A new study that looked at various public electric vehicle (EV) charging networks in the US ended up with some surprising results if you are a Tesla owner.
umlaut, the company which conducted the analysis, found Electrify America provides the best overall charging solution among a group of seven charge point operators (CPOs).
Among the seven was the Tesla Supercharger network, widely regarded as the most extensive and easy to use charging network.
The company travelled over 2,100 miles visited charging stations in seven states (Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania) in a Tesla Model 3 and Ford Mustang Mach-E.
Each charging network was rated in two categories.
The first was Digital Platform, which measured the digital experience on a charging provider’s website and smartphone app. Electrify America took this title.
The second was Charging Location, which looked at the physical interaction at the charging station location. The Supercharger network won this title, dominating the category.
After it was all said and done, Electrify America came out on top with 702 points (out of 1,000) overall. In second was the Supercharger network with 649 points.
ChargePoint (611), EVgo (578), Greenlots (548), Blink (505), and EV Connect (472 points) were the other networks studied.
“Congratulations to Electrify America for winning the ‘Best-in-Test’ award for the second consecutive year. Even though we tested in different states this year, the overall results indicate that the EV charging infrastructure in the US is improving in terms of accessibility, ease-of-use and fewer charging errors,” said Hakan Ekmen, CEO telecommunications and managing director at umlaut US.
The company found several areas where CPOs could improve the user experience:
- Starting and ending times: With 8.59 seconds, Tesla Supercharger had by far the fastest starting time while the combined charging systems of all other CPOs were significantly slower.
- Convenience: Charging stations lag behind gas stations in terms of service offerings such as food, restrooms and weather protection.
- Transparency: Some CPOs fail to inform customers about how long the charging process will take and how much it will cost.
- Roaming and interoperability: Currently, each CPO’s app shows only its own available charging stations and allows payment only within this CPO’s charging networks. While third-party apps for navigating all charging stations in the country are available, none offer payment across all networks.
This is the second year in a row umlaut has published their analysis, but the first time the Supercharger network was included.
Here are the full results.
Source: umlaut
