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Transportation Power Stats United States

Pew Research Finds 64% of Americans Live Within Two Miles of a Public EV Charger (pewresearch.org) 196

Posted by EditorDavid from the charging-ahead dept.
"64% of Americans live within 2 miles of a public charging station," Pew Research reported this week, citing a survey paired with an analysis of U.S. Energy Department data that found over 61,000 publicly accessible charging stations.

And those who live closest to public chargers "view EVs more positively." The vast majority of EV charging occurs at home, but access to public infrastructure is tightly linked with Americans' opinions of electric vehicles themselves. Our analysis finds that Americans who live close to public chargers view EVs more positively than those who are farther away. Even when accounting for factors like partisan identification and community type, Americans who live close to EV chargers are more likely to say they:

- Already own an electric or hybrid vehicle
- Would consider buying an EV for their next vehicle
- Favor phasing out production of new gasoline cars and trucks by 2035
- Are confident that the U.S. will build the necessary infrastructure to support large numbers of EVs on the roads

The number of EV charging stations has more than doubled since 2020. In December 2020, the Department of Energy reported that there were nearly 29,000 public charging stations nationwide. By February 2024, that number had increased to more than 61,000 stations. Over 95% of the American public now lives in a county that has at least one public EV charging station.

EV charging stations are most accessible to residents of urban areas: 60% of urban residents live less than a mile from the nearest public EV charger, compared with 41% of those in the suburbs and just 17% of rural Americans.
California is home to about 25% of all of America's charging stations, according to the report. But this means EV-owning Californians "might also have a harder time than residents of many states when it comes to the actual experience of finding and using a charger." Despite having the most charging stations of any state, California's 43,780 individual public charging ports must provide service for the more than 1.2 million electric vehicles registered to its residents. That works out to one public port for every 29 EVs, a ratio that ranks California 49th across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

At the other end of the spectrum, Wyoming (one-to-six), North Dakota (one-to-six) and West Virginia (one-to-eight) have the most ports relative to the much smaller number of EVs registered in their respective states.
Another interesting finding? "Attitudes toward EVs don't differ that much based on how often people take long car trips.

"In fact, those who regularly drive more than 100 miles are slightly more likely to say they currently own an electric vehicle or hybrid — and also to say they'd consider purchasing an EV in the future — when compared with those who make these trips less often."
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Pew Research Finds 64% of Americans Live Within Two Miles of a Public EV Charger More

Pew Research Finds 64% of Americans Live Within Two Miles of a Public EV Charger

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  • Ratio of about 1 to 10 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @08:43PM (#64501431) Homepage

    There are 183,000 or so EV chargers in the US: https://electrek.co/2024/05/24... [electrek.co])
    There are as many as 1.8 million gas pumps in the US. https://www.enelxway.com/us/en... [enelxway.com].

    So the ratio of chargers to pumps is about 1:5 to 1:10.

    We're getting there, but still a ways to go.

    64% of the population comes out to 213 million or so.

    So, for those people who live within 2 miles of a charger, there are about 1 for every 1,000 people. For the other 36% of the population, well, good luck.

    • Re: Ratio of about 1 to 10 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dbialac ( 320955 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @09:21PM (#64501521)
      Giving the time it takes to charge an EV, you need a lot more plugs than pumps to account for that. So it's not 1/10, it's much lower.

      • Yeah, but by that standard, you also have a lot of plugs at people's homes. By that standard, sure, there's 61k public chargers, 1.8M gas stations. - but there's like 2.4M private charging stations.

        Since most people don't need to visit a public station for every single charge, that means that you need fewer public chargers per EV.

        • As far as I can tell, there's no stats on that at all, just what it could turn out to be aroubd 2030.

          • As far as I can tell, there's no stats on that at all, just what it could turn out to be aroubd 2030.

            There are 82M detached single-family homes in the US, nearly all of which have at least one exterior outlet somewhere. This means there are at least 82M private "charging stations". Yeah, they're L1, but cars spend a lot of time parked at home. An L1 charger provides about 5 miles per hour, so with, say, 12 hours per day of charging that's 60 miles per day, or 420 miles per week. Since the average American drives about 300 miles per week, that's actually completely adequate for normal everyday use. Fas

      • Giving the time it takes to charge an EV, you need a lot more plugs than pumps to account for that. So it's not 1/10, it's much lower.

        We have a lot more plugs than pumps. You should count the number of power outlets in American garages. The reality is, unlike a gasoline vehicle the majority of EVs will never ever use a public fast charger. And nearly all EVs will only very rarely use them.

