America’s Worst Cities For EVs

There are many ways to measure whether a place is “EV-friendly.” Nationally, Norway leads the world: 95% of new cars sold there are EVs. The country offers aggressive tax incentives and a charging network that is likely unmatched anywhere else.

Public charging stations are essential to EV adoption because people don’t want to rely on a home charger alone. On a road trip, an EV driver has to plan carefully for where to charge, sometimes as little as 200 miles from the starting point.

Drivers often compare charging a car to filling a gas tank, and gas-powered cars have the clear advantage. A driver can fill a tank in about 10 minutes, while a home EV charger takes hours. Public Level 3/DC fast chargers can bring a battery to 80% in about 20 minutes, but that is still considerably longer than a fill-up.

Convenience also depends on the number of locations. The US has about 180,000 gas stations, nearly all with several pumps, so waiting for a pump is almost unheard of. The country has close to 300,000 EV chargers, but most public locations have only a few. Adding chargers doesn’t fully solve the problem, because lines already form at some stations. Yahoo Autos noted, “Charging infrastructure has improved dramatically over the last several years, but the actual queuing experience has remained surprisingly primitive. Most public charging stations still operate on an informal first-come, first-served basis with no digital coordination system in place.”

The industry also faces a new challenge: growth in public charging stations is slowing considerably, according to iSeeCars. Year-over-year growth averaged about 30% from 2012 to 2024, fell to 25% last year, and is forecast to be only 15.5% in 2026. There are no signs the trend will reverse. The slowdown adds to the troubles of an already struggling US EV industry. As iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer put it, “Charging infrastructure remains a primary concern for mainstream consumers considering an electric vehicle.”

One way to gauge access to public charging is the ratio of residents to chargers. The lower the number, the better for EV owners. By this measure, the most EV-friendly metro areas are San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles. San Francisco’s ratio is 334 residents per charger. That is unsurprising, since California leads all states in EV registrations by a wide margin, with 3,026 per 100,000 people, according to Visual Capitalist.

The least EV-friendly metro areas are mostly in the South and Midwest. iSeeCars notes, “Louisville sits at the opposite end with 2,904 residents per charger, or nearly nine times as many residents competing for each charger as San Francisco.”

EV sales fell almost 20% in the first half of this year, and the expiration of the federal $7,500 tax credit took most of the blame. Even so, EV sales are unlikely to change much until public charging stations are widely available and the long lines are gone.

Rank	Most EV-Friendly Metro Area	Residents per Charger	Total Chargers	Least EV-Friendly Metro Area	Residents per Charger	Total Chargers
1	San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA	334	22,430	Louisville, KY	2,904	621
2	San Diego, CA	432	7,582	Indianapolis, IN	2,758	1,142
3	Los Angeles, CA	500	36,318	Milwaukee, WI	2,716	852
4	Denver, CO	569	8,300	Greensboro-Winston Salem, NC	2,669	700
5	Boston, MA-Manchester, NH	571	12,017	San Antonio, TX	2,666	1,112
6	Hartford & New Haven, CT	611	4,351	Houston, TX	2,453	3,170
7	Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, CA	659	6,836	Cleveland-Akron (Canton), OH	2,393	1,615
8	Seattle-Tacoma, WA	716	7,820	Birmingham, AL	2,355	857
9	Portland, OR	885	3,951	Oklahoma City, OK	2,337	867
10	Austin, TX	919	2,840	Harrisburg-Lancaster-York, PA	2,243	935
	National Average	1,143	299,798