When most people talk about EV charging, they talk about uptime. It’s the industry’s go-to metric, the headline number everyone points to when proving that things are working. But there’s a catch: a charger can be “up” without actually working.
At ChargerHelp, we call this difference the gap between availability and true reliability.
Think of it like this — if you walk up to a charger that says it’s ready, plug in, and nothing happens, that charger is technically up, but it hasn’t done its job. In our latest Reliability Report, we looked deeper into this gap. What we found was eye-opening.
Measuring What Actually Matters
We began by introducing a more meaningful measure: First Charge Success Rate. It’s simple — when a driver plugs in for the first time, does the charger start delivering electrons immediately?
Across thousands of assets in our study, we found that drivers were successful about 70% of the time. The other 30% of the time, they were forced to try again, switch chargers, or walk away frustrated.
That’s not a technology gap. It’s an experience gap. And experience matters — because no one buys a car thinking they’ll have to debug it at the pump. As I often tell folks, “When I had a gas car, I didn’t have to re-plug the pump multiple times to get gas.”
What’s Behind the 30%
The culprits are rarely mysterious. Most failures trace back to software interoperability — the way different systems communicate (or fail to).
A modern charger isn’t just hardware; it’s a conversation between multiple pieces of software:
- the vehicle, with its own battery management logic
- the charging station, which interprets commands
- the charge management system, which handles authorization and data
- the payment network, which confirms the transaction.
When any of these players “speak” a slightly different language — or fail to follow the same communication protocol — the entire handshake breaks down. The charger may appear available, but no electrons flow.
Why Fixing This Matters
EV adoption isn’t just about building more chargers — it’s about building better ones. If we don’t address these experience gaps, we risk creating a nationwide network that looks impressive on paper but leaves drivers frustrated in practice.
That’s why we built ChargerHelp’s platform around data and measurement. Every service call we handle generates insight. Every fix adds a data point. Over time, that data shows patterns — patterns that help the entire industry improve. Because reliability isn’t just an operational goal; it’s a trust promise.
The Good News: It’s Fixable
The most exciting part of this work is that the problem is solvable. We already know the ingredients:
- Certified protocols that ensure everyone’s speaking the same digital language.
- Standardized firmware updates so new software doesn’t break old stations.
- Collaborative data sharing so we can detect and address issues faster.
These are not moonshot ideas — they’re practical steps. As stated by ChargerHelp CEO Kameale Terry in one interview, “This is a fixable problem, so why not fix it?”
Where We Go From Here
Uptime was the first chapter of the reliability story. True reliability—defined by whether drivers can plug in and actually charge—is next. The industry is evolving fast, and that’s a good thing. But growth without accountability is just expansion.
Let’s measure what matters. Let’s make sure “up” really means “working.”
Read the 2025 Reliability Report to see how ChargerHelp and its partners are redefining EV reliability through data, collaboration, and transparency.
