Electric Vehicle Charging We Can Count On
Unreliable chargers could hold back electric vehicle adoption. Policymakers need to intervene.
Consumers embraced electric vehicles like never before in 2023. Electric vehicle sales increased by 50% relative to 2022, compared to just 2% growth for gas-powered vehicle sales. Yet consumer surveys are revealing an uncertain future. A new Gallup survey found that 48% of consumers would not consider buying an electric vehicle in the future. This is an increase over last year’s survey’s 41%. The trend is going in the wrong direction.
Automakers are working hard to appeal to consumer tastes, bringing over 100 electric vehicle models to market. The federal government is offering substantial subsidies for buyers to address the cost barrier. But some consumers want none of it. Political polarization is part of the explanation with some drivers associating electric vehicles with a progressive environmental agenda that they reject. But another factor that tops consumer surveys is that there are too few charging stations.
The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law tries to address this barrier by allocating $7.5 billion to expand the country’s public charging network. “Public” in this context means the chargers are accessible to all drivers. They could be owned or operated by a private business, charging provider or a government host. But the number of charging points is not the only shortcoming of the network. Media stories have highlighted that existing public chargers, specifically chargers not owned by Tesla, are plagued by reliability problems. A recent study by J.D. Power found that one-fifth of attempts to use a public charger are unsuccessful. Problems cited in the media include out-of-service chargers, unsuccessful software connections between the charger and vehicle, and malfunctioning payment systems. Gas stations, by contrast, are highly reliable.
—
Poor charger reliability is hurting consumer confidence in electric vehicles, and the upcoming investment in new charging stations will do little to spur electric vehicle adoption if consumers remain concerned about charging. As part of the policy nudges toward electric vehicles, the Federal Highway Administration, which oversees the largest charging subsidy program, and the state agencies that are implementing the federal program, should ensure that they are building a reliable network.
It is not clear why public chargers are so unreliable, but I see a few clues. I would expect that companies would be incentivized to increase reliability in order to sell more charging and generate more profits. However, there are indications that operating a charging station is a money loser. Two of the largest stand-alone charging companies, ChargePoint and Blink, have been generating larger and larger losses year-on-year. Stock market investors don’t see things changing anytime soon so these two companies’ stock prices have dropped 83% and 69%, respectively, over the past year. Perhaps companies lose less money when a charger is broken than if they pay to fix it.
The most reliable charging operator, Tesla, has had an entirely different business model. They were motivated to deploy a reliable system in order to sell cars. Until very recently, their network of superchargers was only usable by Teslas and was primarily developed to increase vehicle sales. It was not intended to be a separate source of profit. By vertically integrating into charging they have been able to seamlessly address issues like software communication between the charger and vehicle and payment systems. Third-party charging companies have struggled to execute these areas well.
—
Tesla recently decided to change direction and open up their network by allowing other automakers to adopt the Tesla charging standards. Research by MIT Professor Jing Li has found that moving to common charging standards can help consumers and the electric vehicle market, so this is an encouraging development. I’ll be very interested to see if Tesla can maintain its high levels of reliability as it starts serving a broader market.
What can policymakers do to increase the reliability of the rest of the charging market?
I see two opportunities. One approach is to restructure the form of subsidies. The biggest federal subsidy program for charging is the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. The program covers up to 80% of charging station costs, including operations and maintenance costs for the first five years. The program’s focus on costs will motivate the recipients to spend money. Getting new charging stations up and running is a program goal, so that makes sense. Adding performance incentives, such as a per-kilowatt of sales subsidy or penalties for outages, could be a way to additionally motivate charging operators to deliver reliable charging services.
Federal subsidies for wind illustrate how performance-based subsidies can improve performance. Research by Joseph Aldy, Todd Gerarden, and Richard Sweeney estimated that wind farms that received an up-front investment subsidy produced 10% to 12% less than they would have if they had received a subsidy for each unit they produced. I expect converting some of the up-front subsidy for charging stations into a per kilowatt-hour subsidy would also improve system throughput, both through better reliability and other decisions that increase usage such as choosing the best locations.
Another opportunity is to encourage experimentation in different business models. This is already emerging as a feature of the NEVI program. States, which administer the NEVI program, are funding a variety of organization-types. Texas, for example, has awarded funding to – gasoline retailers, oil companies, stand-alone charging companies and an auto company (Tesla). I am excited to see this variety. States and the federal government should collect program data, including reliability data, and make this data available to researchers.
—
Many consumers want widespread and reliable public charging before they make the move to an electric vehicle. The federal government has made a big commitment to making charging more widespread. The Federal Highway Administration and state agencies need to make sure those chargers work.
Follow us on Bluesky and LinkedIn, as well as subscribe to our email list to keep up with future content and announcements.
Suggested citation: Campbell, Andrew. “Electric Vehicle Charging We Can Count On” Energy Institute Blog, April 15, 2024, https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2024/04/15/electric-vehicle-charging-we-can-count-on/
Categories
Andrew G Campbell View All
Andrew Campbell is the Executive Director of the Energy Institute at Haas at the University of California, Berkeley. At the Energy Institute, Campbell serves as a bridge between the research community, and business and policy leaders on energy economics and policy.
Energy Institute Blog 
Classic ‘Push Solution’ (gov’t solution is rarely cost effective nor forward looking) versus “pull-solution” (draw them in with really cool, time appropriate & creative solutions – ‘free market adaptation’. No more “smarties” (Berkeley at el, and their creative arm chair solutions; you can’t foresee the inforseeable, particularly when “You build it on hind-sight”.
