Why EV Charging Networks Have Reliability Problems

Unreliable electric vehicle charging infrastructure is a significant barrier to EV adoption in the United States. On top of being insufficient to support the current crop of electric cars, America’s network of public EV-charging stations is often plagued with reliability issues.

While refueling an internal combustion engine (ICE) car is a quick and simple procedure, charging your EV at a public charging station can be a long and frustrating process, especially for non-Tesla EV drivers. For many American drivers who can afford to transition to an electric car, this poor charging experience is enough to deter them from making the purchase.

A bipartisan infrastructure law from the Biden administration sought to mitigate this reliability issue by requiring that charging stations reach a certain level of reliability before they could gain access to a $5 billion pot of capital. Compared to the 97% uptime required by the legislation, some studies have revealed that charging stations in some U.S. regions have uptimes as low as 72.5%.

Federal regulations consider a charging station to be “up” if its remote operating system shows that chargers are powered up and ready to deliver power.  However, this uptime requirement is susceptible to factors such as hardware malfunctions and software glitches that can significantly slow charging rates or prevent charging entirely.

National Charging Experience (ChargeX) consortium director John Smart notes that while the uptime requirement is widely seen to be necessary in the quest to increase EV-charging-station reliability, they aren’t sufficient enough to ensure electric vehicle charging in America is as worry free and predictable as fueling a conventional gas-powered car.

Analysis by EV-charging installation company Qmerit found that 55% of unsuccessful charging sessions are due to connectivity issues. Poor installation coupled with substandard software and hardware maintenance are also to blame for EV-charging reliability issues. However, the presence of several stakeholders in the EV-charging process makes it harder to diagnose the cause of many charging issues.

According to Sarah Hipel, the federal joint Office of Energy and Transportation’s standards and reliability program manager, drivers expect functional chargers when they pull into an EV-charging station. Unfortunately, Hipel notes that regulators simply don’t have enough data to track and measure the overall EV-charging station performance. This makes it difficult for the federal agency to provide insight into the reliability of American charging stations. Furthermore, Hipel says, this lack of data means the agency still doesn’t have a handle on the root causes of the nation’s unreliable public electric-vehicle charging network.

Charging stations now have incentive to begin collecting relevant data if they wish to access the $5 billion pool of federal funding. As per the legislation’s rules, EV-charging companies would have to meet minimum standards for remote monitoring and diagnostics, secure and interoperable communications, real-time information collection on customer pricing, charging port uptime and status, and seamless software updates.

Electric vehicle makers such as Cenntro Electric Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: CENN) can also think through ways in which they can work with charging infrastructure providers to improve reliability and thereby woo more members of the public to make the transition to EVs.

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