There Aren't Enough Electricians To Fix America's Broken EV Chargers

I know we say it a lot but it’s the truth: EV adoption still sucks. Sure, some new chargers are being built, but there are never enough. Now comes word of another hurdle we have to clear before EVs catch on: Broken chargers that very few people are qualified to repair, Automotive News reports.

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Using data from the Department of Energy, Auto News pointed out that as of October 3, there were nearly 4,000 EV chargers that have over 7,000 charging ports out of commission. That works out to an over six-percent outage rate. And even that might be conservative:

The DOE estimate may be modest. Here Technologies, which pulls real-time data from connected chargers, says 4,673 chargers were out of order, but it expects many more “unconnected” charge points were inoperable.

All this is proving to be a headache for drivers who have already made the transition to EVs, and it’s a turn-off for potential EV buyers. Worse yet is finding enough qualified electricians who are capable of working on these broken chargers.

But there is a dearth of electricians to do those jobs. Electricians, training companies and installation providers all say the ambitious charger goals will make that labor shortage even more acute.

Finding a high-level electrician, called a journeyman, especially one trained on EV chargers, is a significant challenge, said Matt Trout, president of Trout Electric, which services and installs chargers and other electric equipment in Southern California.

“If you came to me right now with a journeyman that’s been in the EV charging industry for the last couple of years, he’d be hired on the spot,” Trout said.

Estimates are that the U.S. will need “142,000 more certified electricians by 2030” to help with the EV transition. While the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that demand for electricians is supposed to grow six percent in the next decade, the electrician labor pool will shrink 14 percent.

Even among the electricians that can actually do the job, many aren’t even certified to work on or install EV chargers. One startup company called ChargerHelp! is working with the SAE to train more people for that kind of work, but if enough people can’t be trained in time, it’ll just delay the EV transition even longer.