In a recent discussion, I shared my experience with Electrify America, saying I haven’t had many problems with it. Some people argued that Tesla’s charging stations are the best. I don’t think other companies offering CCS charging match Tesla’s service. This got me thinking we could use PlugShare data to compare.
I collected data from PlugShare by looking at the biggest cities: NYC, LA, Chicago, and Denver. I made sure to zoom in enough on PlugShare to see all stations and filtered for those with over 70kw output. I also only considered stations rated 8/10 or higher on PlugShare, which usually means they’re reliable.
Here’s the data:
NYC:
Tesla: 83% of stations rated 8/10 or higher
All CCS: 69%
Electrify America (EA): 79%
EVgo: 74%
LA:
Tesla: 83%
All CCS: 68%
EA: 72%
EVgo: 72%
Chicago:
Tesla: 90%
All CCS: 66%
EA: 82%
EVgo: 45%
Denver:
Tesla: 91%
All CCS: 69%
EA: 85%
EVgo: 47%
A few things stood out to me:
Tesla usually has similar or more stations compared to CCS.
Electrify America performs better than EVgo and CCS overall.
EA’s stations are about 7% behind Tesla in reliability.
Tesla stations are good but still have some issues.
CCS stations, on average, are not as reliable. EA is doing better than the rest.
@Jason This blocks out most of the chargers installed by dealers that often don’t work well. Finally, I decided to consider a rating of 8 out of 10 on PlugShare as a sign that a charging site is reliable enough. From my experience, a rating of 8 out of 10 usually means the site is dependable.
This points out one of the most frustrating things about PlugShare: you can only say whether you charged or not. If I charged at an EA charger that only gave me 45 kilowatts after waiting for an hour (which has happened a lot), I technically charged, but it’s far from reliable. Since what you’re reporting doesn’t include really bad charging, it doesn’t seem very helpful.
EA isn’t as problematic as some others. I’ve consistently managed to charge “eventually” at an EA station. EVGo has been less reliable in my experience, and I’ve witnessed Chargepoint stations becoming unavailable during peak usage evenings.
One aspect that hasn’t been discussed much is the newer stations. From my experience, these are performing exceptionally well. They appear to charge faster and be more reliable overall. Over Easter weekend, I found myself near a busy EA site with six of the new stations across the street. All of them were operational throughout the entire weekend, with multiple instances of all six being used simultaneously.
(The newer stations feature a slanted top rather than the donut top. Pictures can be found on EA’s website.)