Broken EV chargers? Australia urged to follow new US reliability standard

The United State has announced a new set of standards designed to solve the growing frustration over the reliability and availability for electric vehicle charging stations, in a move that Australia has been urged to follow.

In addition to huge battery manufacturing incentives and $US7,500 EV subsidies, the Biden Administration has now announced strict EV charging standards which will apply to installation, operation and maintenance of all federally funded charging stations.

In a statement, the Biden Administration makes it clear that the intention of the standards is to build an accessible, reliable, convenient and user-friendly EV charging network across the US.

High among the new standards are a requirement that EV charging stations have a minimum 97 per cent uptime, and is also seeking to reduce the number of apps that EV drivers must download to access various chargers.

The US government says that a recent survey of EV users reported frustrations with charging stations being too slow, too crowded or not working at all and that the new standards would fix this.

In its statement the Biden Administration says that the new standards will ensure that:

The US government is investing $US7.5 billion into public charging stations and aims to build a national network of 500,000 chargers on US highways and in communities.

There are currently over 130,000 public EV charging stations in the US. A 40% increase in the two years since President Biden took office.

The issue of public charging reliability has been a huge pain point for Australian EV owners too – see Why are so many EV charging stations out of order? Are they reliable? – and here at The Driven we are constantly receiving reports from our readers about public charging stations being out of order.

Read also: Broken EV fast-chargers not just a problem in Australia, study shows which highlights that private studies show that some uptime claims are not being met.

In Australia, uptime rates aren’t made public, but the anecdotal reports suggest that they are well below 97%. A lot of the focus is on the equipment provided by Brisbane-based Tritium, which claims 75 per cent of the Australian fast-charging market outside of the Tesla supercharging network.

The Driven has made multiple requests to Tritium for data on the company’s charging station uptime rates, and network owners have also been reluctant to release any information.

If network reliability is to improve, it’s vital that charging station uptime rates are transparent and public. Especially if these companies are receiving public funding.

If the Australian government is spending millions of dollars of public money on charging stations, the public deserve a reliable network and transparency of reliability data on what is critical public infrastructure.

Tesla reports a 99.95 per cent uptime for its supercharging sites, according to its 2021 Impact report and in its submission to the Australian government’s National Electric Vehicle Strategy it says minimum standards of reliability should be set for all government funded installations.

“Unfortunately, some public charging networks that have benefited from significant government funding are not able to provide satisfactory experiences to EV drivers,” it notes.

“Far too often, drivers arrive at fast-charging station to find that some or all charging ports are not operational due to hardware or even software outages. This causes significant delays and frustration.”

Tesla’s submission goes on to say that the reliability issues are eroding trust in public charging infrastructure and should urgently be considered by government.

In its submission Tesla recommends uptime requirements of more than 95% – which is the standard in NSW for government co-funding of its fast charging network.

With Australia’s EV charging network still in its infancy, its vital that the Australian government take on the valuable feedback from Australia’s electric vehicle community and include strong EV public charging standards as part of its National Electric Vehicle Strategy.

Developing strong charging standards now will mean Australia can start building a high quality, highly reliable charging network that will benefit all Australians for decades to come.

The Driven has reached out to the federal governments for comment.

Daniel Bleakley is a clean technology researcher and advocate with a background in engineering and business. He has a strong interest in electric vehicles, renewable energy, manufacturing and public policy.