stations, networks, the grid, and supporting software, to enable seamless functionality.
These measures aim to improve EVSE reliability and enhance the charging experience for EV drivers.
ChargerHelp’s app-based dispatch and deployment system addresses the widespread issue of malfunctioning electric vehicle charging stations by providing on-demand repair and maintenance support through trained local workforces. This capability, offered at scale, is essential to support the rapid growth of EV charging infrastructure, improving efficiency, turnaround time, and network availability while reducing costs across the networks. With ChargerHelp's services, partner EV charging owners and operators can meet new service-level requirements and secure new EVSE contracts to meet the increasing demand for charging solutions.
