About EV Charging
Charging is the part of electric vehicle ownership that changes daily habits the most. Most owners do the bulk of their charging at home, overnight, which is cheap and convenient. Public charging, especially fast charging along highways, is what makes road trips possible and what reassures people without a driveway or garage. For many shoppers, the availability and reliability of public chargers is the deciding factor in whether they buy an EV at all.
The North American charging landscape changed sharply when automakers lined up to adopt Tesla's connector, now standardized as SAE J3400 and widely known as NACS, and gained access to Tesla's Supercharger network. Meanwhile, networks such as Electrify America, EVgo and ChargePoint expanded, and a joint venture of automakers launched Ionna to build new stations. Reliability has been a persistent complaint, with broken chargers and confusing payment systems frustrating drivers. Europe and China have their own standards and networks, and China leads the world in sheer charger numbers.
This page follows charging news: network expansions and new stations, connector and payment standards, government funding programs, charging speeds and new technology, reliability studies, and the business models of the companies building the infrastructure. It also covers home charging, workplace and apartment charging, and the debates about how many chargers are needed and who should pay for them. For drivers, it is a guide to how easy plugging in is becoming.