August 15, 2025 - Charging Reliability Improving

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 15, 2025 and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.

In surveys for at least a decade, the top barriers to electric vehicle adoption identified by car buyers have been affordability, range and challenges with charging including availability and time to charge. While affordability is still a challenge for EVs as well as the whole industry, there are some more affordable offerings on the market now with additional choices coming soon. As 300 miles per charge have become common, range anxiety is less of an issue now as well. But as the number of EVs on the road grew significantly in the early 2020s, so to do reports of nightmare charging experiences. 

According multiple studies including the latest from JD Power, the charging industry has been listening and making some progress. The 2025 J.D. Power U.S. EV Experience Public Charging Study found the lowest incidence of failed charging sessions since it began in 2021. The study provided rankings and scores for both level 2 AC networks and DC fast charging networks. As has been the case since the beginning, Tesla came out on top in both lists with its destination chargers and superchargers. 

In 2021, when most EV owners were driving Teslas and using Superchargers, only 13% of respondents reported failed charging attempts. As the number of non-Tesla EVs and chargers grew in later years, that ballooned to 20%. However, beginning in spring 2024, Non-Tesla drivers started getting access to much of the Supercharger network and competing operators responded to the competition by improving reliability. The percentage of drivers reporting failed charging attempts is now back down to 14%. 

Despite the reliability improvements, overall driver satisfaction with charging has declined, mostly due to increasing costs for fast charging. As electricity rates have climbed and usage has increased, operators have increased prices or instituted time of use rates. In addition non-Tesla drivers using the Supercharger network have realized that Tesla is charging them higher rates than it does for drivers of its EVs. 

The road ahead for EVs still has plenty of potholes and speed bumps, but there are continuing signs of progress. If charge point operators can continue to improve reliability as they expand their networks and find a way to cut costs, perhaps by using battery storage on site to help avoid demand charges, we'll get to a better place. 

Thanks for listening.