About 20% of the time electric vehicle (EV) owners plug in to a public charger, they’re unable to charge, according to a new study from J.D. Power.
That figure has stayed nearly steady the past year, ticking up or down by a percent or two with each monthly version of J.D. Power’s E-Vision Intelligence Report.
It’s a problem for automakers, as researchers found that “The top three barriers to EV consideration among active vehicle shoppers are lack of charging station availability (51%); time required to charge (49%); and limited driving distance per charge (47%).”
Most EV Charging Isn’t Public
EV chargers will likely never need to dot intersections like gas stations because most EV owners charge at home. One recent study found that, in a mature charging network able to support tens of millions of EVs, just 4% of all chargers could be the publicly accessible kind.
Related: EV Chargers – Everything You Need to Know
Even the lowest-range EV can easily handle most Americans’ daily driving needs without ever touching a public charger. Owners simply top off the battery when parked at home.
But EV drivers need public chargers when they take road trips longer than their car’s range.
For those, there are two types of public chargers. The fastest, known as a Level 3 charger or a DC fast charger, can refill most EV batteries in an hour or less. Those are common at highway rest stops.
A second type, known as a Level 2 charger or a destination charger, takes several hours to refill most batteries. Those are growing common at shopping centers in many cities and suburbs.
Drivers Happier With Fast Chargers
Americans perceive the two types differently.
“Overall customer satisfaction with the DC fast charging network has improved slightly through the fourth quarter of 2024, rising to 650 from 643” on a 1,000-point scale, J.D. Power writes.
“Satisfaction with Level 2 public charging has held steady (602).”
But a fifth of all charging attempts failed. “The most common reasons for being unable to charge were charger out of service (62%); no charger available/too long to wait (18%); charger would not accept payment (11%); cable/connector damaged (9%); and chargers were blocked by non-charging vehicles (7%).”
Tesla Owners Less Satisfied as Their Network Opens
2025 brings the biggest change to the public charging landscape in years, as Tesla opens its massive Supercharger network for use by owners of other brands’ cars. That has some Tesla owners dissatisfied, J.D. Power finds.
“The Supercharger network continues to lead the DC fast charging segment in customer satisfaction, with its average overall satisfaction score rising 27 points to 701 in Q4 2024. The Supercharger network gets high marks for ease of payment, ease of finding location, and availability of chargers.” Tesla owners, however, saw their satisfaction with the system fall.
“Tesla was the only brand in the study that did not see overall improvement in customer satisfaction with the DC fast charging experience in 2024.”