EV charging operators are putting larger concentrate on community reliability and charger utilisation, in accordance with a brand new report from Driivz.
The 2026 State of EV Charging Community Operators Report relies on responses from 300 senior EV charging professionals in North America and Europe. Driivz mentioned the findings level to a shift towards what it calls “clever profitability,” with operators prioritising uptime and effectivity quite than solely increasing charging infrastructure.
Respondents got here from firms in North America and Europe, together with the US, Canada, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the UK, and Norway. The survey included senior decision-makers throughout areas reminiscent of IT, operations, product, enterprise improvement, technique, e-mobility, and roaming.
Reliability overtakes vitality constraints
Charger reliability and stability had been cited by 59% of operators because the trade’s high problem. Driivz mentioned that is the primary time reliability has overtaken vitality constraints within the report’s historical past.
Website vitality constraints stay one other main problem, cited by 48% of respondents. The report mentioned vitality constraints had been the highest problem in final yr’s survey, however have now been overtaken by charger reliability and stability.
Elevated charger utilisation was ranked by 59% of respondents as the highest profitability driver. Individually, 47% mentioned 24/7 community availability was a precedence for enhancing charging experiences in 2026.
Community uptime and reliability had been additionally cited by 44% of respondents as an element anticipated to drive profitability over the subsequent 12 months. The report mentioned operators want dependable uptime to help larger utilisation.
Predictive upkeep strikes into focus
Predictive upkeep is without doubt one of the primary areas the place operators anticipate AI to help community operations. The report discovered that 69% of operators ranked predictive upkeep as a high AI use case for operational enchancment.
Anomaly detection ranked barely larger, at 72%, whereas pricing optimisation was cited by 70% of operators. Different AI use circumstances coated within the report embrace demand cost discount and community planning.
The report hyperlinks predictive upkeep to operational information from related chargers and supporting vitality methods. Operators use this information to detect faults and diagnose tools points remotely. The identical information is used to establish irregular efficiency earlier than chargers go offline.
Upkeep can also be a part of operators’ cost-reduction plans. The report discovered that 52% of respondents plan to enhance community monitoring and automation in 2026, whereas one other 52% plan to enhance upkeep effectivity.
Power administration can also be a part of operators’ cost-control plans. The report discovered that 60% of respondents plan to make use of good vitality procurement and cargo administration to scale back prices in 2026.
Driivz CEO Shiri Levi-Laor mentioned the EV charging trade is transferring from deployment towards operational intelligence. She mentioned reliability and utilisation have gotten central to community operations, alongside driver expertise and information high quality.
Information high quality stays a barrier
The report additionally recognized limitations to wider AI use. Inadequate information high quality or availability was cited by 63% of respondents, adopted by integration complexity with present methods and distributors at 62%. Value or unclear ROI was cited by 55%.
Reliability considerations had been extra pronounced amongst bigger networks. Amongst these operators, 73% recognized uptime and stability as a high problem.
Availability led deliberate investments in driver expertise. Driivz discovered that 47% of operators plan to put money into 24/7 community stability and availability in 2026. Different priorities embrace seamless authentication at 43%, versatile cost choices at 37%, and the variety of quick chargers at 32%.
Charger availability was the highest deliberate funding space for enhancing the charging expertise, adopted by authentication and cost flexibility.
Cybersecurity readiness reviewed
The report coated cybersecurity readiness amongst community operators. It discovered that 64% described their cybersecurity readiness as sturdy or very sturdy.
Nonetheless, Driivz mentioned some operators nonetheless lag in areas reminiscent of fraud detection, 24/7 risk monitoring, encryption controls, and vulnerability scanning. The report listed these areas alongside different safety measures utilized by charging community operators.
Driivz mentioned it processes greater than 4 billion information factors throughout 100 terabytes of worldwide charging information, together with operational data from charging networks.
(Photograph by CHUTTERSNAP)
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