    • You are assuming even distribution. There isn't even distribution.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by russotto ( 537200 )

      The problem is that because EV charging is so much slower than gasoline filling, in order to replace fueled vehicles entirely, you need not to have as many chargers as pumps, but to have several times as many level 3 chargers as pumps. Home charging doesn't help much if you want actual replacement utility -- it actually hurts because it makes the peak-to-modal usage ratio of superchargers higher. Like the old Bell system which was sized according to the number of people calling on Christmas (or Mother's D

  • "Within two miles"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @08:44PM (#64501433)

    Would you buy a phone if you had to travel at least two miles to somewhere where you wait a long while to charge it? Nah, of course not.

    The reality is a only very small percentage of people without the ability to charge at home will buy an EV.

    • Part of the point is not just personal charging, but also it means that if say you are going to visit a friend, you can go and charge somewhere nearby. But also note that for a gas car one already needs to go wait in line often to get the car filled up. An EV will require often a longer time, but the same basic need is identical to that of a gas car.
      • Lines aren'tvery common in most of the time these days. Regardless, even when there is a line, won't be waiting for somebody who's gone to visit their friend for the next several hours while they get their tank up to 100%.

      • I can't recall the last time I had to wait in line to put gas in my regular car. My EV I charge at home because it's more convenient and I have had to wait for a charger.

        • to be fair, that happens to me frequently. all my convenient gas station are off high traffic highways. i end up having to queue for 5 to 10 minutes about 1 out of 4 times.

          • Hm, where do you live? Here that situation would just see someone build a new gas station for the guaranteed revenue. Your area obviously needs more stations.

        • Ever go to Costco ? There is always a wait. Fortunately, I seldom need to fill up my PHEV.

          • Yes, my Costco has 8 zillion pumps. I've never waited longer than the time it took one of the people to pay, get back in their car and leave. Under 60 seconds. Obviously this is all anecdotal for everyone but I've been driving for ~40 years; waiting a long time for a pump just isn't one of my life experiences whereas trying to find the charging station my nav claims is there (and isn't) or waiting a long time for a charger etc happened often enough I bought my own at home.

            I've never once in my life thoug

            • whereas trying to find the charging station my nav claims is there (and isn't) or waiting a long time for a charger etc happened often enough I bought my own at home

              The fear that this will happen while I am on a trip is why I would never want to do a trip with an ev.

          • Ever go to Costco ? There is always a wait. Fortunately, I seldom need to fill up my PHEV.

            Yes, as a matter of fact it was yesterday morning when I drove up to the pump and fueled without waiting. Did it last week too. And the week before.
            No reason to fuel up at the same time as everyone else, arrive early or late and you'll have the place to yourself.

      • In the UK, the most I have ever waited in line for a gas pump is a few minutes (4-5?) and that is rare*. Most times I go straight up to a pump or there is just one car ahead being filled. Most people will tend to drive past if they see many cars in a filling station knowing that they will soon pass another, and I do that myself.

        * Except for about two occasions in my life during a delivery drivers strike. We have electrical power cuts much more often.

      • The difference is that gas stations are attended and usually under CCTV, at least here in the UK. Public chargers, however, are tucked away in corners of public car parks, often in dark areas with no CCTV. Those are fine during the day, but it doesn't take much to imagine that circumstances like that, you in a dark car park with a high-value car van easily turn into carjacking/kidnapping/rape scenes.

    • How many miles to a working charger? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @08:54PM (#64501451)
      As auto company executives found out in their attempts at PR cross country trips that backfired. The distance to a working charger and the distance to a charger are two very different things.

    • That math says public charger availability is mediocre. A 2 mile radius is about 1/5th of a major city like Washington DC. 80% of Americans live in cities, yet only 64% have a charger within 2 miles.

    • > Would you buy a phone if you had to travel at least two miles to somewhere where you wait a long while to charge it? Nah, of course not.

      Well for most people a gas station is a mile or two away and I don't see anyone complaining. The key difference is a gas station is a dedicated facility that you need to make a dedicated stop to, whereas EV charging locations are typically places you're already going to for other reasons and, ideally, places you'll be spending some time at anyway.

      > The reality is a

      • 2 miles from home is not a useful statistic.

        2 miles from anywhere I might be or along my route is the difference between gas and charger stations.

        For any trips longer than half my max capacity I take my ice because it sucks finding a charger and charging my EV out in the field.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by stooo ( 2202012 )

        >> "Practically 0%* of people who own a car have the ability to refuel at home"
        Nope. 3 million people recharge at home today. This number will double many times in the next decade.

        • > Nope. 3 million people recharge at home today.

