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

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

There are a lot of complaints from electric vehicle owners about the state of public charging. It can be hard to find studies that capture the current state of EV charging in the United States.

More than 11,000 electric vehicle and plug-in hybrid vehicle owners were surveyed for the second annual Electric Vehicle Experience Public Charging study. The EV experience in the US still sucks despite the increase in public EV charging stations.

Customer satisfaction with EV charging was measured on a 1,000 point scale. According to respondents, charging at a public Level 2 charger is worse than it was a year ago, with satisfaction dropping to 633 from 643 There is no change in satisfaction with the faster DC fast charging segment.

EV owners are still faced with charging station equipment that is not functional because of the availability of public charging.

Finding a public charging point has never been simpler, but finding one that works is still a problem. According to the survey, one out of five respondents didn't charge their car after finding a public charge. 72 percent of those who didn't charge said the station malfunctioned or was out of service.

There are more than 100,000 charging stations in the US. Public charging are only a small part of the equation. EV owners usually park in their driveway to charge up. If EV's are to become a more attractive option to car buyers, charging stations need to become more pervasive and reliable.

Unsurprisingly,Tesla is near the top for customer satisfaction, with its Level 2 charging station ranking highest with a score of 668 out of 1000. The Supercharger network has a score of 739.

According to experts, the network works well because it only works for the company's own electric vehicle. In order to access the company's Superchargers in the US, which have over 6,000 plugs, non-Tesla vehicles will need an accessory, according to the department of energy. According to the company, it has 35,000 Supercharger plugs. Many different EV brands require different public charging networks. Beginning at the end of this year, non-Tesla EV's will be able to use the electric car company's charging station.

EV charging companies didn't score very well with car owners. Customers ranked the Level 2 charging providers in order of their ranking. The DC fast charging companies were ranked by their customers.

EV charging is on the verge of improving. $5 billion in funding for EV charging infrastructure was secured by the Biden administration as part of his infrastructure plan. The states will use most of the money to create a network of EV charging stations along the Alternative Fuel Corridors.

New standards were released to help speed up the installation of charging stations. The standards give states guidelines on awarding contracts for EV charging projects, directing the companies who get them to build charging stations that are convenient, affordable, and accessible to the broadest number of people. The money requires that the chargers be functional nearly 100 percent of the time and that they follow technical standards for communicating with vehicles.