Report: Most States Get a Failing Grade On EV Charging Network Availability

by Chris Teague

Published: September 9th, 2024

report most states get a failing grade on ev charging network availability

Despite the government and auto industry’s push toward electrification, a shocking number of states have underdeveloped charging networks. A recent study from Here Technologies and SBD Automotive found that 47 states are behind on the number of chargers they need to adequately service the electric vehicle population.

Only three states, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont, met the criteria. The District of Columbia was also included in that list despite it not being a full-fledged state. The study’s authors said that the ideal ratio of registered electric vehicles to Level 2 and 3 chargers is nine to ten vehicles per plug. That said, they also accounted for population density, EV adoption, and more.

Despite those findings, SBD Automotive’s Robert Fisher said that U.S.-based EV drivers will likely use more private chargers than people in Europe, and the country’s vast size and varying population densities will play a role in how states adapt. “Europe has these rural areas, but not maybe quite like the Wyomings and the South Dakotas of the world. So that ratio could be potentially higher in the U.S.”

Planners and officials still have plenty of work to do, but there’s an opportunity for charging companies to make headway in the less crowded market. Fisher said, “We are a little bit concerned in some European countries that they’ve already overshot, and it’s becoming too difficult as a business to be a charge point operator. In the U.S., we don’t have that problem yet, but it could become a problem in the future.”

[Images: mikeledray, mark reinstein, Roschetzky Photography via Shutterstock]

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Chris Teague

Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.

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7 of 47 comments

Redapple2 on Sep 10, 2024
80% + of golf carts in The Villages are GAS. Boom.

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- FreedMike on Sep 10, 2024
  I hear exhaust fumes have the magical ability to turn pineapples upside down, which may explain The Villages.
  
  1
- Theflyersfan on Sep 10, 2024
  Ah yes, The Villages. The "community" where patients in God's Own Waiting Room start many conversations whispering to each other, "I'm not a racist, but..." Not exactly the greatest example of a diverse population of the United States.
  
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3-On-The-Tree on Sep 10, 2024
@VoGhost. I can assure you it’s definitely not Russian/Maga propaganda. I wore the uniform from 1993-2023. I just think the longer we keep sending arms and money over there the higher the chance we will send troops. Just follow history, first we support in the follow order; aid, money, weapons, advisors, said advisors get fired ion the we change the ROE, then we have boots on ground. As an advisor I walked patrols in Mosul Iraq 08-09 with the Iraqi police. We took casualties and we transported KIA’s back to the FOB. Not fun. All MAGA jokes aside.

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- VoGhost on Sep 10, 2024
  3-on-th-tree, Thank you for your service. We are going to have to disagree on this one. My view is that if we watch Ukraine fall, Poland is next, then the rest of Eastern Europe, and then Germany, etc. At some point our nation will come to its senses and stop supporting Putin's puppet, at which point we will be obligated to defend NATO -- with the lives of people like you. I think the best way to avoid that situation is to stop fascist aggression now, in Ukraine.
  
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- 1995 SC on Sep 10, 2024
  So what you are saying @VoGhost is that if we let one European nation come unde Sovi...err Russian Control then many more will fall like, what's the word here...dominoes? I feel like there is a wall with 58000 names on it that sort of debunks your theory.
  
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- SCE to AUX on Sep 11, 2024
  An important difference is that Ukrainians have enjoyed real freedom and know how to manage it - unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, where such a thing is impossible. Not all aid is indefensible.
  
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