EV Charging Station Installations Increasing Fast In USA — 245 in 2009 to 20,000+ in 2019
Electric vehicle sales are blowing up like fireworks in Europe. Compared to that, it’s hard to look at the US market with much inspiration, but Tesla has seen strong and growing sales since the Model 3 came out, and there is hope for stronger overall growth with EVs coming to market in 2021 and beyond. I now see several Teslas every time I drive down the street, I often even see one or a few at the tennis courts we frequent, and I can count a dozen on a 15 minute drive. If I’m lucky, I spot another non-Tesla EV a few times a day, too. Naturally, all of those EVs need chargers, and even more chargers are needed to entice more people to go electric. (Almost every conversation I have with a non-EV owner centers around range and charging speed/options.) The more EV charging stations pop up where people go routinely anyway, the more they can realize the times are a changing and electric vehicles are growing in popularity.
The good news out of the US Department of Energy is that EV charging station installations have been growing strong, at least through 2019, and most definitely much higher in 2020. In 2009, 245 new EV charging stations were installed in the country. In 2019, more than 20,000 new EV charging stations were installed. (Note that these figures cover public and “private” EV charging stations — but that’s not counting the many home chargers out there. The private charging stations are stations at certain workplaces, apartment complexes, fleet chargers, etc.)
A recent snapshot from the DOE stated: “In 2009, there were 245 new electric vehicle (EV) charging outlets installed nationwide, but by 2019 that number had risen to more than 20,000 new installations. From 2017 to 2019, about 5,000 new charging outlets were installed each year. The majority of new charging outlets are Level 2, but the number of DC Fast Charging outlets has been expanding, which helps reduce refueling times. In 2019, there were 4,482 DC Fast Charging outlets installed, representing just over 20% of all new installations. Cumulatively, by 2019 there were more than 78,000 charging outlets at about 26,000 electric vehicle charging stations.”
The data above come from a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Below are several more charts and graphs from that reporting showing trends in EV charging infrastructure in the US.
This next graph shows that the total number of EVSE ports (individual ports people could use to charge simultaneously) rose to around 90,000 in the US by January of 2020:
This next chart shows EV charging station growth by region from Q4 2019 to Q1 2020.
We’ve got another chart here for EVSE growth by charging level at private multi-unit dwellings (apartment complexes/communities), showing 10% growth in L2 stations and no growth in L1 stations (as it should be):
Similarly, we have a look here at growth of DC vs. L2 vs. L1 EVSE ports at public EV charging stations:
And, to close, here’s a breakdown of public versus private charging station growth in the United States from Q4 2019 to Q1 2020:
For much more on these topics, new data, as well as expert commentary and Q&A on bringing more EV charging stations online, check out our fresh webinar, Attracting & Retaining Residents with EV Charging, here:
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