As much as we may bemoan the transition away from fossil fuels, it continues to become more urgently necessary the planet continues to suffer from the effects of climate change. On the bright side, there have been incredible strides in the number of available public charging ports in recent years to help democratize EV ownership for those who choose to go EV or even PHEV.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told CNET, that the United States opened about 900 new electric vehicle charging ports across the country each week last year, contributing to the total number of public charge ports in America reaching about 170,000 by the end of 2023. At the time of writing this, a representative from the U.S. Department of Energy said there were precisely 169,828 public charge ports available.
The Biden administration has increased the number of available EV charge ports by 70 percent since taking office. President Joe Biden initially set a goal of providing Americans with 500,000 publicly available charging ports by 2030, but Granholm said she believes we will be able to achieve 500,000 ports by 2026. By 2030, Granholm said she thinks we will have about 1.2 million publicly available EV charge ports.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuel Data Center, An Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment port, or EVSE port, provides power to charge only one vehicle at a time even though it may have multiple connectors. The unit that houses EVSE ports is sometimes called a charging station, which can have one or more EVSE ports. Charging stations are sites with one or more EVSE ports at the same address, like a parking garage or a mall parking lot. InsideEVs reports,
Of the 169,330 chargers available today, only 38,090 (23%) are DC Fast Chargers (DCFC), which are capable of replenishing battery-electric cars from zero to 80% in around half an hour. And of the 65,015 total station locations, only 8,921 (14%) have DCFCs. This works out to about one charging station location for every 350 miles in the continental U.S., each of which can charge about 4.3 cars at any the same time, assuming they are all in working order.
It’s worth noting that the real winner for DC Fast Charging is the North American Charging Standard. Or, more specifically, it’s all of the automakers who recently announced their move to Tesla’s charger inlet.
Data shows that Tesla’s NACS standard makes up 64% of all publicly available DCFCs across the nation. However, there are significantly fewer NACS-equipped charging station locations versus CCS chargers. For every NACS-equipped station, three stations equipped with CCS exist. That being said, NACS stations have, on average, 11 chargers at each location versus two plugs at each CCS-equipped station.
This is a rare example of the government putting our money where its mouth is, given that it is on track to handily exceed its initial promise of 500,000 publicly available charging ports by 2030.