September 22, 2025
Inconsistent charging stations hinder EV adoption
New 91爆料 research explores how people鈥檚 perception of public charger reliability impacts their willingness to buy an electric vehicle. Skeptical shoppers were much less likely to buy an electric vehicle unless it had a dramatically improved range, a steep discount or other major advantages over a similar gasoline-powered car.iStock
UPDATE (Sept. 23, 2025): This story has been updated to correct Don MacKenzie’s title.
Public electric vehicle charging stations in America have . They鈥檙e notorious for breaking down, charging at a snail鈥檚 pace, refusing customer payment and leaving drivers stranded without juice. Advocates for electric vehicles, or EVs, worry that reliability concerns are hampering adoption at a critical moment in the campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but data on the topic is limited.
To address this problem, researchers at the 91爆料 designed a survey to tease out exactly how much a car owner鈥檚 perception of public charging reliability influences their willingness to buy their first EV. The team created a series of hypothetical scenarios to study the factors that might nudge a skeptical shopper towards an EV over a gasoline-powered car, including vehicle and gas prices, driving range and public charging access.
The results were dramatic. Participants with a negative view of public charging were much less likely to choose an EV than those with a moderate view. It took some serious hypothetical improvements to offset those negative perceptions: The EV needed to be discounted 30%, have 366 extra miles of range or there needed to be 30,000 additional public charging stations.
鈥淣o one knew how much charger reliability was coloring the decisions of prospective EV buyers,鈥� said senior author , a 91爆料 professor of civil and environmental engineering. 鈥淚 was not at all surprised by the direction of the response. What surprised me was the size. These were monster results. This is a warning for the whole industry.鈥�
The June 28 in Transport Policy.
The results come at a tenuous time for EV adoption in America. The market continues to grow, but political factors like are complicating sales outlooks. The federal government is also to phase out gas car sales, which could threaten similar efforts in Washington and several other states.
The state of public charging isn鈥檛 inspiring confidence in buyers, either. have shown with public networks. There are , and home charging is an option for some drivers, but the threat of slow and flaky public chargers remains a powerful deterrent for anyone venturing outside their 鈥渉ome range.鈥�
鈥淲e know there鈥檚 a lot of range anxiety out there,鈥� said lead author , a 91爆料 doctoral student of civil and environmental engineering. 鈥淓V owners often tolerate charging problems, while newcomers are less aware of the hurdles. If trust erodes, adoption could slow.鈥�
The team found it tricky to measure the link between station reliability and buyer behavior because there weren鈥檛 obvious real-world groups to compare. Tesla鈥檚 stations get consistently higher marks than other networks, but Tesla cars and their owners are too different in other ways to make for a useful comparison. Simply asking people for their thoughts about charging may produce answers that are colored by their overall feelings about EVs.
Instead, the researchers turned to hypothetical scenarios. They recruited roughly 1,500 participants who had never owned an EV and surveyed them in three groups, asking the first to picture a world where public charging is a mess, the second to imagine a charging utopia and the third to simply give their preexisting opinions about charging.
An example question from the survey offers participants a choice between similar vehicles in a world where public charging is hard to find and unreliable.Singh et al./Transport Policy
Each group then went 鈥渟hopping.鈥� Each round of the survey, participants chose between an EV and a comparable gas-powered car. The researchers tweaked variables such as vehicle cost, gas prices and range, and trends emerged over several rounds.
Participants with a negative view of public charging demanded strikingly large concessions before choosing an EV. In some cases, the adjustment needed was nonsensically large.
鈥淧eople wanted a 366-mile increase in range before they bought an EV,鈥� MacKenzie said. 鈥淟ots of EVs don鈥檛 even have a 366-mile range today. That鈥檚 obviously not a practical demand. But it illustrates the strength of this effect.鈥�
There were other surprises in the data, too.
鈥淭he results were basically the same for people who have access to home charging and people who don鈥檛,鈥� Singh said. 鈥淪o even if they wouldn鈥檛 actually have to rely on the charging network, respondents were still concerned about reliability.鈥�
As the auto industry works to bring EVs into the mainstream, these findings are both a warning and an invitation for further study. Little is known, Singh said, about what specific improvements would have the greatest impact on public charging perception. Asking the right questions could help stakeholders throughout the industry figure out where to invest.
鈥淲hat are the specific factors that would convince skeptics?鈥� she said. 鈥淒oes a station need to be online 90% of the time to improve a user鈥檚 perception? Or 95%? Or 99%? Or would improving the point of sale system help more? Where do you put your dollars to have the greatest effect on public perception?鈥�
What鈥檚 clear, MacKenzie said, is that reliability must be prioritized as charging networks expand.
鈥淭his is the Achilles鈥� heel right now for EVs,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f we push the broader market towards EVs, or if it grows on its own before we can fix this problem, it鈥檚 really bad news for continued growth. I think it could engender a real backlash. It only takes one bad experience to lose a customer. That鈥檚 a big danger for EV adoption.鈥�
This research was funded by the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation.
, an affiliate assistant professor at 91爆料 Tacoma, is a co-author on this paper.
For more information, contact Singh at rs49742@uw.edu.