          3 million people have gasoline pumps at their house? (I think you missed the context...)
          =Smidge=

      • .Well for most people a gas station is a mile or two away and I don't see anyone complaining. The key difference is a gas station is a dedicated facility that you need to make a dedicated stop to, whereas EV charging locations are typically places you're already going to for other reasons and, ideally, places you'll be spending some time at anyway.

        I don't complain about a gas station being 2 miles away because I will pass it (and many others) on a journey and stopping to fill up adds no more than 5 minutes to the journey.

        You can also stop an EV at a charging station en-route, but for a far longer delay of course, but the real relevance of the "up to 2 miles to a charger" is if you want to charge while you are at home or at a hotel etc so as to take nothing from your time, but your home/hotel has no charger. So you would need to walk up to 2 miles

    • I agree with this. But I'm also in a fairly rural and large state that you have to travel 3+ hours to get to the next decently large city. Unless they build enough infrastructure up here to accommodate more than 5 cars sitting around for 20+ minutes at a time to get a charge, there isn't going to be any adoption here. (Also, better ability to deal with range reduction in the cold.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by stooo ( 2202012 )

        >> Unless they build enough infrastructure up here to accommodate more than 5 cars sitting around for 20+
        Nope. Those chargers are absolutely not needed.
        Everyone will charge with a reinforced 240V "dryer" outlet in their garage overnight.

    • The reality is a only very small percentage of people without the ability to charge at home will buy an EV.

      If you pull your wallet out of 2019 you'll more find reality of today.

      The percentage of people without the ability to charge at home, live in an EV that now costs as much as one.

    • What if you're travelling those 2 miles anyway? I don't have the ability to charge at home. I do have a charger in my street but ... I never use it. I use a charger 43km away from home - specifically the one near work, because unlike my phone which can barely go a day without being tethered to a cable, my car only uses battery while I drive it somewhere.

      If there's a charger at a destination I don't need the charger at a source. Sure my car at home has never been above 89% charge since it chews through that

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chill ( 34294 )

      Spoken by someone who doesn't own or understand an EV and charging. You bought a car you have to take someplace special to fuel up, and here's why that's different with an EV.

      With an ICE car you go to the gas station for the purpose of putting fuel in your car -- gasoline or diesel. That's your reason for being there and everything else, snacks, restroom, food, is incidental. So you want to hurry.

      Once a week I drive to Walmart and plug my EV in the fast charger. I then go in the store to shop and my EV is d

  • Notice how it sounds similar to campaign promises?

    "phasing out production of new gasoline cars and trucks by 2035"

    This single one works for a percent of city dwellers. It fails ~90% of the USA land mass and people away from cities.

    https://css.umich.edu/publicat... [umich.edu] "Urban land area is 106,386 square miles, or 3% of total land area in the U.S."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Land mass is irrelevant. Cities are where most of the people live. In a democracy the economy is run to benefit most of the people not most of the landed gentry.

  • Fun with statistics. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @09:00PM (#64501471) Journal

    As an EV owner and advocate, whenever I hear "public EV charging location" the immediate question is what the power level is. An "EV charging location" can literally be just a standard NEMA15 outlet, but what most people imagine when they hear those words is a Tesla supercharger or similar.

    So digging into the data;

    DC Fast Charge: 42,395 chargers across 10,092 locations

    AC, Level 2: 131,755 cables across 55,366 locations

    AC, Level 1: 813 cables across 186 locations

    So the vast majority of these are Level 2 spots, which supply 208-240 volt single phase AC to the vehicle's on-board charger, with the range currently being 3KW to 19KW (though most cars top out at about 9KW). As a very rough gauge multiply that number by 3 to get miles of driving range added per hour, e.g. a L2 spot will get you 9 to 57 miles driveable range with most vehicles and installations getting you around 25-30.

    This is is not what most people think of when you mention public EV charging. DC fast chargers start at 50kw for the older units and the current CCS standard in active deployment goes up to 350KW. DC charging curves are not linear and every vehicle is different but we're usually talking on the order of +150 miles in 15 minutes.
    =Smidge=

    • This is is not what most people think of when you mention public EV charging.

      No that's not what most Americans think. In Europe "public EV charging" most definitely includes L1 and L2 chargers because of the lack of suburban houses and garages most EVs do actually charge publicly and most people are aware that not ever lamp post is spitting out 150kW dimming the neighborhood lights as it hums away on your car. A L2 charger is easily enough to fill your car overnight / during the day. As long as you share it with a few people you can easily sustain a good portion of the population wi

    • Over a decade of driving EV's in USA. I've travelled coast to coast, both in a Tesla and a CCS1 cars - it is doable and not as horrible as most media make it out to be. However, I must say that not all Level 2 chargers are even 9KW. My personal experience 3-6KW is most common, then 9.6KW (mostly Tesla destination chargers, which can be used by non-Tesla with an adapter), then very few higher than that. The most I EVER managed to charge at public AC charger was 16.6KW (80A at 208V). I regularly charge at hom

  • Without also knowing if that nearby charger is exclusively available to you for the duration required to charge your vehicle on a regular basis.

