DC Fast Charger Provider Rankings

[COdogman]

Flo shows Chargepoint chargers in my area, and they are slower, less reliable and less prevalent than EA. Usually just 1-2 chargers at a station vs 6 per EA station. I didn’t know they were the same company…

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[azbill]

IMO for this reason it's flawed to even consider the Plugshare rating as a valid data source. There was an EA station between Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC which was derated to 50kWh for a year which still had a 9+ rating, even though people were topping out at ~20kWh. IMO if you're not getting within +/- 20% of the rated speed (assuming you're fast charging at reasonable battery levels) then it should ding the location.

I agree with this. I have decided that from now on if I get a derated session, I will input it in Plugshare as failed, instead of successfully charged. And if I have to move to a different charger I will check in twice, once as failed and once successful, that drops the rating as well.

 

[Budman]

What happens when you filter out all chargers rated below 150kw?

Remember, the old low power units did not need cable cooling, which definitely adds a failure point. I have never seen a ChargePoint charger with greater than 62kw and I actually have seen many of those broken or reported as down on Plugshare.

Also, many of the EVGO 50kw stations are really old, those were the very first CCS chargers ever installed. The newer EVGO sites seem much more reliable to me. EVGO is decommissioning many of the older ones.

Fair points. My post was just intended to give an approximate snapshot of the current user reported experiences across the US and Canada. Nothing more.

Many avenues exist for even deeper dives into the data.

 

[Budman]

I agree with this. I have decided that from now on if I get a derated session, I will input it in Plugshare as failed, instead of successfully charged. And if I have to move to a different charger I will check in twice, once as failed and once successful, that drops the rating as well.

I agree the PlugShare reporting and scoring system could be better. It is still very useful as is, best tool we have.

 

[Yossarian]

. . .

A recent example,

EVgo Charged 25%, went from 67% to 92%, took 36 minutes and cost $27.20
EA. Charged 51%, went from 29% to 80%, took 35 minutes, cost $27.00
. . .

A bit off topic, but it looks like the rate per kWh varies quite a bit between chargers. If my math is correct and assuming your Rivian is a LR (~129 kWh battery pack), getting 32.25 kWh of charge cost the same as 65.8. kWh. Put another way, you paid $0.72 vs $0.41 per kWh.

When my Rivian is delivered, it will be my first EV, so charging costs are new to me. Still, 41 cents per kWh seems reasonable, but 72 cents seems excessive. Is the latter more common than the former?

 

[jplblue]

A bit off topic, but it looks like the rate per kWh varies quite a bit between chargers. If my math is correct and assuming your Rivian is a LR (~129 kWh battery pack), getting 32.25 kWh of charge cost the same as 65.8. kWh. Put another way, you paid $0.72 vs $0.41 per kWh.

When my Rivian is delivered, it will be my first EV, so charging costs are new to me. Still, 41 cents per kWh seems reasonable, but 72 cents seems excessive. Is the latter more common than the former?

EVgo recently started charging $0.69/kWh during peak hours in many states. That price is a lot more than what EA/Telsa/etc. currently charges.

 

[ads75]

IMO for this reason it's flawed to even consider the Plugshare rating as a valid data source. There was an EA station between Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC which was derated to 50kWh for a year which still had a 9+ rating, even though people were topping out at ~20kWh. IMO if you're not getting within +/- 20% of the rated speed (assuming you're fast charging at reasonable battery levels) then it should ding the location.

I definitely agree that Plugshares data is flawed, but what other data source would you recommend?

I do feel people should read the most recent check-in comments about stations they plan on using to get a more accurate version of the score.

 

[gvtucker]

A bit off topic, but it looks like the rate per kWh varies quite a bit between chargers. If my math is correct and assuming your Rivian is a LR (~129 kWh battery pack), getting 32.25 kWh of charge cost the same as 65.8. kWh. Put another way, you paid $0.72 vs $0.41 per kWh.

When my Rivian is delivered, it will be my first EV, so charging costs are new to me. Still, 41 cents per kWh seems reasonable, but 72 cents seems excessive. Is the latter more common than the former?

I have never paid anything close to 72¢/kWh, and 41¢ is actually on the high side of what I have paid for a fast charger. The maximum I have paid is probably in the mid 40s. I've used fast chargers up and down the east coast, and maybe a high cost state like CA might be what is driving those higher numbers.