I drive an electric car. You missed the biggest problem and the easiest solution. Require that all that is needed to charge any electric car in the US is to plug it in and have a credit card. NO APS, phones, WWFI, Internet or web sites to sign into or register with.
That last link on my posting should have been https://egpreston.com/solarinverter.pdf
for some reason it included my name in the link.
The Tesla charging network is pretty reliable. EVs can see the status of each charger on a map and how many stalls are in use and how far away each Super Charging station is. I guess its the non Tesla chargers that are giving non Tesla EVs grief. You want to avoid L2 slow chargers for example unless you plan on charging for several hours. If you have a low range EV an L2 charger is ok if you are in town shopping and just need a few miles added to your EV to get around town. If you own a long range (>300 miles) you probably don’t need charging at stops in town since you can charge at home with your own L2 charger and have plenty of range in town. This is the fallacy of buying an EV with too small a battery. Ford is adopting use of the Tesla charging stations, a wise move by Ford. I charge mostly from DIY home solar panels so I don’t even use grid power to run my Tesla. see https://egpreston.com/solarinverter.pdf Gene Preston
In order to improve charging station availability and reliability it would be good to know a little more about the nature of the problem. Are the chargers themselves broken? Under-maintained? Are the cables broken? Is it a power distribution problem? Vandalism? User error? Did the owners stop paying their electric bills? As you admit, “It is not clear why public chargers are so unreliable” and a customer satisfaction survey like JD Power’s won’t get at the problem. Who can find better data? The charging companies may know more and perhaps they’d be willing collectively to release anonymized data to someone independent and objective like, oh, I dunno, an academic economist?
Nice piece. The issue is complex. Initially, any high-speed charger is likely to be little used. Markets do not build seldom-used assets without a working business model.
In electric utilities, the “peaker” powerplants are absurdly expensive if you divide the annualized cost by the annual production — measured in DOLLARS per kilowatt-hour, compared to retail rates (outside of California) measured in PENNIES per kilowatt-hour. The business model that works is to meld those costs into a broader ratebase. Do this with EV chargers would be fiendishly difficult.
I charge at home on a time-varying rate that costs me the equivalent of about $0.75/gallon of gasoline. My car has left the garage only six times in six years for a trip longer than the 239-mile range of a Kia Niro.
Blink and Chargepoint and ElectrifyAmerica, the three main operators of commercial charging, charge 4X as much as I pay for home charging. You don’t want to pay those prices often.
I rarely charge away from home, and paying a premium once or twice a year does not bring my average cost of driving up that much. But depending on commercial charging at prices like that would eat up much of the economic savings of an EV.
A big challenge is for people who don’t have a way to charge at home: apartment residents and renters who don’t have an easy way to connect a 240V charger close enough to where they park. There are some good tools, including “circuit-sharing” hardware that plugs into the clothes dryer outlet, and the EV charger plugs in, switching back and forth between the two. But if you’re in an apartment, or the clothes dryer is not near the garage, that’s not much help.
These challenges need to be solved. Personally, as much as I had the monopoly nature of it, I think that electric utilities should be in the business of providing retail EV charging service at regulated prices. They know how to run wires; they know how to fix stuff; they have staff in every locale; they are familiar with regulation; they have statutory obligations to provide safe, reliable, and adequate service at prices that are fair, just, and reasonable.
Except in California, where the California PUC has adopted too many goofy ideas, and abandoned the “fair, just, and reasonable” standard, allowing retail rates that are 2X to 3X the national average. While I charge for the equivalent of $0.75/gallon, a PG&E customer charges at the equivalent of $4.00/gallon or more. That dog won’t hunt.
Engineering is the difference.
Tesla plugs are small. If something goes wrong the system knows why and whether to restart. The socket is in a good place for the driver to turn around from the door and plug in.
“Public” chargers have plugs the size of coffee cans. They expect people to stoop down over the hood or some random part of the car, so the manuf saved $1.
Tesla cares about user experience.
Public chargers care about Wall Street Shareholders experience.
You neglect engineering. Tesla chargers work better because they weren’t designed by a committee of stakeholders in the fossil fuel powered auto industry. They are significantly better for the user. And better for the provider.
Like when they stop charging the system knows why, and whether to restart.
And the plug is the size of a plug, not the size of a severed limb.
And they decided to put the socket on the car in the logical place, where the driver can turn around and access it. Other manufacturers just saved $1 and put the socket in some stupid place you don’t go and can’t reach, like way down under the front hood.
One thing that would help would be to use more smart grid supporting features such as Apparent.com offers in their bus charging stations.
Interesting post.
The charging station meme reminds me of the introduction of the automobile when a suggestion that flaggers go before the vehicle to avoid scaring horses. I suspect that the correct analog is not the gas station but the prevalence of washers and dryers in the home.
Because gasoline requires a centralized depot, most policy makers assume that we will field “electric stations” everywhere we go. However, the reality is very different. Gas stations offer quick refills of fuel that is not available elsewhere. Chargers are more likely to be found where the EV is likely to stay for a relatively lengthy period — your home and your office.
During the poverty of graduate school I can remember the visits to the local laundromat. A very early acquisition is a washer dryer at home. At a later stage of life, my home(s) have both a wash dryer and a car charger. In my completely non-scientific survey, I am not aware of any EV owners who are either seeking chargers or laundromats . . .
Robert McCullough
McCullough Research
robert@mresearch.com
503-771-5090