Oklahoma Has the Least Reliable EV Chargers in the US, New Report Finds

Oklahoma has the least reliable public EV fast-charging network in the country, according to a new industry report, with chargers failing to complete a session more than one in five times. The finding comes from Paren, a company that tracks more than 99% of the nation’s public fast chargers in real time, in its quarterly State of the Industry report covering the second quarter of 2026. The report also found the country added 806 new public fast-charging stations and 4,382 new charging ports between April and June, even as growth slowed compared with the same period in 2025.

Which States Have the Best and Worst Charging Networks

Paren measures charger reliability as the share of charging attempts that complete successfully, factoring in station downtime and failed sessions. Oklahoma scored 78.5 on that measure, more than eight points behind the next-lowest state. Vermont (86.7) and Arkansas (89.9) were the only other states below a 90 score. The number of states scoring below 90 fell from eight a year earlier to just three, and five states, Alaska, Iowa, Maryland, South Carolina and Delaware, crossed above the 90 threshold over the same period.

At the top of the rankings, Washington, D.C. posted a 97.7 reliability score, followed by Montana at 97.6 and South Dakota at 96.5. Only four states, D.C., Hawaii, California and Florida, met Paren’s combined bar for a “healthy” charging market, meaning strong reliability paired with utilization above 20%. Most of the country, 45 of the 52 states and territories Paren tracks, sits in what the report calls a “pre-demand buildout” stage: chargers that work reliably but are not yet being used heavily.

What Charging Actually Costs Right Now

The national average price for public fast charging held steady at 53.8 cents per kilowatt-hour in the second quarter, Paren found. Hawaii remains by far the most expensive place to charge at 85.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, more than 20 cents above the next-highest state. New Jersey (65.1 cents), Maine (63.4 cents) and Washington, D.C. (63.1 cents) round out the priciest markets, largely reflecting higher electricity demand costs in dense, supply-constrained regions. Nebraska offers the cheapest public charging in the country at 42.8 cents per kilowatt-hour, followed by Iowa at 44.2 cents.

Pricing structure is shifting too. Fixed per-kilowatt-hour pricing still covers 70.7% of stations nationwide, but larger markets are moving toward time-of-use pricing that charges more at peak demand hours. California leads that shift, with 45.3% of its stations now on time-of-use rates, followed by Maryland, Virginia and Nevada, all above 39%. A driver who charges overnight or in off-peak hours in those states can pay meaningfully less than someone charging in a weekday commute window.

Infrastructure Is Growing, Just More Slowly Than in 2025

Operators added 4,382 new charging ports across 806 new stations nationwide in the second quarter, a rebound from the seasonal low recorded in the first quarter of 2026. Even so, the pace remains below the 4,865 ports added in the second quarter of 2025 and well short of the 5,966-port peak recorded in the fourth quarter of last year. Tesla added the most new ports of any single operator, 1,185, or 27% of the quarter’s total, though that share is down from roughly half of the country’s entire installed charger base, a sign competitors are catching up.

California led all states for new stations opened, adding roughly 120 in the quarter, followed by Texas, Florida, Illinois and New York. Walmart, ChargePoint and Red E each added more than 300 new ports nationwide as newer entrants continue building out national charging networks alongside established players such as Electrify America and EVgo. High-power charging is now the default for new installations: 72% of new ports installed in the quarter deliver 250 kilowatts or more, up sharply from prior years.

Tesla’s Grip on Charging Is Loosening

Tesla still runs the densest charging sites in the country, averaging 12.1 ports per station compared with 4.4 at non-Tesla networks, but its share of newly built charging capacity fell below 50% for the first time on record in the second quarter. Tesla added 1,185 new ports, 27% of the quarter’s total, while Walmart, ChargePoint and Red E each added more than 300 new ports of their own. Chargeonomics chief analyst Loren McDonald, writing as a guest contributor to the report, described the industry as entering a “Charging 2.0” phase, with newer entrants such as Ionna, Walmart, Red E, Mercedes-Benz and Pilot Flying J aggressively building national networks while established players including Tesla, Electrify America and EVgo focus more on clustering new stations inside markets they already serve.

Connector standards are shifting too. NACS, the plug format Tesla originally developed and most other automakers have now adopted, made up 22.9% of new non-Tesla charging connectors installed in the quarter, roughly double its share from a year earlier. The older CCS standard still dominates the installed base of non-Tesla chargers at 74.6%, meaning most public chargers a non-Tesla EV owner encounters today still use the older connector, even as new installations increasingly favor NACS.

What This Means for EV Owners and Shoppers

For drivers in Oklahoma, Vermont or Arkansas, the reliability gap is worth planning around. Apps such as PlugShare and A Better Route Planner show real-time charger status and recent user reports, and checking a station’s live status before a road trip can help a driver avoid arriving at a broken charger with a low battery. Drivers shopping for an EV in a state with weaker charging infrastructure could prioritize a vehicle with strong home-charging capability and a longer range buffer. Public fast charging cannot always be relied on in those markets today.

For drivers in states with time-of-use pricing, shifting a charging session to off-peak hours, typically overnight, can meaningfully cut the cost of a fill-up. Nationwide, the data shows charging infrastructure is expanding into new corridors and getting more reliable on average, even where individual states such as Oklahoma still lag behind the rest of the country.

Session volume backs up the reliability numbers. Drivers completed 16.1 million public charging sessions nationwide in June 2026, the quarter’s highest monthly total, up from 14.1 million in April. Sessions per port climbed from 202.9 in April to 224.7 in June, evidence that drivers are filling up the newly built capacity about as fast as operators can install it rather than falling behind. Average utilization across all public fast chargers held at 15.76% for the quarter, nearly unchanged from 15.9% a year earlier, which the report’s authors say points to a market where supply and demand are growing in step rather than one outrunning the other.

Drivers researching a specific route or considering a move to a new state can check Paren’s public USA charging map for current station counts, pricing and reliability scores by state before committing to an EV purchase that depends heavily on public charging access. For most owners today, a mix of home charging and occasional public fast charging on longer trips remains the most predictable way to manage an EV’s day-to-day costs, especially in states still working through the “pre-demand buildout” stage the Q2 report describes.

The new-build numbers point to where reliability and access are likely to improve first. Nearly four in five new charging stations opened in the second quarter sit in urban areas, with California, Texas, Florida, Illinois and New York adding the most new sites. Rural drivers, especially those in the low-utilization states clustered at the bottom of Paren’s reliability rankings, are likely to see infrastructure investment arrive more slowly. Operators continue prioritizing dense, high-traffic corridors where a new station reaches paying customers fastest. That pattern helps explain why a handful of large, mostly urban and coastal states, D.C., Hawaii, California and Florida, have pulled well ahead of the rest of the country on both reliability and real-world usage.

Sources:

• Paren: US EV Fast Charging, Q2 2026 State of the Industry Report
• Electrek: EV fast charging is stabilizing in the US