 

[SANZC02]

A bit off topic, but it looks like the rate per kWh varies quite a bit between chargers. If my math is correct and assuming your Rivian is a LR (~129 kWh battery pack), getting 32.25 kWh of charge cost the same as 65.8. kWh. Put another way, you paid $0.72 vs $0.41 per kWh.

When my Rivian is delivered, it will be my first EV, so charging costs are new to me. Still, 41 cents per kWh seems reasonable, but 72 cents seems excessive. Is the latter more common than the former?

SoCal is expensive, I have solar and charge mostly at home. EA with membership is around 36 cents. EVgo is more and has a session fee as well. I really only used EVgo to see if plug and charge was still working. I also use DCFC once a month or so just to verify it works after an OTA.

EVgo qas 38.55 kW.

EA was 75 kW

 

[NY_Rob]

Those Chevy Bolts should be banned from using DCFC altogether, I see them hogging 350kw chargers all the time

The Bolt charges at 55kW, and the BMW i3 charges at 50kW.. so I guess all the BMW i3's "should be banned from using DCFC altogether" too?

Who else should we ban from DC fast charging so you can move to the front of the line?

 

[Marchin_MTB]

The Bolt charges at 55kW, and the BMW i3 charges at 50kW.. so I guess all the BMW i3's "should be banned from using DCFC altogether" too?

Who else should we ban from DC fast charging so you can move to the front of the line?

In an ideal world all stations would be rated to the same output and would distribute power tor the pedestals according to what the cars request and what’s available. Some providers already do this I think?

Also, a lot of these cars have relatively small batteries that will ”fill” pretty fast even at 50kW.

The real issue may be more with enforcing idle charges and replacing X-years of free charging programs with X-kWh of free charging.

 

[Marchin_MTB]

I'm a recently retired engineer who had a data analysis itch to scratch. Bad weather today in Minnesota with an early season snowfall and cold windy conditions so took some time to dig into the data on plugshare.com. I took a sampling of up to 50 charging locations across the country for a few providers to get a statistical sample of the user reports. The data is shown in a few charts below.

A few notes:
I did not include Rivian because a fair number of people gave a bad report because they tried to use non-Rivian at that location.
If a location got bad scores because of ICE'ing or lack of access due to construction I did not use that location.
For Tesla, I used only the locations that currently have the MagicDock for CCS use
If a location got a lot of bad scores because of CHAdeMO problems I did not use that location.
If a location is very new and not officially open I did not use it.
The "Zef" network is a small one based in MN and surrounding states. I selfishly included that network because, well, I live in MN...
Not all networks were looked at. My itch wasn't that big



Chart 1). Simple average of the current plugshare scores ranked from best provider to worst.

Chart 2). A distribution plot showing each individual location's score.

About Charts 1 and 2.
The Flo network was the best but those chargers were mostly 50 kW. ChargePoint did very well but most of those were 62.5 kW. The Tesla average was dragged down mostly by Chevy Bolt owners, the Bolt's seem to be having issues using the MagicDock. A few other brands reported MagicDock issues too, including Rivian, but for the most parts the MagicDocks seem to be working OK. EA (Electrify America) got a high average score because they generally have many stations at a location and even if some stations are offline people could still charge successfully.

At the other end of the spectrum Petro Canada and EVgo did really, really poorly. Even EVgo's 50kW chargers did poorly.

Rivian would have scored very highly, probably the highest, but the non-Rivian charging attempts artificially gave those locations a lower ranking.



Chart 3 shows the advertised max power of each location.

Notes about Chart 3.
Flo and Chargepoint have slow chargers but they just work. EA has fast chargers that very often are derated making them more or less the same speed as ChargePoint. Zef has slow chargers that all too often don't work, which sucks for me....


Chart 4: Based on user reports of derating I calculated the % of locations that had at least one derated charger.

Notes on Chart 4: Tesla and Rivian were very often at full power. Flo and ChargPoint just work, they are not powerful but they are reliable and predicable. EA very very often had at least one station derated but they still worked. Petro-Canada? Wow, ugh.......


