- Public EV charging grew from 417 ports at 139 station locations in 2007 to 168,388 ports at 64,641 station locations in 2023—a roughly 404-fold increase in ports and 465-fold increase in station locations over 16 years.
- That growth has been consistently exponential, not just a recent surge: ports grew at a 45.5% compound annual rate and station locations at 46.8% across the full 2007–2023 period.
- The most recent year on record shows no slowdown: ports rose 23.5% and station locations rose 20.4% from 2022 to 2023 alone.
- Against a broader DOE dataset tracking all alternative fuel types since 1992, EV charging is the standout: propane station counts actually declined since 1992, while electric charging locations grew roughly 456-fold over a similar span.
01 Introduction
Public EV charging in the United States grew from 417 charging ports at just 139 station locations in 2007 to 168,388 ports at 64,641 station locations by 2023—a 404-fold increase in ports in 16 years. The U.S. Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) has tracked the buildout of public electric vehicle charging infrastructure annually since 2007, providing a direct government record of how fast the network has actually grown, as distinct from vehicle sales or cost figures covered elsewhere on this site.
DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center, Public Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure dataset, snapshots taken each December 2007–2023This matters for a different reason than cost: a driver's decision to buy an EV depends heavily on whether they believe they can reliably charge away from home. This article looks purely at the supply side—how much public charging infrastructure exists and how fast it has been built—as a companion to this site's separate analyses of EV charging cost by state and public vs. home charging cost.
02 The Growth Curve, Year by Year
The AFDC's snapshot data, taken each December from 2007 through 2023, shows a growth curve that only accelerates—there is no year in this record where the network shrank or plateaued.
DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center, Public Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure dataset. Data snapshots taken each year in December, as close to year-end as possible.| Year | Charging Ports | Station Locations | Ports / Station |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 417 | 139 | 3.0 |
| 2009 | 771 | 259 | 3.0 |
| 2011 | 5,248 | 2,109 | 2.5 |
| 2013 | 16,619 | 6,938 | 2.4 |
| 2015 | 29,968 | 12,128 | 2.5 |
| 2017 | 46,218 | 17,314 | 2.7 |
| 2019 | 75,808 | 23,951 | 3.2 |
| 2021 | 114,715 | 46,558 | 2.5 |
| 2022 | 136,307 | 53,693 | 2.5 |
| 2023 | 168,388 | 64,641 | 2.6 |
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Use the Calculator03 How Fast Is "Fast"?
Expressed as a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) rather than a single before-and-after ratio, public charging ports grew 45.5% per year, on average, every year from 2007 through 2023; station locations grew 46.8% per year over the same span. A steady ~46% annual growth rate, sustained for 16 consecutive years, is the more precise way to describe what a "404-fold increase" actually means in practice—compounding, not a one-time jump.
Calculated: CAGR = (End Value ÷ Start Value)^(1÷years) − 1, using 2007 and 2023 values from the table aboveThe most recent single year of data available shows the growth rate holding, not decelerating: ports rose 23.5% and station locations rose 20.4% from 2022 to 2023—below the 16-year average annual rate, but still a substantial one-year jump for a network already numbering in the tens of thousands of locations, where the same percentage growth requires building far more physical infrastructure than an equivalent percentage gain did in, say, 2010.
Calculated: (168,388 − 136,307) ÷ 136,307 = 23.5%; (64,641 − 53,693) ÷ 53,693 = 20.4%, using 2022 and 2023 values from the DOE AFDC dataset04 EV Charging vs. Other Alternative Fuels
A separate, broader DOE AFDC dataset tracks public and private alternative fueling stations of every type—biodiesel, compressed natural gas (CNG), electric, ethanol (E85), hydrogen, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and propane—back to 1992. Measured on this longer timeline, electric charging is not just the fastest-growing category; it is the only one that has grown explosively at all.
DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center, Alternative Fueling Stations by Fuel Type dataset, 1992–2025| Fuel Type | Earliest Count | 2025 Count | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electric | 188 (1995) | 85,692 | +456x |
| Ethanol (E85) | 2 (1992) | 5,100 | +2,550x |
| Biodiesel | 2 (2000) | 1,645 | +823x |
| CNG | 349 (1992) | 1,385 | +4.0x |
| Propane | 3,297 (1992) | 2,995 | −9% |
| Hydrogen | 7 (2002) | 78 | +11.1x |
E85's growth multiple looks larger than electric's in this table, but from a near-zero 1992 base of 2 stations—a statistical artifact of starting from almost nothing, not a comparable buildout. Propane, the most established alternative fuel infrastructure in 1992 with 3,297 stations, has essentially seen its station count shrink over three decades while electric charging, starting from near-zero, overtook every other alternative fuel type in absolute station count by the early 2020s.
Calculated from the table above using DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center data05 Ports Per Station: What's Actually Being Built
Dividing charging ports by station locations gives a rough sense of typical site size. In 2023, the U.S. averaged 2.6 charging ports per public station location, essentially unchanged from the 3.0 ports per station ratio of the network's earliest years in 2007–2009.
Calculated: ports ÷ station locations, using the DOE AFDC dataset values in the table in Section 02That stability is notable given how much the network has grown in absolute size: the buildout has mostly taken the form of many more station locations, each with a similar handful of ports, rather than a shift toward either many tiny single-port sites or a smaller number of very large multi-port hubs. The ratio dipped as low as 2.4–2.5 in the early-to-mid 2010s and briefly rose to 3.2 in 2019, but has settled back into the 2.5–2.6 range in the most recent years on record.
06 What This Data Doesn't Show
This data also does not break out charging speed (Level 1, Level 2, or DC fast charging) or connector type, both of which matter enormously for how useful a given port is for a road trip versus overnight charging at a destination. It counts locations and ports, not charging capacity or reliability. And it reflects a nationwide total only—this site's EV charging cost by state analysis is the place to look for how charging cost, as opposed to availability, varies geographically.
07 Data Sources
- U.S. Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center: Public Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure dataset, annual snapshots 2007–2023. afdc.energy.gov/stations/states
- U.S. Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center: Alternative Fueling Stations by Fuel Type dataset, annual counts 1992–2025. afdc.energy.gov/data