State: 1 in 5 charge failures a ‘substantial risk’ to Washington’s EV strategy

Washington state’s goal of shifting the transportation sector away from fossil fuels and toward electrification is at “substantial risk” due to the documented unreliability of public charging stations, according to a state electric vehicle council.

Per a state law, the sale and registration of fossil fuel vehicles made in 2030 or after will be illegal in Washington. To make the use of EVs feasible, the state will need to have fast-charging electric vehicle ports every 50 miles across the state highway state, and 3 million total in both public and private charging ports.

But, there’s a catch.

The estimate assumes every one of the public charging ports will be functional.

Meanwhile, one out of every five attempted charges at a public port fails, according to a Harvard-led study. Released in June, the study found that just 78% of attempted charges at the nation’s roughly 64,000 public port succeeds, making them less reliable than gas stations.

“Imagine if you go to a traditional gas station and two out of 10 times the pumps are out of order,” scholar Omar Asensio said in a news release.

Asensio is the climate fellow at Harvard Business School's Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society, or BiGS, and led the study.

The Harvard study also noted a lack of public charging ports in regions of Washington such as Ferry County, where the county's only existing public charging port has been removed. It's a problem the Harvard study attributes to a lack of EV car sales.

The one in five failure rate could prove to be a logistical challenge for the state EV Coordinating Council, which is tasked with creating the electrification strategy for the state’s transportation sector, with public charging ports a key aspect of that strategy.

The state Legislature has already invested $184 million for passenger EV charging to build 752 fast charging ports, while additional federal funding is expected to bring the total to 1,019 fast charging ports; the state currently has 1,283 fast charging ports in presumed operation.

The council’s Transportation Electrification Strategy estimates there will need to be 3,030 public fast charging ports for light-duty vehicles by 2025; the council estimates that there will need to be 728 private ports to meet EV charging demand.

However, in an Aug. 6 draft proposal under development by the Washington State Department of Commerce's Clean Transportation Unit, it states that the failure rate means “the state would need to overbuild total ports to reach the targets.

“Public fast charging investments and reliability need stronger improvement,” the proposal goes on to say. “For consumers without experience using an EV, it is often not clear that most charging takes place at home unless such access is not feasible or driving exceeds 150-200 miles each day. This makes public charging convenience and reliability a key component of public willingness to make the transition to electric.”

However, the draft proposal adds that “beyond ensuring there’s sufficient public charging access to support EV adoption, unreliable public charging is a substantial risk to adoption if not urgently improved. Reliability is especially key because there was no reliability factor assumed, meaning a port needed is assumed to be a port that functions.”

The current draft proposal seeks $103 million for the 2025-27 operating budget, $90 million of which would fund an ongoing EV rebate program that started earlier this month.

The Department of Commerce is currently soliciting public feedback on the draft proposal through a survey that is open through Aug. 16. The draft proposal is ultimately due to the Governor’s Office by Sept. 10.