At the start of the year, one of the hottest technologies CE Pro said integrators should keep an eye on were EVs. Since then, the growth of EVs within the US market has been interesting to say the least. Plenty of measures have been put forward to bring consumers on board from the federal government, but there yet remain issues: Where’s the lithium for the batteries going to come from? How are we going to get the electricity to charge the cars? And what’s the reliability of EV charging stations?

The answer to that last one is not very. In fact, it seems there’s more online discussion right now regarding how America’s charging network is horrifically unreliable than any of the other issues.

Looking into it themselves, J.D. Power, the data analytics, software, and consumer intelligence company, recently did a customer satisfaction survey regarding the reliability of EV charging stations in the US.

According to the report, for every four times a car can charge, there is one time when nothing happens. And that failure rate is up from two years prior.

As to why this seems so prevalent, J.D. Power points to maintenance of these stations being up in the air for a lot of cases. According to the firm, there are instances where public charging companies don’t own and operate their chargers, instead, leaving the maintenance up to site hosts.

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The charging company does cover repair charges under a set warranty window, but after that, it’s up to whoever is hosting the charger on site, and often, maintenance will be skipped as a cost saver.

This lack of reliability from public EV chargers, has, understandably, put a bit of a damper on consumer interest in buying an EV. In a separate report from J.D. Power, the number of Americans who say they’re unlikely to buy an EV rose to 21% in March of this year with charging infrastructure being one of the biggest concerns.

Those who are interested in buying EVs, however, seem largely undeterred by these issues. While interest hasn’t risen much, it hasn’t dropped off either. It’s moreso that the people who were previously on the fence about buying EVs are shifting into disinterest. Likewise, while the sales of EVs may be down from prior months, but they’re still up over 300% from 2020.

It’s a little surprising to see that back in 2022, in the middle of all the hype and excitement regarding CEDIA Expo’s return to form, industry experts saw this coming from miles away. In fact, one of the biggest reasons professionals have been pushing for more private energy solutions to this day has largely been due to the anticipated growing pains within the public ecosystem driving greater demand. It’s also driven a lot of speculation into what acquisitions like that of Vivint by NRG mean for the rest of the industry.

That speculation isn’t without its merit, as, in a separate report, J.D. Power has found that EV users report greater satisfaction with home charger under certain conditions: namely when given the ability to schedule charge times as they would in a smart home environment. Additionally, satisfaction goes up as the level of charger does, with consumers ultimately being happier with a LVL 2 charger over a LVL 1.

For the time being, interest in EVs is holding firm throughout America, with home chargers providing some respite for enthusiasts, but continued issues regarding charging infrastructure will likely be the biggest hurdle towards grand scale adoption in the technology.

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