Study shows high EV charger satisfaction and investment growth, but performance gaps demand engineering solutions
EV charging demand continues to rise, with 92% of organizations expecting growth and 41% anticipating significant expansion. Nearly all plan to increase investment to support it.
EV charger manufacturer BTC POWER recently commissioned a survey of more than 200 decision-makers actively deploying EV charging infrastructure across retail, fleet, hospitality, corporate, and population-dense residential developments.
Encouraging findings reveal a market experiencing robust growth and expressing high satisfaction, while at the same time the study pointed to emerging technical challenges that will define the industry’s next phase.
The survey, conducted in October of 2025, captures perspectives across the full deployment spectrum. Nearly half (46%) of respondents already have operational chargers, 27% are mid-installation, and 27% are in the consideration phase. Installation footprints typically cluster between 6-25 chargers.
High confidence in EV charging despite policy uncertainty
One surprising finding is that survey respondents have high confidence in continued policy support, with 90% of respondents confident that government and industry policies will sustain EV charging growth (51% extremely confident, 39% somewhat confident). Federal tax credits and NEVI funding influence 61% of deployment plans, while state incentives affect 58%.
According to Caitie Romano, Marketing & Communications Manager at BTC POWER, “While the general public may think that incentives have dried up, respondents know that federal NEVI funding was restored, and state and utility incentives are widely available.”
This confidence intensifies with deployment maturity: 67% of organizations with installed chargers express extreme confidence in the policy environment, compared to 46% in mid-deployment and just 29% still considering installation. This pattern suggests that hands-on experience with funding mechanisms—despite their complexity — validates their accessibility and value.
The data imply that existing grant and incentive structures, while bureaucratically demanding, are sufficiently robust, and experienced operators have developed effective approaches to accessing them. Organizations still in the consideration phase may overestimate funding barriers due to unfamiliarity with the actual processes. Some EV charger manufacturers have teams dedicated to helping their customers navigate funding options.
Sustainability remains a top-tier driver
Another notable finding is that sustainability is a primary factor in EV charger demand, even more so than some market benefits.
Charging infrastructure is doing more than powering vehicles. It’s delivering measurable gains across customer experience, costs, and operations.
Environmental sustainability goals (ESG) tie with customer demand at 46% as top adoption drivers, outpacing revenue generation (36%) and fleet transition (32%). These findings contradict assumptions that sustainability initiatives might weaken amid economic uncertainty and shifting political winds.
In fact, the data suggests sustainability remains an integral part of corporate policy when it comes to EV charger investment decisions. Among corporate campuses, 55% cite ESG as a top realized benefit—the highest single benefit score across all facility types. Even fleet operations, which are traditionally and primarily cost-focused, report ESG benefit realization among 34% of respondents.
According to Romano, the data suggests that consumers continue to adopt EVs despite decreased government support, and that companies continue putting sustainability into RFPs. She said, “employers see EV chargers as a competitive advantage, especially with back-to-the-office mandates.”
Charger operators report high satisfaction and strategic importance
The data reveals an overwhelmingly positive sentiment toward EV charging investments. Overall satisfaction stands at 98%, with 65% reporting they’re “very satisfied” with their charging programs.
Respondents who have completed their installations report various benefits from operating a completed EV installation, including customer satisfaction and loyalty, cost savings, environmental sustainability goals progress, operational efficiency (34%), and attracting new customers or tenants (31%).
Installing chargers alone is no longer sufficient. EV charging now requires strategic infrastructure that is planned, supported, and fully integrated.
A striking 94% of decision-makers agree their EV program has become essential to how their organizations operate and compete, while 92% report significant or moderate positive impact from deployed programs.
This success could be one primary motivator behind the momentum for market expansion: 92% anticipate growth in charging needs, and 97% plan to increase investment. These expansion plans are for the short term too, with 81% of prospective deployers planning installations within 24 months, and 40% targeting the next 12 months.
Performance and reliability concerns emerge
Despite high overall satisfaction, significant performance issues affect deployed systems. Among operational installations, the most common challenges are:
- High ongoing costs (32%)
- High maintenance requirements (32%)
- Charging speed limitations (31%)
- Electrical infrastructure constraints (27%)
- Reliability and uptime issues (22%)
- Hardware/software compatibility problems (21%)
These challenges create vulnerability for EV charging manufacturers and operators. When asked what would prompt them to switch providers, operators cite better performance and reliability as the top trigger — outpacing even cost considerations. Improved support and maintenance ranks second, followed by faster installation and better hardware/software compatibility.