    • Without also knowing if that nearby charger is exclusively available to you for the duration required to charge your vehicle on a regular basis.

      What? You don’t choose your internet service provider based on the number of library hot spots available in your zip code? For shame. You must not want to save a planet one byte at a time. /s

  • Sure, but ... (Score:3)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @09:05PM (#64501483)

    64% of Americans Live Within Two Miles of a Public EV Charger

    The voltage drop over the extension cord to the house is unacceptable. :-)

  • Does the single level 2 charger hanging on the side of the clinic count? It is open to the public.

    Or does it have to be a fast charger to count?

  • I’ll bet 64% of Americans live within 2 miles of a bus stop too. And they give a shit just as much. Which is to say not at all.

    I’ve seen some pathetic attempts to sell consumers on just how much they should be lusting after overpriced EVs, but that bullshit takes the cake.

  • Useless Data Point: (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jarik C-Bol ( 894741 ) on Sunday May 26, 2024 @10:31PM (#64501603)
    Here’s a useless data point:
    I live in a rural area; there are two places I know of with public EV chargers, both are 70 miles away. It is about 100 miles between those two locations. One is located in the parking lot of a gas station in a fair size town (has fast food and walmart), and is a few Tesla chargers as I recall. The other is in the parking lot of a bar&grill in a town that consists of that bar, a gas station, and a post office and a few dozen homes. *that* charger is some other version, and from my one look at it; *very* slow. (We ate lunch there, and the same car was still plugged in and charging when we left an hour later and walked back past the charger.)
    Needless to say, EV adoption has been slow in these parts. I did see a tesla car and ‘cybertruck’ on a flatbed trailer at the local gas station a few months back though, which was interesting I guess.
  • more than 2/3, if not 3/4 of all residents have access to at least 1 outdoor outlet. The public chargers do NOT matter esp when they are within a radius of a home. What WOULD have been useful to know is how the chargers BETWEEN urban areas. I would specifically love to know how many urban areas that are separated by more than 100 miles have a charger along the main route(s) every 150, or even 100, miles. Chargers by residents do NOT matter since they residents can get access to these.

  • I remember back in the day, like decades ago .. I ran out of gas and had to hitchhike (back when non serial killers used to pick up hitchhikers) a number of miles to the nearest gas station. You could bring a canister back. How does it work with electric cars? You carry a bunch of lithium ion batteries back?

    • I How does it work with electric cars? You carry a bunch of lithium ion batteries back?

      Just pull out your Jackery solar panels and wait a few days. You'll be right as rain.

      We switched from a plugin back to pureplay dinosaur burner a few years back after playing yet another round of Find A Working Charger on a road trip. That one got so bad I left the wife chilling in the car while I ubered around checking stations trying to find one that 1. existed in real life 2. had power and 3. worked. I hear the charger network has gotten better, but still very very gun shy about trying again.

  • Grocery stories bringing up those numbers hard! Even in my area, which is not a good area for electric cars, all the high end stores have them because you're going to shop there at all and for a longer time if they're there.

  • Could we see what portion of Americans live inside large cities? Because, well, if 2/3 of Americans live in huge cities, being within 2 miles of a public charger isn't that impressive anymore.

  • Recharging takes too long to be doing this outside of your home. I'm not hanging out in dodgy car parks after dark like a teenager who's into dogging. We're adults and need adult solutions.

  • Even though we are in CA. But I really don't see the relevance of being within 2 miles of a public EV charger. Our PHEV/EV are within 3m of their respective EV chargers.

    The PHEV is also not within 2 miles of a gas station. Closest is about 3 miles.

  • NO EV chargers in my county, next county with a bigger city has a ratio of 1 charger to 3,400 EV's. The bigger issue is what happens all the EV's need a costly battery replacement !
  • How many of these chargers are one that can charge the car in 15 mins? How many of these chargers never have a line?

  • It's nice that the vast majority charge at home. But when do we hit the wall on that growth? Seems like that group is home owners or renters who are in homes with the capacity to house charging systems who are also interested in buying an EV. When that group is mostly saturated, that's pretty much it. You might have some apartment buildings or condos that would be willing to install charge stations, but it's not 1 per suite, and most simply won't expend the cost.

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