ChargeX is a new group that’s going to improve US public EV chargers – here’s how
Meet ChargeX, an EV industry consortium that was announced today by the US Department of Energy (DOE) – and its mission is to improve public EV charging reliability and usability by June 2025.
More specifically, ChargeX’s plan is to make sure that customers achieve first-time plug-in success every time they use public EV chargers.
The consortium is made of up nearly 30 companies and growing, including Tesla, Electrify America, ChargePoint, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Tritium. It’s led by the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
The group is going to build on the foundation for charging reliability established by the minimum standards for projects funded under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program.
Here’s the plan. ChargeX will form three working groups, and they’ve got two years to achieve success:
Define the Charging Experience: The national labs will work with ChargeX members to define and publish KPIs that measure the customer charging experience, set targets for each performance indicator, measure performance of charging networks in the US, and provide a blueprint for recognizing charging excellence.
Triage Charging Reliability and Usability: ChargeX members will work to understand the root causes of public EV charger problems, and then quickly identify solutions. This group will pay particular attention to issues related to payment, user interface, and communication between EVs, chargers, and cloud services.
Develop Solutions for Scaling Reliability: National labs, with input from ChargeX members, will design new diagnostics and testing tools to ensure successful charging and scalable interoperability testing as the number of EVs and EV chargers continue to grow.
ChargeX’s standards and reliability program manager Sarah Hipel said:
Many companies are working hard to bring sophisticated electric vehicles, chargers, and charging networks to market, but it takes strong collaboration across the industry to ensure that the national charging network is reliable and user-friendly for all.
The ChargeX Consortium, paired with other Joint Office efforts, will amplify and safeguard public and private investment to grow and improve the quality of the nation’s public charging infrastructure.
Read more: Here’s how the US can make EV road trips seamless
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China just laid out a plan to roll out over 100,000 ultra-fast EV charging stations by 2027 – and they’ll all be open to the public.
The National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) joint notice, issued on Monday, asks local authorities to put together construction plans for highway service areas and prioritize the ones that see 40% or more usage during holiday travel rushes.
The NDRC notes that China’s ultra-fast EV charging infrastructure needs upgrading as more 800V EVs hit the road. Those high-voltage platforms can handle super-fast charging in as little as 10 to 30 minutes, but only if the charging hardware is up to speed.
China had 31.4 million EVs on the road at the end of 2024 – nearly 9% of the country’s total vehicle fleet. But charging access is still catching up. As of May 2025, there were 14.4 million charging points, or roughly 1 for every 2.2 EVs.
To keep the grid running smoothly, China wants new chargers to be smart, with dynamic pricing to incentivize off-peak charging and solar and storage to power the charging stations.
To make the business side work, the government is pushing for 10-year leases for charging station operators, and it’s backing the buildout with local government bonds.
The NDRC emphasized that the DC fast chargers built will be open to the public. This is a big deal because a lot of fast chargers in China aren’t. For example, BYD’s new megawatt chargers aren’t open to third-party vehicles.
As of September 2024, China had expanded its charging infrastructure to 11.4 million EV chargers, but only 3.3 million were public.
Read more: California now has nearly 50% more EV chargers than gas nozzles
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Tesla is starting to experience some consequences for misleading Full Self Driving customers – at least that’s the finding of one arbitration ruling that has Tesla refunding one customer $10,000 plus legal fees for failing to deliver on their promises. Find out more on today’s legally challenging episode of Quick Charge!
An arbitration “court” found that Tesla misled customers with its Full Self Driving product, and has now been forced to refund at least one person’s $10,000 payment (plus legal fees) for the not-quite autonomous driving software. France, too, is piling on claims of deceptive business practices – but there’s some good news for FSD fans! If you’re still willing to pay for it, Tesla will thrown in 0% financing on a brand new Cybertruck.
Check out the relevant links, below, to learn more.
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