Electric vehicles are more abundant than ever. Charging your shiny new EV at a public station? That could hardly get worse.
Since 2021, automotive research firm J.D. Power has regularly polled electric car owners on their experiences at public charging stations. That infrastructure is vital to the world’s transition away from fuel-burning cars and drivers’ comfort with battery-powered vehicles. Many of today’s EV owners can charge at home, but a complete transition to electric requires a solution for cars that park on the street or take longer trips. The latest data suggests public charging is currently a mess.
According to J.D. Power, 21 percent of EV owners who attempted to charge at a public charging station in the first three months of 2023 were unable to do so, up from 15 percent in 2021. The failure rate stems from a range of problems, such as broken displays, software bugs, severed power cords, or gas-guzzling drivers hogging charging spots.
“It’s mind-boggling and really unfathomable for someone who is used to going into a gas station,” says Brent Gruber, the J.D. Power executive who oversees the survey.
There is one bright spot in J.D. Power’s data: Tesla’s public “Superchargers.” Just 4 percent of Tesla owners reported a charging failure in the first three months of 2023. “The seamlessness of the Tesla charging station is unmatched,” Gruber says.
In the past year, Tesla has begun to better exploit the advantage its Supercharger network provides—and accelerate a slow-burning infrastructure war with the rest of the electric vehicle world. It solidified its dominance this week, when General Motors became the second major automaker in less than two weeks to announce it would use Tesla’s own charging ports on its vehicles.
Reliability isn’t the only thing that makes Tesla’s charging network unique. For starters, it’s one of the only public charging networks—and by far the largest—that’s built, owned, and operated by a major automaker. Tesla has sold more than 4 million EVs, more than any other manufacturer, but it now faces stiff competition as traditional automakers spend billions to electrify their lineups. The network of Tesla Superchargers has emerged as a stealthy strength.
Tesla understood the importance of a charging network earlier and more fully than incumbent manufacturers, says Geoffrey Parker, a professor of engineering innovation at Dartmouth College, who has written about EV business strategy. “They got it early, and they were willing to spend billions of dollars.”
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