US: DC Chargers Represent 21.5% Of All Public Stalls

There were more than 140,000 public charging points available as of Q1 2023.

By: Mark Kane

Aug 7, 2023 at 8:01am ET

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The public charging infrastructure in the United States gradually expands and in the first quarter of 2023, surpassed 140,000 individual ports (or stalls) - AC or DC. That's almost two times more than in Q4 2019 when there were more than 70,000 charging ports available.

The Department of Energy (DOE)’s Vehicle Technologies Office reports that more than a fifth of all publicly available charging points happens to be DC fast chargers. In Q1, the share of DC ports amounted to 21.5 percent.

The majority of public charging points are of course the AC Level 2 units (240 volts), while the AC Level 1 units (120 volts) represent a marginal portion of the market.

It's worth noting that the expansion of DC fast charging infrastructure is noticeably faster than AC charging infrastructure in almost all quarters, over the past 3+ years. We assume that the DC charging points are simply more needed to boost car electrification at the current stage.

The DC chargers usually offer power output between 50 to 350 kilowatts (kW), although the majority of new chargers are probably in the 250-350-kW range.

In the case of the AC charging points, they are often 7-12 kilowatts (up to 19.2 kW in some cases).

Number Of Public EV Charging Ports By Level

Meanwhile, when including private charging points (installed at workplaces or for commercial/fleet use), the total number is currently above 160,000 (161,562 as of Q1 2023).

On top of that, comes millions of home charging points, which are the main charging solution for electric vehicle owners. They are usually used for overnight charging.

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Notes:

Percentages in figure represent the percent growth between each quarter.

Includes public charging ports that could be identified by level. Charging ports are the number of outlets available to charge a vehicle (i.e., the number of vehicles that can simultaneously charge at a charging station).

Source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Trends from the Alternative Fueling Station Locator: Fourth Quarter 2022, NREL/TP-5400-85801, May 2023 and preliminary quarter 1 data from NREL, 2023.