Although electric vehicles are hailed as the solution to cutting down on harmful emissions in cities and on heavily trafficked routes, poor charging facilities could just slow down their adoption.
According to a survey by JD Power of 11,554 electric vehicle and plug-in hybrid vehicle owners in the US, the experience of powering up their EVs at public charging stations is anything but smooth. It’s apparently not just about broken or inoperable charging equipment.
Fully charging an electric car takes anything from half an hour to 12 hours. Users prefer to have something to pass the time too while they wait for their vehicle’s battery to get powered up.
As per the results of the survey, one out of five respondents did not charge their EV after visiting a public charging station. 72% of them claimed that this was due to the station either being out of service or malfunctioning.
On a 1000-point scale measuring consumer satisfaction, powering up EVs at a public Level 2 charger has apparently been a worse experience in 2022 than it was in 2021. The satisfaction scores dropped from 644 to 633.
Customers are reportedly not any more happier with DC (direct current) fast charging stations considering the score remained the same at 674. Tesla’s Supercharger network and Destination wall-mounted Level 2 chargers came out on top in this customer satisfaction survey.
Residential charging is not always an option for EV owners, especially when they’re embarking on long-distance trips. So it makes sense that larger investments will need to be made into public charging stations if EV adoption has to increase globally.
