These EV Charging Networks Get The Most Complaints (According To Consumer Reports)

There are a number of wonderful benefits to owning and driving an electric vehicle, from saving money over time by charging your vehicle at home to saving the environment by producing fewer emissions when compared to gas-powered vehicles. While there are numerous positive aspects of EV ownership, dealing with public charging stations can be one of the more frustrating and potentially day-ruining issues with electric vehicles.

The idea of pulling up to a charging station, plugging in your vehicle, and sitting around with a book until the vehicle is fully charged sounds lovely. However, in practice this experience can be extremely frustrating and could potentially even ruin your day. There are a number of different issues that can arise at public charging stations, including payment issues, problems with charging power, issues with the hardware, and more. One thing every EV owner should be aware of is which public charging stations are the best.

Consumers Reports conducted a survey of EV owners across the United States to determine which public charging network is the most reliable. The survey included mentions of the Shell Recharge network, EVgo, Blink, the Tesla Supercharger network, and the Rivian Adventure Network. The survey found that the Tesla Supercharger network and Rivian Adventure Network received the fewest complaints, while the Shell Recharge network received the most.

According to the Department of Energy, there are more than 78,000 public charging stations located across the country, with more than 168,000 individual charging ports that are usable. Of those 78,000+ charging stations, almost 14,000 of them feature DC Fast chargers and more than 64,000 feature Level 2 chargers.

For the individual charging networks themselves, there are more than 5,500 Blink charging stations, 1,100 EVgo charging stations, 1,500 Shell Recharge network locations, 202 Rivian Adventure Network stations, and more than 7,500 Tesla Supercharger stations. According to the Consumer Reports survey, EV owners experienced an issue at one in every five public charging stations.

Those issues were broken down by type of charger, with DC Fast Chargers receiving the highest number of issues with 34% of owners claiming they experienced problems. For Level 2 chargers, 25% of owners have experienced issues, and only 4% experienced issues at the Tesla Supercharger network.

When it comes to the issues themselves, there was a charging power issue 15% of the time, payment issues 23% of the time, hardware issues 36% of the time, and 25% were considered under other issues. When there was a payment issue, the charger may have not started when payment was accepted, the payment may have failed, or other payment issues. For hardware issues, there were situations where the charging cable was too short, the charger was unable to connect to the vehicle, or the screen on the charger was broken.