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Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Trends from the Alternative Fueling Station Locator: Second Quarter 2021
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fueling Station Locator contains information on public and private nonresidential alternative fueling stations in the United States and Canada and currently tracks ethanol (E85), biodiesel, compressed natural gas, electric vehicle (EV) charging, hydrogen, liquefied natural gas, and propane stations. Of these fuels, EV charging continues to experience rapidly changing technology and growing infrastructure. This report provides a snapshot of the state of EV charging infrastructure in the United States in the second calendar quarter of 2021 (Q2). Using data from the Station Locator, this report breaks down the growth of public and private charging infrastructure by charging level, network, and location. Additionally, this report measures the current state of charging infrastructure compared with a 2030 infrastructure projection scenario from NREL’s 2017 National Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Analysis This information is intended to help transportation planners, policymakers, researchers, infrastructure developers, and others understand the rapidly changing landscape for EV charging. This is the sixth report in a series. Reports from previous quarters can be found in the Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) publication databases, as well as the AFDC Charging Infrastructure Trends page (https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_infrastructure_trends.html).
All types of electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) ports grew in Q2, except for public and private Level 1 EVSE ports, which decreased by 2.3% and 2.0%, respectively. Overall, there was a 4.3% increase in the number of EVSE ports in the Station Locator, and DC fast EVSE ports grew by the largest percentage (6.8%). The Northeast region had the largest increase in public charging infrastructure in Q2 (7.2%), though California, which has almost a third of the country’s public charging infrastructure, continues to lead the country in the number of available public EVSE ports.
NREL’s 2017 National Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Analysis estimated how much public and workplace charging infrastructure would be required in the United States to meet charging needs for a central scenario in which 15 million light-duty EVs are on the road by 2030 (601,000 Level 2 and 27,500 DC fast EVSE ports) (Wood et al. 2017). Based on this analysis, 68.3% and 15.8% of the necessary DC fast and Level 2 EVSE ports, respectively, have been installed as of Q2. It is important to note, however, that the majority (56.8%) of public DC fast EVSE ports in the Station Locator are on the Tesla network and are therefore only readily accessible to Tesla drivers. Additionally, the Joseph R. Biden administration has established a goal of building a national public charging network of 500,000 EVSE ports by 2030. To meet this goal by 2030, approximately 14,706 public EVSE port installations will be required each quarter for the next 9 years, requiring a significant increase from the 5,322 public EVSE ports that have been installed each quarter on average since the start of 2020.
Read the full report here.