As more electric vehicles hit U.S. roads, owners are less impressed with available charging options outside their homes. That’s according to J.D. Power’s second annual U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience Public Charging Study measuring EV owners’ satisfaction with public charging. The results are based on a series of criteria including charging costs, ease of charging and finding a charger location Brent Gruber, Executive Director of Global Automotive at JD Power, talks about the challenges in EV infrastructure and how automakers can improve their charging networks. 

Opening Bell

More EVs Cause More Public Charging Headaches

Welcome back to cheddar is opening bell. A new survey says electric vehicle owners are fed up with broken E. V. Chargers and glitchy software. A study by J. D. Power shows that owners are struggling to find adequate and operable charging stations especially in high volume E. V. Markets like California texas and Washington. This comes as the new number of public tv charges in the U. S. Has more than doubled in the last five years. Here to discuss is Brent Gruber, executive director of global automotive at J. D. Power got to have you on this morning. Tell us a little bit more about the findings from this report and if the availability of public charging is really the main obstacle here. Good morning Alicia. Thank you for having me on the show. Yeah the availability of charging is certainly an issue in the US and one that we were expecting to a certain degree. Earlier this year we released a study among vehicle shoppers looking at the consideration levels for E. V. S. And that study had indicated that the availability of public charging was a pretty considerable deterrent to purchasing electric vehicles. And then a second study we released an ownership study also indicated that public charging was really not adequate. So we went into this study knowing that there were some considerable issues with public charging. And so the study we released yesterday focused specifically on public charging highlighted just what we had suspected that there's a very inadequate amount of chargers and if there's one word that I could repeat three times. That would sum things up. It's more more, more so more chargers, more things to do while charging and more reliability. Speaking of that more and more and more than I'm curious. Do you see the tax credits in spending from the inflation reduction act leading to more and more and more speeding up the build out of the E. V charging infrastructure that's needed? Well, I think the inflation reduction act is certainly gonna help put more electric vehicles on the road. More north american manufactured electric vehicles on the road. I think that the bigger benefit will come from the infrastructure bill, the money that's going to be made available to the states to help build out the electric vehicle charging networks. Um, state by state that's going to have a really profound impact on what we see in terms of charging stations and the availability for users. I don't know that this is much of a surprise but but experts say that for the most part Tesla's network typically works well or better because it's designed to work for the company's own E. V. S that's not the case more broadly for for other E. V charging stations and networks. And so I'm curious what do you think other automakers can do to not only increase the number of E. V charging stations out there but improve the infrastructure. Right. Yeah, adding more stations isn't the only answer, making sure that they work properly and they're reliable is key and you hit on something that was pretty critical within our study and that was the fact that the Tesla charging stations do so well. You know, they do primarily have to interface with Tesla vehicles. So there's a bit of an advantage there, particularly with their supercharger network, which is exclusive to Tesla owners. Whereas other charge point operators have to interface with a multitude of vehicles. So what many manufacturers are starting to do is create alliances with those charge point operators, You see that with ford and their blue oval network. So they've created what is somewhat seamless interface for their vehicle owners simplifies the account process, the payment process and ultimately the charging process. So any manufacturer who isn't building their own network can look towards those types of alliances for benefits. Yeah, I think the only kind of analogy that I can put towards this, it makes the most sense is like imagine if gas stations had different nozzles for different vehicles and you didn't know what nozzles work at what gas station, the chaos that would be in the issue that you would have there. I think that's where the E. V space seems to be right now and it has to get probably to a point where there's a universal kind of charger or universal, um, you know, adapter, that, that is more seamless than it currently is right now to that point and maybe taking it a step further. I wonder is connectivity among different charging networks something that's also a challenge and really difficult to achieve. Yeah. One thing that's really critical is the standardization and you know, the government is working on developing some standards that will help with the interface aspect and the connectivity among those the networks working together to ensure a seamless operation and a patchwork of networks throughout the country is really critical. So that connectivity is hopefully something that will come as a result of these efforts through the regulations that are being developed right now because it's sorely needed. So so right now we have obviously the inflation reduction act that may help a little bit here. Private sector obviously has an incentive to kind of improve this to really grow the opportunity that is the E V. Space more broadly. But what else is needed in order to improve infrastructure and really, how far are we away from seeing real relief on some of these key issues? Yeah, well as far as how far away we are, it's it's quite a ways when we look at the scores from the study we released yesterday, they're not very good scores. They're not what we would consider to be highly satisfactory even at the top of the list, it's not considerably high. So what we need to do to make this process better for consumers is not just add those stations like I mentioned. But one thing that came through loud and clear with the study was the need for things to do while charging, you know, these users are spending a considerable amount of time while charging their vehicles in fast charge scenario. You're talking about 35 minutes on average and with a slower level to charge it could be anywhere from 1 to 4 hours. So that's a lot of dwell time. And we really need to ensure that there's things for these E. V. Owners to do while they spend that time charging. So who improves that there and who's making the biggest improvements there? And I'll point to private sector more than anything because the reality is the private sector is gonna move faster than any government kind of initiative is going to move. Yeah, it's it's actually the responsibility of a number of different parties. You have the site host who has that charging station and they're probably the ones who are most responsible for providing the amenities nearby for those users. So it's going to start with the private sector, like you said, they're going to have to build those types of amenities, whether it's um, you know, cafes, restaurants, um you know, grocery stores, you know, those are the types of things that consumers are looking for and so that's going to come from that private investment with the cooperation of the charge point operators. It's co locating these charging stations in areas where consumers travel so highly traveled routes, but also in areas where there are those things to do and that's gonna come from private investment really quickly here. I'm just curious is this thought that's happening in my head right now, Do you really see a scenario long term where people are gonna pull up, charge their car for a half hour an hour and sit somewhere and eat lunch. And that'd be a normal routine because I am one of those people who struggle to to go to the gas station for five minutes and fill up my gas. I wait till the very last minute and have been caught in a scenario where I I've run out of gas. So I'm curious that there's a lot of consumers who are like that, you know, with traditional combustion engines and they're pivoting to E. V. Is that going to be a behavior switch that really is going to happen? Yeah, there's definitely a needed behavioral change there. But one thing to keep in mind is most electric vehicle charging occurs at home. So right now about 85% of E. V. Charging occurs at home. But one thing that we found within our recent study was the fact that about one in four U. S. Vehicle shoppers don't have access to E. V. Charging either at home or at their workplace and they don't have the ability to install a charger. So we're looking at a potentially sizable audience who has to rely on the public charging network. So until that experience becomes much quicker than it currently is. Unfortunately, there's a sizable percentage of owners who are going to have to sit through that that longer charge process. I will say this, it is fascinating to watch the E. V. Space not only as it develops, but even watch potential consumer habits my own, maybe even in the future of shifting that direction, Brent, really appreciate your time and your insight, Brett Gruber, executive director of global automotive at J. D. Power.