Electric vehicle (EV) chargers are coming to the United States with haste. According to a recently published Bloomberg Green analysis based on data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Center, almost 1,100 new, public direct-current (DC) fast charging stations were installed in the back half of 2023 — a 16% increase.
As their name implies, DC fast chargers are the speediest available today because they have the highest power output, ranging from 24 to more than 350 kW. They can provide about 100 to 200 miles of range per 30 minutes of charging.
However, there are other types of stations as well. Per hour of charging, alternating current (AC) Level 2 chargers are associated with about 25 miles of range through a 240 or 208-volt plug, and AC Level 1 chargers with 5 miles of range through a 120-volt plug. Level 1, in particular, is more commonly used for home charging.
Photo Courtesy Volta Charging
The numbers reflect this difference. As of March 15, of the 62,245 publicly available charging stations in the U.S., almost 85% were Level 2 chargers, nearly 15% were DC fast chargers, and less than half a percent were Level 1 chargers. Public stations are open to all EV drivers and are located in publicly accessible spaces, such as along a highway.
When looking at the 3,835 privately available locations, almost 84% were again Level 2 chargers, but about 12% were Level 1 and about 4% were DC fast chargers.
For the sake of the rest of this analysis, though, we will only be looking at public chargers, which are poised to play a key role in spurring the adoption of EVs.
Photo Courtesy Electrify America
In the U.S., the most overall public stations — summing all the different kinds of chargers — are located in California, with more than 15,000 (for perspective, 34% of new U.S. EV sales in 2023 were in California). A second tier, with more than 3,000 stations included New York, Florida, and Texas. Massachusetts, Colorado, and Washington showed up with more than 2,000. Finally, a much larger portion of states has more than 1,000 public stations total: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois, Missouri, Oregon, and Arizona. Ultimately, 19 states have more than 1,000 public chargers.
Photo Courtesy Blink Charging
With more charging stations come more EV supply equipment (EVSE) ports, many of which can be located at each site, but only one car can charge when used. According to the latest report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the number of public EVSE ports in the country increased by 8.4% in the third quarter of 2023 compared to the previous quarter.
There were a total of 166,217 public EVSE ports in the U.S. as of March 15. Of these, almost 76% were Level 2 chargers, followed by around 24% DC fast chargers and nearly 0.5% Level 1 chargers.
Interestingly, the share of public Level 2 charging ports is lower than that of public charging stations, while the number of public DC fast charging ports is higher than that of public ones. Moreover, although DC charging ports usually grow by the highest percentage increase, Level 1 ports grew by the highest percentage in the third quarter of last year at a rate of 15.5%, which can largely be attributed to their installation at California and Washington airports.
The same states that led in the number of public charging stations naturally also have the most public ports, with California again in first place with almost 44,000. However, as more states install charging, California’s share of public ports has dropped from 32% in the first quarter of 2021 to less than 27%.
In 2023’s third quarter, the Northwest and Southwest accounted for the largest percentage growth, with the Blink, ChargePoint, and Tesla charging networks expanding in states like Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington. Plus, 31 states now have more than 1,000 charging ports, including some that did not make the list of more than 1,000 stations: Connecticut, Utah, Tennessee, Minnesota, Nevada, Indiana, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas, Maine, and the District of Columbia.
Photo Courtesy ChargePoint
Notably, all official U.S. states have at least one charging station and port, with Alaska having the lowest at 61 stations and 121 charging ports. The only American regions lacking development in this region include territories like American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, and the Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico, notably, has 16 stations and 29 ports, all Level 2.
Finally, looking at the different EV charging networks, ChargePoint is in the lead, with more than 34,000 public charging stations and over 62,000 public charging ports. The company is followed by:
- Blink with over 5,000 stations and over 17,000 ports
- Tesla Destination with over 4,000 stations and over 10,000 ports
- Tesla Supercharger with over 2,000 stations and over 24,000 ports
- EV Connect and Volta each have over 1,000 stations and over 3,000 ports
However, over the year leading up to 2023’s third quarter, Graviti Energy and ZEF Energy experienced the most growth in EVSE ports, partially due to a new process for manual data collection. With all these players hard at work adding to their networks in the U.S., the state of EV charging is in good hands.
Photo Courtesy EVgo
