- Data shows that only four states (plus Washington D.C) have the optimal number of charging units per EV driver.
- Deleware is in first place, up from 15th place last year.
- Minnesota, Nebraska, Idaho and Alaska are all tied for last place.
No, you aren’t crazy. It’s great to see more EVs on the road, but charging stations have felt far more crowded lately now than they’ve been in a very long time. It’s not just a feeling, either. According to a study from HERE Technologies and SBD Automotive, the ratio of available chargers to actual EV drivers is way off.
Only four U.S. states have what's described as the optimal ratio of EV chargers to drivers. According to the study, unless you’re in Delaware, Massachusetts, Nevada or Connecticut, chances are that your public charging experience is a crowded mess.
The HERE-SBD EV Index’s Numbers aren’t just pulled out of thin air, no. It’s a weighted average. The firm says that ideally, there should be one public charging point for every nine to 10 full EVs. But other factors come into play too.
The firm considered how far an EV driver must drive to reach a charger, how quickly an EV driver can actually charge (i.e., the average speed of an EV charger), the number of pure EVs on the road and the likelihood of finding an unoccupied charger. Thus, Delaware leads the pack. It moved from 15th place in 2023 to 1st place in 2024. The study says the state’s growth was largely because of Delaware building more high-power DC fast charging stations.
Other states haven’t done so hot, though. Michigan, Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah, and Maine dropped in the rankings this year. Michigan took a huge 9-point loss because of a worsening EV-to-charger ratio and a reduction of average charger speed. EV sales in Michigan may be growing, but the state isn’t building out more of its EV charging network. Big cities like Houston or the Dallas/Fort Worth area are also lagging behind the availability of EV charging infrastructure. Minnesota, Nebraska, Idaho and Alaska are in last place.
The reliability of the chargers was important to note, too. Kansas, Massachusetts, Maine, and Nebraska all lead with at least 98% of their chargers in working condition. Yet, Alaska, Washington D.C. and West Virginia have at least 15% of their total chargers as non-operational. Hawaii has a whopping 21.8% marked as broken.
It’s not entirely bad news, though. States are generally improving. Delaware rocketed to first place on the survey, and there were significant improvements to Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas and Indiana.
We still aren’t out of the woods yet, though. The HERE-SBD EV Index emphasized the need for continual improvement of our charging infrastructure, and not just in the form of building new chargers themselves. Ensuring that charging remains smooth and seamless will be important to getting more drivers in EVs. That includes ironing out any compatibility issues, culling older slower chargers for newer and faster ones, and ensuring that the chargers themselves remain functional.
That all sounds simple, but we’ve been learning in real time that there are still more than a few roadblocks to total EV freedom.
Contact the author: kevin.williams@insideevs.com