In conclusion; Rivian RAN network is rocking it right now. Tesla MagicDock is off to a good start but do a practice run before a roadtrip where you need to rely on it. Electrify America is still probably the next go-to network as you will likely find functional, all be it, derated chargers. ChargePoint and Flo are solid providers. I didn't mention much about Shell, they are OK-ish but do your plugshare homework before you hit them. Petro-Canda and EVgo are providers of last resort.

Hope some people find this useful. Confirms the conventional wisdom but nice to have numbers to back it up. Maybe a better way to shame the providers into doing a better job.

Thanks! Second chart is interesting. Could you remove the highest and lowest values from each set and compute the trimmed statistics (mean, median, standard dev)? All those “perfect tens” might not be so meaningful anyway. The result would probably be more reflective of “when things go wrong, how bad is it” for each provider.

 

[nellbarr]

I'm a recently retired engineer who had a data analysis itch to scratch. Bad weather today in Minnesota with an early season snowfall and cold windy conditions so took some time to dig into the data on plugshare.com. I took a sampling of up to 50 charging locations across the country for a few providers to get a statistical sample of the user reports. The data is shown in a few charts below.

A few notes:
I did not include Rivian because a fair number of people gave a bad report because they tried to use non-Rivian at that location.
If a location got bad scores because of ICE'ing or lack of access due to construction I did not use that location.
For Tesla, I used only the locations that currently have the MagicDock for CCS use
If a location got a lot of bad scores because of CHAdeMO problems I did not use that location.
If a location is very new and not officially open I did not use it.
The "Zef" network is a small one based in MN and surrounding states. I selfishly included that network because, well, I live in MN...
Not all networks were looked at. My itch wasn't that big



Chart 1). Simple average of the current plugshare scores ranked from best provider to worst.

Chart 2). A distribution plot showing each individual location's score.

About Charts 1 and 2.
The Flo network was the best but those chargers were mostly 50 kW. ChargePoint did very well but most of those were 62.5 kW. The Tesla average was dragged down mostly by Chevy Bolt owners, the Bolt's seem to be having issues using the MagicDock. A few other brands reported MagicDock issues too, including Rivian, but for the most parts the MagicDocks seem to be working OK. EA (Electrify America) got a high average score because they generally have many stations at a location and even if some stations are offline people could still charge successfully.

At the other end of the spectrum Petro Canada and EVgo did really, really poorly. Even EVgo's 50kW chargers did poorly.

Rivian would have scored very highly, probably the highest, but the non-Rivian charging attempts artificially gave those locations a lower ranking.



Chart 3 shows the advertised max power of each location.

Notes about Chart 3.
Flo and Chargepoint have slow chargers but they just work. EA has fast chargers that very often are derated making them more or less the same speed as ChargePoint. Zef has slow chargers that all too often don't work, which sucks for me....


Chart 4: Based on user reports of derating I calculated the % of locations that had at least one derated charger.

Notes on Chart 4: Tesla and Rivian were very often at full power. Flo and ChargPoint just work, they are not powerful but they are reliable and predicable. EA very very often had at least one station derated but they still worked. Petro-Canada? Wow, ugh.......


In conclusion; Rivian RAN network is rocking it right now. Tesla MagicDock is off to a good start but do a practice run before a roadtrip where you need to rely on it. Electrify America is still probably the next go-to network as you will likely find functional, all be it, derated chargers. ChargePoint and Flo are solid providers. I didn't mention much about Shell, they are OK-ish but do your plugshare homework before you hit them. Petro-Canda and EVgo are providers of last resort.

Hope some people find this useful. Confirms the conventional wisdom but nice to have numbers to back it up. Maybe a better way to shame the providers into doing a better job.

A
IN south Florida, with my limited experience-Charge point only has the slowest charger, EVGO does not have enough to go out of my way, Electrify America and FPL (turnpike) have been the best in terms of accessibility and location.

 

[zefram47]

Sidenote, but the scores in PlugShare are kind of ephemeral. As people have good sessions, I've found the bad reports get knocked out of the site's score pretty quickly.

 

[VSG]

Sidenote, but the scores in PlugShare are kind of ephemeral. As people have good sessions, I've found the bad reports get knocked out of the site's score pretty quickly.

There are a lot of things wrong with the PlugShare scores, but surely it's a good thing that the scores are heavily weighted towards recent sessions - it does me no good to hear about how a particular station was broken last year, all I want to know is whether it's going to work when I get there.

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