The provision of electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) worldwide is a booming market, with the 2027 global charging station revenue forecasted to grow to 8.03 billion U.S. dollars as of May 2023. However, while the U.S. boasted the third-largest network of public chargers in 2022, it lagged behind the Chinese charging infrastructure. Despite its wide infrastructure availability, populous U.S. cities still struggled to meet EV charging demands in 2020: In San Francisco, there was around one charger per 39 EVs, while New York recorded a 1:32 ratio.
An unequal market not matching consumer demand
With around 21.3 public EVSE ports per 100 electric vehicles as of the third quarter of 2022, North Dakota recorded the largest EVSE per electric vehicle share, followed by Wyoming and West Virginia. California ranked 48th at 4.4 chargers per 100 EVs. The Golden State was the largest private and public infrastructure market, with a network of over 15,100 charging stations as of May 2023—over four times more than the volume of charging stations available in New York, which came second in the ranking. Half of the leading 10 U.S. cities with the most electric charging stations as of June 2023 were in California, with Los Angeles recording over 1,600 stations.By May 2023, the U.S. EVSE network comprised just under 53,400 charging stations and approximately 138,100 charging outlets. The volume of publicly available fast chargers in the country has been steadily increasing since 2019, reaching around 28,000 in 2022, and fast-charging demand is expected to take off by 2030. However, despite this increase in public charging stations, the prevalence of public infrastructure does not match EV owners’ charging demands: As of an October 2022 survey, EV owners expect to charge their vehicles most often at home, denoting a greater need for private charging ports rather than for public stations. Despite this, private charging recorded slower growth in the country, with under 20,000 private chargers recorded in 2022.
U.S. companies fuel the charging infrastructure
The U.S. will need to take several steps to match the increasing consumer demand for electric vehicle charging. An April 2022 forecast expected capital expenditure to reach some 97 billion U.S. dollars through 2030 to match this demand, with the largest share going towards residential charging—the segment with the highest energy demand in 2021, at around 10.8 terawatt-hours. Most of the U.S. charging infrastructure further heavily relies on slower charging options. The J1772 was the most common connector type across public and private infrastructure, while most fast-charging stations used CCS and CHAdeMO ports. Tesla—the battery-electric vehicle market leader in the U.S. in 2022—also provided a wide range of Superchargers and Destination chargers in the country. As of June 2023, Tesla Destination was third among the leading public charging networks, behind non-networked stations and ChargePoint. To remain competitive in the sector, Tesla opened its Supercharger network to other automakers in 2023, and it is expected that Ford, Rivian, and General Motors electric vehicles should have access to these Superchargers soon.However, while Tesla secured its place among the country’s fast charging network, there were over seven times more ChargePoint public chargers as of June 2022. Most of ChargePoint’s 2022/2023 revenue came from its network charging systems. However, ChargePoint was yet to make a profit, with a net loss of around 345.1 million U.S. dollars for the 2022/2023 financial year. This was a hurdle other charging networks also faced: Blink Charging, the fourth public charging network, recorded a net loss of around 91.56 million U.S. dollars in the 2022 fiscal year. While boosted by American companies, the U.S. charging infrastructure still has a long road ahead for profitability.
