A brand new examine did a deep dive into EV charger-reported uptime vs. precise uptime, how charger reliability varies, and methods to enhance it – right here’s what was discovered.
EV charger-reported uptime vs. precise uptime
Los Angeles-based EV provide gear (EVSE) O&M service supplier ChargerHelp examined what’s inflicting reliability points for EV public charging infrastructure. The findings are in a brand new report, “ChargerHelp Annual Reliability Report: The State of EV Charging and the Driver Expertise,” which was reviewed and endorsed by Professor Gil Tal, director of the Electrical Car Analysis Middle at UC Davis.
ChargerHelp collected public EV charging infrastructure knowledge from its NEVI evaluation and its direct EVSE O&M expertise; third-party knowledge from Paren; and public knowledge from the US Division of Vitality’s Different Fuels Knowledge Middle database. In complete, the report analyzed greater than 19 million particular person knowledge factors.
The report explored three interrelated classes: the discrepancy between reported uptime and true uptime; how reliability varies by EV charging infrastructure’s age, state, and community; and what drives downtime and what it takes to enhance uptime.
The examine’s 6 main findings
The examine’s evaluation revealed six main findings:
True uptime is usually decrease than reported uptime. “True uptime” is when an EV driver is making an attempt to cost their EV on a port vs. a charging station or a community’s self-reported standing by way of open cost level protocol, app, or software program API. The evaluation discovered that software program constantly overestimates station uptime, point-in-time standing, and the flexibility to efficiently cost an EV.
Software program inaccuracy compounds reliability shortcomings, decreasing driver confidence. Software program inaccuracies and charging station standing overestimations — coupled with failed fees at stations that supposedly work — negatively impacted the EV charging expertise at greater than 26% of stations analyzed.
Older EV charging stations usually tend to be down. There’s a constructive correlation between EVSE infrastructure age and charges of down stations. Plus, states with an extended historical past of EV charging infrastructure buildout had been additionally extra more likely to have greater percentages of down stations.
Charging reliability varies dramatically by community. The examine checked out 20 charging community operators. Some have a close to flawless report; others constantly expertise 10-20% of stations down at any given time limit. Solely 4 networks account for simply over 25% of ports throughout the US, but account for greater than 75% of all down ports.
Downtime and failed cost classes causes are multifaceted, however sure issues dominate. Charging stations had myriad sorts of observable indicators of station injury and issues, starting from cable and connector points to cupboard and display screen injury. Part failure or injury was the commonest inside symptom discovered, adopted by communications and/or software program failures. Collectively they account for greater than two-thirds of signs. Trying deeper at down stations solely, the fee system situation had a robust constructive correlation with working vs. down stations.
Addressing “drawback” stations can alleviate a disproportionate burden on operations and upkeep. A small variety of “drawback stations” required 4 or extra work orders to diagnose and resolve points, putting a burden on O&M assets and dragging down station and community uptime and reliability metrics. Throughout the second half of 2023, almost half of DC quick charging stations skilled no less than one vital outage, outlined as a full, steady week of downtime. Nevertheless, 2% of stations skilled 4 or extra outages — a cumulative month of downtime within the span of a six-month interval. Worse, 10% of stations skilled prolonged outage durations lasting 6-9+ weeks.
5 really useful options
The examine provides 5 suggestions to enhance EV charger infrastructure reliability, increase uptime, and enhance the charging expertise for EV drivers:
- Guarantee knowledge accessibility
- Standardize knowledge reporting protocols so uptime may be successfully measured
- Allocate O&M-specific funding to keep up and renew EV charging infrastructure
- Implement complete guarantee protection paired with standardized troubleshooting protocols
- Promote industry-wide main practices whereas increasing technician coaching and certification
Electrek’s Take
I spoke with Professor Gil Tal about ChargerHelp’s examine, and he mentioned a standout discovering was that there’s an enormous hole between what EV charging corporations report, and what EV drivers see. He identified the on-the-ground drawback of there being a big scarcity of EV technicians that always should cowl massive geographical areas, and that slows down restore time. Tal asserted, “If the [federal] NEVI Program holds [EV charging companies’] toes to the hearth, then they are going to rent [an EV O&M] contractor that lives within the space.”
Tal provided an answer for fixing the true vs. reported uptime drawback: “Set up an entire lot extra chargers.” If there are 100 chargers and 10 are down, versus 4 chargers and two are down, then the share isn’t actually relevant for EV drivers – “it’s a recreation of numbers.”
Tal and I agreed that public EV charger reliability is a problem, and in an effort to standardize the which means of “uptime,” we’d like regulation to set an industry-wide, standardized definition of uptime, and long-term enterprise fashions must replicate that.
Tell us your ideas about EV charger-reported uptime vs. precise uptime within the feedback under.
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