When asked what innovations would most influence their decision to expand, organizations were crystal clear: 59% said faster charging speeds would be the top motivator.
Romano says the data reveal a market transitioning from early adoption to operational maturity. A charger that works 80% of the time looked impressive to early adopters.
As electrification becomes operationally critical—fleet trucks on delivery schedules, hotel guests expecting seamless amenities—that same performance becomes inadequate.
Organizations with installed charging systems are most likely to rate vendor innovation as extremely important (67%, compared to 60% of those in mid-deployment and just 35% of those considering installation).
Once operators have hands-on experience, they appear to have a clearer view of the limitations of current technology and express a desire for better solutions.
Software satisfaction lags behind deployment
Perhaps the survey’s most revealing technical finding is the systematic gap between software capability deployment and user satisfaction. While 73% use monitoring and uptime tracking software, only 55% report high satisfaction — an 18-percentage-point deficit. Energy management shows a 16-point gap (59% deployment versus 43% satisfaction), followed by data and reporting (13 points), billing (12 points), and authentication (9 points).
BTC POWER product manager Shaheer Ghaznavi said the significance of those numbers is that these gaps indicate the industry is shipping functional but inadequate software. Organizations that are very satisfied with their chargers are significantly more likely to have effective data and reporting systems (65% versus 45% for others) and functional energy management (62% versus 53%). This suggests software quality fundamentally shapes how operators perceive hardware reliability.
An operator without adequate monitoring tools can’t distinguish between a charger that’s genuinely unreliable and one performing well but generating confusing status data.
Operators cannot:
- Optimize utilization without good analytics
- Proactively maintain equipment without predictive diagnostics
- Manage costs without granular energy tracking
The problem intensifies because 58% receive software bundled with hardware, compared with only 32% who procure specialized third-party solutions. Bundled software prioritizes basic functionality over operational sophistication, failing to meet diverse requirements.
For example, a retail operator needs integrated payment processing, said Ghaznavi. A fleet manager requires detailed utilization analytics. And a corporate campus wants energy optimization across dozens of units. Bundled software rarely excels at specific use cases.
Additionally, respondents sent important signals that closed systems are increasingly unacceptable: 52% consider interoperability critical, and 42% consider it important. Operators want flexibility to integrate best-in-class monitoring platforms, swap hardware vendors without losing operational continuity, and aggregate data across mixed deployments.
Persistent barriers drive demand for full-service partners
Implementation challenges remain stubbornly consistent. Among all organizations deploying or expanding EV charging, the top obstacles are:
- Upfront costs (45%)
- Electrical infrastructure upgrades (42%)
- Maintenance and support (40%)
- Permitting and local approvals (36%)
- Hardware/software compatibility (31%)
For organizations still in the consideration phase, the barriers are similar but slightly more acute: high upfront costs, complicated permitting, and limited electrical infrastructure are the primary blockers preventing them from moving forward.
Grid constraints top the list of industry-wide risks, followed by technology fragmentation and lagging consumer adoption. The electrical infrastructure problem operates at multiple levels—facility upgrades, distribution transformer capacity, and utility interconnection timelines that individual operators can’t solve through better equipment selection alone.
Ghaznavi said these challenges drive an overwhelming preference for full-service partnerships. A decisive 60% want EV charger vendors spanning planning through ongoing support, versus just 17% seeking hardware-only providers. The services most valued align directly with pain points: service and maintenance plans, installation expertise, performance measurement, and permitting assistance. He said the message is clear: operators need solutions, not just equipment.
The innovation roadmap
When asked what innovations would most influence expansion decisions, operators prioritize faster charging technology (59%), followed by lower equipment costs (47%), energy efficiency (46%), and reduced maintenance requirements (44%).
Future decisions will be driven primarily by cost and ROI (52%) and customer/employee demand (49%), with technological advancements and sustainability goals playing supporting roles (40% each).
The pattern is clear: the market wants fundamental performance improvements in speed, economics, and reliability—not exotic features or bleeding-edge experimentation. This creates a direct engineering mandate to develop solutions that simultaneously improve performance, reduce total cost of ownership, simplify deployment, and deliver better operational intelligence through software.
Romano said the BTC POWER survey reveals an industry at an inflection point. The early-adopter phase, characterized by tolerance for imperfection, is ending. The operational deployment phase is beginning—where charging infrastructure must perform as reliably as any other critical facility system. With 81% of prospective operators targeting installation within 24 months, the urgency around solving these technical challenges has never been greater.
Readers may download the complete survey results here.
Filed Under: Charging, Featured Contributions, Technology News