ChargePoint: EV Charging Demand Surges While Infrastructure Lags Behind

The shift toward battery-electric vehicles is proceeding despite a pullback in the enthusiasm that characterized earlier years. Through August of this year, more than 1.8 million EVs reached buyers, according to industry analysts. Within the United States, a notable surge has emerged in drivers reconsidering electric vehicles they had previously dismissed, spurred by persistent fuel costs with no apparent resolution. Yet the infrastructure required to charge these vehicles remains inadequate, according to findings released by ChargePoint.

ChargePoint's leadership sees the underlying market dynamics as healthier than media coverage often suggests. "All in all, things are moving forward. I think the North American market has been better shaped than a lot of the press reports," said ChargePoint CEO Rick Wilmer. "Part of it is just the data we see in terms of the amount of RFPs that we receive for charging solutions. They haven't slowed down. We reported quarter over quarter growth in the last quarter we reported. And you look at the data around used EVs going up in price because the demand is so high. I saw a recent report… EV retention rates are 96 percent. So those folks that are putting their leased cars on the used market, they're not going back to gas, they're going to another EV."

Affordable electric trucks from Slate and Ford are expected to further drive charging demand in coming years. "When you look at how much interest there is in the used EVs that are at parity with an equivalent gas vehicle, that tells you the appetite is there for EVs if it's the right vehicle at the right price point," Wilmer explained. "So I think the auto OEMs, maybe not homogeneously, but they're figuring out what the market wants in North America, and they're starting to introduce those vehicles, which I don't think a lot of the forward-looking forecasts accommodate the fact that the product market fit is getting better coming out of the car companies."

The Utilization Problem

ChargePoint's data indicates a significant mismatch between demand and supply. In 2025, charging sessions grew by 34 percent, while new charger installations increased by only 16 percent. Wilmer outlined what he considers the critical threshold for charger availability.

So what we've determined, especially for—and we've got so much workplace charging, this is where most of our data comes from, but I think it's relevant for other use cases as well—but on a five-day, eight-hour-a-day workplace scenario, if you're above 30 percent utilization, you're going to have drivers coming in that can't find an open charger.

Rick Wilmer, ChargePoint CEO

The dynamic creates a self-reinforcing cycle at workplaces. "And it's fascinating to watch this happen because you'll see a workplace make the decision to put some chargers in the parking lot because their employees are demanding it… So they put some in, and then other employees now have charging at work, so they buy EVs, and all of a sudden you're up above 30 percent. And the employees are now more upset than they were before they even had EV charging because they can't find a charger. So again, in a workplace, eight-hour-day workweek, 30 percent is kind of the magic number," Wilmer said.

Vehicle-to-Grid Ambitions

ChargePoint has unveiled a new lineup of lower-cost, higher-capacity Level 2 chargers designed for North America. The company has also formed a partnership with Eaton to incorporate smart breaker technology that enables bidirectional charging. Wilmer outlined the company's vision for making vehicle-to-home technology accessible to ordinary consumers. "We're really pushing to get to a point where you can do a vehicle-to-home solution at a much, much lower price point than what's available today to make it palatable for consumers that want basic use cases, just power my house when the power's out," he said. "You get into the more interesting use cases where I can sell my energy back or things like that, that's all possible as well. But in the US, I mean, I had three power outages on Christmas Day; that was brutal."

Wilmer cautioned that widespread adoption of vehicle-to-grid technology—where electric vehicles return stored energy to the electrical grid—requires standardization efforts from both automakers and utilities. "The first thing you need is cars that are AC bidirectional. Most of the vehicles in the market now only are DC bidirectional. And a DC bidirectional solution in the home is way expensive and physically very large. It just takes up way too much space. So we need the cars to get AC bidirectional-capable," he said.