Several US Cities Near Max Charger Use at Peak Hours
Time-based utilization has become a standard metric for measuring the growing usage and profit potential of fast charging stations. Its weaknesses, however, include that utilization (time) doesn’t precisely correlate with energy dispensed, and hence revenue (assuming pricing per kWh). And because the metric is based on the hours a station is open (typically, but not always 24 hours), lower session volumes during overnight, early morning, and late-night hours can greatly reduce the high average utilization during peak hours of the day.
To partially address this, in our new report, US EV Fast Charging — Q1 2025, we analyzed peak-hour utilization (we chose the seven-hour period of 12 noon through 6 pm) and averaged the utilization rates for this period across metro areas. The intent is to better understand which markets may be nearing capacity during these "prime-time" hours.
In essence, some markets such as Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Tampa, and Los Angeles are seeing +/- 40% average utilization during these peak-time, or “prime-time” hours of the day. This is of course great for the profitability of CPOs—but some stations in these markets are seeing wait times and may need to add ports or deploy strategies to motivate some drivers to charge during less busy times. The standard approach is to deploy TOU rates, but the busiest stations may need to raise the highest rates during peak times even higher, and significantly lower the lowest rates.
These busy markets are likely to continue to see investment and expansion from charging networks/CPOs, while at the same time perhaps de-emphasizing expansion in the less utilized metro areas such as Columbus, San Antonio, and St. Louis. A couple of trends we may see going forward are regional and smaller networks focusing on second- and third-tier markets but with the large national players deploying fewer port stations (e.g., 2-4 ports versus 8-12 in high-utilization markets).
A significant variable is the impact of EV-driving rideshare drivers. In its Q1 2024 earnings presentation, EVgo reported that rideshare drivers accounted for 24% of throughput—meaning it could be approaching 30% for the company currently across the entire US. In some markets today, rideshare drivers are likely accounting for 40% to 50% of energy throughput for major charging networks including Electrify America, EVgo, and Tesla. So, if rideshare drivers start to adopt EVs at a higher rate in lower-utilization markets, it could dramatically change the charging economics in those markets.
I was curious to drill down further on a few busy urban markets, so I analyzed Miami and downtown San Francisco. I excluded stations that were not open at the beginning of Q1, that had significant downtime in Q1, or while in theory were “public” stations, they were primarily utilized by employees or tenants in office or apartment building garages.
For an 11-mile radius around Miami, it resulted in 19 stations, ranging from a single-50 kW port station to one with 12-250 kW ports. Thirteen of these 19 stations had peak-time utilization rates north of 60%, and only two were below 30%. Interestingly, even some of the stations with lower power chargers (120-150 kW) still saw fairly high utilization rates. But fundamentally, many of these stations are close to reaching maximum utilization during peak hours of the day.
You will notice that stations from the same CPO A have both the highest and lowest peak utilization, which is a result of a difference in location, number of ports, and power level of the chargers.
After removing various stations from the mix, I analyzed 9 stations located within a 3-mile radius of downtown San Francisco. Eight of the stations had peak utilization rates at or above 40%. While a very small data set with only a few variables, I ran a regression analysis on the data which did find a high correlation between the CPO brand, number of ports, and charger power level.
So no real surprise, but beyond a convenient location, a strong CPO brand combined with partnerships—larger (4+, but ideally 6-8 or more ports) stations, with high-power chargers are some of the keys to high utilization rates.
Like to hear Paren CTO Bill Ferro and Chief Analyst Loren McDonald walk through this data and highlights of our Q1 2025 report, please join our upcoming webinar. All registrants will receive a PDF of the full report and webinar slides following the webinar.
- Date: Thursday May 8, 2025
- Time: 10 am PT/1 pm ET
- Register to attend the webinar
Author: Loren McDonald, Chief Analyst
