It was late at night on my first cross-country road trip in my electric vehicle. I was on my way to Michigan from Virginia. This was my first attempt at a trip longer than 3 hours. As I was getting closer to Pittsburgh, I noticed there were two options, both of which were going to take me off of the interstate to get a charge. Neither charging station was ideal. I choose my favorite charging network, and proceed to the station which is located in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot. It is a single charging station under a parking lot light. The Dunkin Donuts is closed. In retrospect, it probably looked like a typical mysterious movie scene where I was about to meet with a drug dealer or drop some secret file.

I begin my normal charging routine when suddenly the parking lot light above me goes out, and now I am standing in front of the single electric vehicle charger in a very dark parking lot in the middle of nowhere. My first thought, “I hope this charger works.” Simply driving across the street to the next closest charging station was not an option.

At first glance, it seems like this is simply a problem of quantity and location of chargers. The current low quantity and poor siting of chargers is a problem, but it is not the only problem our electric vehicle charging network is facing. Yes, I had to go off the beaten path to find a fast charger that would allow me to continue my cross-country trip. However, even if there were more fast chargers closer to the interstate roads, there could still be problems with user experience and visibility of chargers.

We need electric vehicle charging networks to be as powerful (pun intended) as gas station networks. Consider the experience of driving on the interstate with a gas power vehicle. You don’t pull up an app to find a gas station. You simply look for the blue signs that display the gas stations available at the next exit. We at least need to have a universal EV symbol on those blue signs. Charging networks should have their own brand on that signage, but if that can’t happen, then states and DOTs need to step up and add new signage that points electric vehicle drivers to one of the 500,000 new electric vehicle fast chargers.

Once we’ve solved the visibility problem, then we still have a lot of work to do on user experience. There are so many things that can be done to improve the user experience associated with electric vehicle charging. Below is a post on 5 common UX design problems with EV charging stations.

If we can address all of these issues, then we can accelerate the transition to mass electric vehicle adoption. With the roll out of 500,000 new electric vehicle fast chargers, it is possible that we could transition to a future where electric vehicles are the norm. However, if we don’t solve the visibility and user experience problems, it is very unlikely that the general public (the Late Majority) will adopt electric vehicles.