Since Tesla installed its first Superchargers in 2012 for the exclusive use of its customers, owners of other electric cars have often felt like second-class citizens. They have wandered in search of electric oases in desolate parking lots, often making desperate calls to help centers after becoming stymied by balky or broken chargers.
It’s no surprise, then, that consumers rank problems with public electric vehicle charging and the time it takes to fuel up as their top two reasons for rejecting electric vehicles, according to J.D. Power.
But help may finally be at hand.
Automakers and charging companies are building new stations and updating their cars to allow drivers to more easily and quickly recharge their vehicles. They are also outfitting charging stations with more amenities like food and bathrooms while making the devices more reliable. And because chargers are only as fast as the cars they connect with, automakers are designing new cars to absorb electricity at Usain Bolt-level speeds. In addition, many automakers have cut deals with Tesla allowing owners of other cars access to the company’s fast-charging network, the largest in the country and widely considered the most reliable.
There is early evidence that efforts to improve electric vehicle charging are paying off.
In recent years, J.D. Power surveys showed that about 20 percent of attempts to charge electric vehicles at all public stations ended in failure because of faulty chargers, long lines or payment glitches. But in the first three months of 2025, overall failure rates fell to 16 percent, the biggest improvement since the surveys began in 2021.
“The industry is finally elevating as a whole,” said Brent Gruber, an executive director at J.D. Power.
The number of chargers has also increased. There were about 55,200 fast chargers in the United States in May, up from 42,200 a year earlier, according to federal data.
In February, a former Phillips 66 gas station in Apex, N.C., near Raleigh, became the first “Rechargery” from Ionna, a company created by eight automakers, including General Motors, Hyundai Motors, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Their chargers can deliver up to 400 kilowatts of juice, far more than Tesla’s 250-kilowatt Superchargers. Some cars can replenish a battery in 30 minutes or less at the higher charging speeds.
When connected to chargers of 350 kilowatts or more, including those at Ionna and Electrify America, another fast-charging network, a Hyundai Ioniq 5, for example, can fill its electric “tank” from 10 to 80 percent in 18 minutes. That adds up to 220 miles of driving range, enough for more than three hours of highway cruising. That’s quick enough to keep a road trip on schedule, and the family refreshed.
Ionna stations offer 24-hour service. The network has installed lighted canopies over chargers, and drivers can wait in lounges equipped with WiFi, coffee bars and bathrooms while their vehicles are plugged in.
Seth Cutler, Ionna’s chief executive, said the stations seek to transform an experience that many electric drivers dread. Public chargers are sometimes installed in sketchy places, including besides dumpsters in shopping malls and in dingy parking lots with no bathrooms or refreshments nearby.
“Charging an E.V. takes a little time, so this is a place somebody might actually want to be in the middle of the night, and there’s something to do while they’re there,” Mr. Cutler said. “People definitely don’t want to be somewhere that feels unclean or unsafe.”
Ionna aims to install 10 to 12 fast-charging stalls per station. Chargers can connect directly to Teslas and vehicles that use the Combined Charging System plug, which is used by most other automakers. Since February, Ionna has opened 14 stations in several states, and has acquired 200 sites around the country. Its target is to build a total of 30,000 charging bays by 2030.
Some models from BMW, Hyundai and Kia have also enabled a national “Plug and Charge” standard that lets car owners begin charging their vehicles at Ionna stalls without first having to use a smartphone app or swipe a credit card, eliminating a cumbersome step that sometimes results in errors. Tesla’s chargers have long worked this way for Tesla cars and now work with some other vehicles, like Rivian’s S.U.V.s and pickups.
More cars and charging stations are expected to have plug-and-charge capability in the coming months.
Gas stations and restaurants have also improved their charging game. Buc-ee’s, the Texas-based gas chain that is famous for its sprawling stores and myriad food options, is working with Mercedes to offer “premium” charging that is powered by renewable energy. Waffle House plans to begin installing BP Pulse fast chargers next year. And G.M. and EVgo, a charging company, are building 500 stations with 2,000 stalls at Pilot and Flying J travel centers.
Olabisi Boyle, an Ionna board member and Hyundai’s senior vice president of product and mobility, said her company and other automakers were committed to improving access to charging. Automakers have realized that “E.V. charging wasn’t just a thing you did on the side,” Ms. Boyle said. “It’s the future of the customer experience.”
But that doesn’t mean the complications and problems will easily be dispensed with, especially when it comes to making cars and chargers play nicely with each other.
Nearly every major automaker is redesigning their cars with plug outlets and software that are compatible with Tesla chargers. The North American Charging Standard, developed by Tesla, offers a further advantage of slimmer, lighter handles that are easier to plug into cars, including for seniors or people with disabilities. Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 9 S.U.V.s are now shipping with those ports from a new factory in Georgia. But older Hyundais and most other electric cars still use the Combined Charging System plug and need adapters to connect to Tesla chargers.
Compatibility issues between cars and chargers that use different charging standards have begun to show up in surveys about how many charging sessions end badly. In recent years, failure rates at Tesla stations hovered around 2 or 3 percent when only Tesla cars charged there.
But since the automaker opened its chargers to cars from other brands, that rate has risen to 7 percent, according to J.D. Power. Mr. Gruber noted that those failure rates included drivers who gave up after encountering lines at chargers. Some Tesla drivers have expressed unhappiness at having to share chargers with other car brands.
Rajiv Diwan, who helped spearhead a charger rollout for the New York Power Authority, called the industry’s coalescing around Tesla’s plug standard “a great move for the American market.” But Mr. Diwan said other charging competitors did not appear to be moving fast enough to build stations to meet rising demand. He said the companies were often hamstrung by onerous construction and electricity costs and bureaucratic delays.
“The industry always sugarcoats things, but charging is still hard for the average person to understand and deal with,” he said. “People just want to get from Point A to Point B with as little fuss as possible, and that’s not happening yet.”
Momentum may also be short-circuited by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, who have proposed repealing many federal incentives for electric cars and trucks. The administration has also stopped issuing grants to states to help build chargers under the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program created during the Biden administration.
“When we needed the whole ecosystem to come together and organize around NEVI, it’s all been blown to bits,” said Chris Nelder, an infrastructure expert and host of “The Energy Transition Show,” a podcast.
Mr. Gruber of J.D. Power said the federal charger grant program helped construct only a tiny fraction of new chargers. But the program was helpful in other ways. It published guidelines that helped automakers and charging companies work together and address technical problems.
For the foreseeable future, Mr. Gruber said, the auto industry and state governments that care about addressing climate change will have to take the lead on getting more chargers built and improving their performance.
“There’s no doubt E.V.s are still the vehicle of the future,” he said, “and I think the private sector will carry that torch forward.”
The post Charging Electric Cars, a Bane of Their Owners, May Be Improving appeared first on New York Times.
