This year, Blink and Tesla Superchargers were added to the list of charging networks tested in 2020: Electrify America, EVgo, ChargePoint, EV Connect and Greenlots.
Electrify America earned the top score in the Digital Platform category, as well as the top combined score for both categories.
Tesla Superchargers received the top score in the Charging Location Experience category—earning the most points in four of the five scoring subcategories.
The testing team set out in 2021 to test and compare the user experience at some of the best DC fast charging sites on each of the tested charging networks. Only top-rated sites were chosen, based on data from PlugShare—a free app that allows users to find and review over 140,000 charging stations in North America. The test methodology is focused on the experience at the charging site and while using the apps and websites.
The testing team covered 2,100 miles to find and test top sites from sev ennetworks—through seven states over six days during September 2021. The testers conducted nearly 150 tests at 28 stations (fouf each from seven different networks) in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
In order to rank the different networks, the analysis was split into two areas:the charging network’s Digital Platform (website and app); and the Charging Location Experience. A comprehensive set of key performance indicators (KPIs) was developed in order to compare the most important aspects of charging among the different networks.
2021 Benchmark Results:
Last year, Electrify America was the clear winner of umlaut’s Best-in-Test award for the USA Charging Infrastructure Benchmark. This year, it was a closer race. EA once again won in the Digital Platform category with a score of 275, but ChargePoint ran a close second with 270.
Tesla Superchargers, which were not included in last year’s rankings, handily won the Charging Location Experience category with a score of 484. However, as Tesla’s app and website lack a lot of useful info, Superchargers earned a dismal score of 165 in the Digital Platform category, and Electrify America once again took the overall prize with 702 points.
Tesla Superchargers came in second overall with 649, followed by ChargePoint (611), EVgo (578), Greenlots (548), Blink (505) and EV Connect (472).
“We had a lot of internal discussions about including Tesla Superchargers in this year’s Benchmark,” said umlaut’s Christian Sussbauer, “because we really want to create a testing system that will capture the right metrics and provide the most useful information to the EV industry. To be honest, if you asked me before we conducted the tests, I think I would have predicted that Tesla Superchargers would end up leading in total points because it’s well known that they do a great job in many aspects of fast charging. And actually, our test
results show this clearly—Superchargers excel in many important areas. It’s actually a little boring to test Supercharger stations because you just plug them in and they reliably work.”
“We were happy to find a very high level of simplicity and reliability with Electrify America this year as well,” Sussbauer continued. “Using an EV with Plug & Charge enabled on Electrify America’s network was a very good user experience. All of the EV industry should strive to replicate that aspect of Superchargers and Electrify America/Plug & Charge. And in the end, Electrify America also has a very useful smartphone app and website that combined to put
them over the top in terms of total points scored for the metrics we were measuring in 2021.”
Conclusion and outlook: 2021 key findings
The overall US charging network is growing quickly, and the customer experience is improving. Newer public charging stations are delivering a better charging experience. umlaut found clear
improvements in reliability and interoperability (roaming) among networks compared to last year’s tests.
Capacity seems to be sufficient for today’s volume of EVs, at least in the regions where umlaut conducted this year’s tests. Popular charging sites in some of the country’s EV hotspots may be crowded, but umlaut’s testers experienced no wait times during their 6-day testing process.
Plug & Charge, a new system (part of the ISO 15118 standard) that makes the charging process much more seamless and convenient, is the talk of the charging world these days. Unfortunately, it may be a while before it’s implemented on a widespread basis—umlaut’s testers were able to use Plug & Charge only at Electrify America stations. (Tesla’s Superchargers have always used a proprietary system that offers the same features.)
While the EV charging experience is steadily getting better, there is still considerable room for improvement, especially when it comes to networks’ digital platforms (websites and apps)—this category had the largest disparity among different networks.
Interoperability, or roaming—the ability to access different networks with a single membership, as one does with cell phones—is still limited. Electrify America, Blink and Tesla offer no roaming capability. Most networks don’t even show the locations of other networks’ stations in their apps. Drivers still need a third-party app (such as PlugShare) to locate all available charging stations, and the integration of charging into popular navigation apps such as Google Maps is poor.
At charging sites, drivers will often miss the convenience they were used to in the old gas station days (though not the smell). It’s sometimes unclear what the charging price is, or what charging power level is on offer. Waiting times to start and end charging with CCS are too long compared with Tesla. And many charging locations lack amenities such as food, restrooms and weather protection. When things go wrong, calling a service hotline can be a frustrating
experience—wait times often exceed 10 minutes.
