EV Owners Increasingly Dissatisfied With Public Charging Stations, J.D. Power Study Shows

While the electric vehicle market has been exponentially growing year in and year out, the public charging infrastructure has not been able to keep pace. As such, it appears as though EV owners are becoming increasingly unhappy with the existing charging framework.

According to a report from J.D. Power, overall customer satisfaction with Level 2 charging has declined 16 points on a year-over-year basis to 617 points out of 1,000. DC fast charging satisfaction reflected a similar ethos, falling 20 points to 654 in the same timeframe. In fact, satisfaction has declined in nearly every aspect of the J.D. Power study.

“The declining customer satisfaction scores for public charging should be concerning to automakers and, more broadly, to public charging stakeholders,” J.D. Power EV Practice Executive Director Brent Gruber stated in a prepared statement. “The availability of public charging stations is still a critical obstacle, but it isn’t the only one. EV owners continue to have issues with many aspects of public charging, as the cost and speed of charging and the availability of things to do while waiting for their vehicle to charge are the least satisfying aspects. At the same time, the reliability of public chargers continues to be a problem. The situation is stuck at a level where one of every five visits ends without charging, the majority of which are due to station outages.”

It’s worth noting that there were three key findings in this study, including:

• Satisfaction with charging speed declines

• Public chargers must be placed in appropriate locations

  
  

• Non-charge visits remain an issue, and results differ by geographic location

“The results of this year’s study should be very concerning to all those involved in the transition from gas-powered vehicles to electric vehicles,” Gruber added. “Although the majority of EV charging occurs at home, public charging needs to provide a much better experience across the board – not just for the users of today, but also to alleviate the concerns of skeptical future customers. A lot of work is under way to address these issues, but there is certainly much more work to be done.”