The public EV charging industry has matured greatly over the past years. During the first wave of public charging rollouts, many assumed that the best application was as a loss-leader for retail stores and other businesses, and lots of free Level 2 chargers were installed at shopping centers and such locations. Operators foresaw that they could charge customers for highway DC fast charging, but it was assumed that profit margins would be razor-thin.
Nowadays, operators are telling us that they expect DC fast charging to develop into a profitable business—however, this trend seems to coincide with a decline of interest in public Level 2 charging. In my home state of Florida, as the number of DC fast charging stations has grown, public Level 2 charging has become rarer. (Many of the chargers installed in the first wave have been ripped and not replaced.)
I recently spoke to Rustam Kocher, who worked for many years developing electric trucks, and recently retired to Europe. (Read Rustam’s comments on the current state of commercial truck charging in the latest print issue of Charged.) I told him my observation about the decline of public Level 2 charging in Florida, and asked him if he saw a similar trend in Europe (where its’ generally referred to as Type 2 charging).
“I think things are different over here,” he told me. “I’ve been in Europe for the last four years, and Type 2 charging is ubiquitous in most large business parks and shopping centers. You do have to pay for it, but it’s absolutely everywhere. It’s a bring-your-own-cable thing, and it’s fairly inexpensive most of the time because it’s low power.”
A phoneful of charging apps
One of the most common complaints about public charging in the US is the proliferation of apps. Every operator wants you to use their proprietary app, and some of these are very badly designed.
Rustam told me that the same problem is rampant in Europe. “Spain has a lot of these what I call ‘New app, who dis?’ You roll up and you have to download a new app for this particular charger in this particular city. I literally have 50 apps on my phone.”
I asked him to tell me a charging horror story.
“Once I was three layers deep in a parking garage, and there was no cell signal and no WiFi. You’re supposed to download this app that I don’t have. Great. So, I have to scan the QR code and then jog up the stairs and try and get a cell signal so I can download this app, then go back down and try and initiate the charge. But the charger times out after a certain amount of time, right? So I worked it out with my wife—I said, “I’m going to run up the stairs. In two minutes, plug the cable in, and then I’ll hit go on the app because I’ll have cell signal, and then hopefully it’ll work. That worked, but I can’t imagine somebody was trying to do that without a partner to stick the cable in. Whoever installed that one gets an F from me.”
That’s an example of why “uptime” isn’t a very good metric for assessing infrastructure functionality. The charger was technically available, but less resourceful drivers than Rustam would be unable to use it—and the site host probably ended up wondering why they were seeing no utilization.
As ChargerHelp CEO Kameale Terry told me in 2025, “Uptime tells us if a charger is available, but it doesn’t tell us if a driver can actually plug in and get a charge on the first attempt. A metric called first-time charge success rate captures the real driver experience.”
Rustam also told me about a pernicious little scam to watch out for. “People have been putting vinyl QR code stickers over the QR codes on the chargers that you use to pay, and spoofing the site. Then you’re paying to get the charge, but it’s not the charging company. It’s somebody else that’s stealing your info.”
Roaming into the future
Little by little, public charging providers are making the experience better. One promising development: roaming agreements that let drivers access multiple charging networks with a single app.
“We went up to Basque Country for the eclipse in August, and we were quite impressed with the progress that’s been made,” Rustam told me. “There are a lot more charging stations, and a lot more partnership agreements. I was able to make do with my Octopus Energy or my Chargemap cards with no trouble. If you have a card that’s got a lot of agreements, then you can pretty much swipe it on any charger nowadays.”
Octopus recently launched a similar service in the States. The new Octopus Charge program claims to provide access to many of the major US charging networks through a single app and a single account. Alas, I tried to use it, but it proved to be impossible for me to sign up, thanks to a poorly designed app.
“I’m sorry to hear that, because I’ve been quite happy with Octopus,” Rustam told me. “I’m hoping they’ll do better.”
