Electric vehicle owners are fed up with broken EV chargers and janky software - The Verge

JD Power surveyed thousands of EV owners and found that most of them think EV charging in the US still sucks. Satisfaction with public Level 2 chargers dropped year over year, while DC fast chargers stayed flat.

A common complaint you hear from electric vehicle owners is about the sorry state of public EV charging: broken chargers, janky software, busted screens. But a lot of this is anecdotal, and it can be hard to find any rigorous studies that capture the current state of EV charging in the US.

JD Power surveyed 11,554 electric vehicle and plug-in hybrid vehicle owners from January through June 2022 for its second annual Electric Vehicle Experience Public Charging Study. Despite big growth in the number of public EV chargers in the US, EV owners say the overall experience still sucks.

The consumer research firm measured customer satisfaction with EV charging on a 1,000-point scale. According to respondents, charging at a public Level 2 charger is worse than it was last year, with satisfaction dropping to 633 from 643 in 2021. Meanwhile, satisfaction with the speedier DC (direct current) fast charger segment remains flat at 674.

“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,” Brent Gruber, executive director of global automotive at JD Power, said in a statement.

Finding a public charger has never been easier, but finding one that works remains a serious problem. According to the survey, one out of every five respondents ended up not charging their vehicle after locating a public charger. And of those who didn’t charge, 72 percent indicated that it was due to the station malfunctioning or being out of service.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/17/23308612/ev-charging-broken-unreliable-survey-jd-power

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