Copyright jalopnik
Before we dive into the details here, let's first acknowledge that nearly 80% of all charging events in the CR study had no problems reported at all. When drivers did experience problems, 15% involved issues with charging speed, and 23% were related to payment. Drilling down deeper, 25% of respondents with payment problems couldn't initiate charging and had to go elsewhere, while 19% indicated their payments were accepted but the charger still didn't work. Consumer Reports also categorized another large chunk of problems (36%) as hardware issues. These include complaints that the charging cords were too short (5%) or that other physical problems — such as a damaged plug or cable (19%) — prevented connecting. The biggest complaint, however, was reserved for the chargers' touchscreens: 76% of drivers complained about issues ranging from broken screens to unfixable error messages. Beyond those concerns, Consumer Reports grouped together miscellaneous reports into one category for "less frequent problems that prevented the driver from charging the car." Another 25% of reported issues were accounted for by this group. That could include cases where the charging cable was missing entirely, such as during a 2024 run of charger vandalism in Canada. But don't worry: EV charging cables really aren't worth stealing, so that shouldn't be a long-term concern.
