How the PlugCompass Score works

A transparent 0-10 rating for every public EV charger in the U.S., built from facts, not opinions or ads.

Method last updated October 19, 2026 · Station data updated October 25, 2026

In short: each of the 88,861 stations we list gets a score from 0 to 10. It is a weighted average of price (30%), charging speed (25%), reliability (20%), access (15%) and ports (10%). If a factor has no data, for example because the station doesn't publish a price, that factor is left out and the others are scaled up. We never guess. Distance and advertising never change a score, so a station has the same score wherever you search from. Every station on the map shows its full breakdown under "How the score is made".

The five factors

Price

30%

What a kWh costs compared with other chargers of the same kind (DC fast vs Level 2).

  • Free to charge: 10.
  • A published per-kWh price is placed on the range stations actually charge: typical U.S. ranges are $0.30-$0.65/kWh for DC fast and $0.15-$0.45/kWh for Level 2 (once we have 30+ known prices of a kind, the 10th-90th percentile of those prices is used instead). The cheap end of the range scores 10, the expensive end 1.
  • Hourly prices are converted to an estimate per kWh at 7 kW.
  • Netherlands: the operator's own pay-as-you-go (card / ad-hoc) price from NDW, in euros, compared only with other Dutch stations: typical ranges are €0.45-€0.75/kWh for DC fast and €0.30-€0.55/kWh for AC, replaced by the 10th-90th percentile of all imported Dutch prices (about €0.27-€0.57 AC and €0.50-€0.70 DC in October 2026). Start fees and time fees are folded in for a 20 kWh AC or 30 kWh DC session.
  • Finland: the operator's own price from Fintraffic Digitraffic, compared only with other Finnish stations. Digitraffic publishes prices without VAT plus the operator's VAT rate; we add that stated rate (25.5%) because Finnish drivers see prices incl. VAT. Typical ranges are €0.31-€0.47/kWh for DC fast and €0.20-€0.35/kWh for AC, replaced by the 10th-90th percentile of all imported Finnish prices (about €0.22-€0.34 AC and €0.31-€0.45 DC in October 2026). Spot-price tariffs ("spot + margin") have no fixed price and are left out.
  • France: the price the operator publishes as text in the national IRVE file (about 1 in 5 charge points has one), read once by AI into a per-kWh figure and labelled "published tariff (text)"; points marked free (gratuit) are free. Per-minute and start fees are folded in like in the Netherlands; idle fees after charging are not. Compared only with other French stations: typical ranges €0.40-€0.65/kWh DC fast and €0.25-€0.50/kWh AC, replaced by the 10th-90th percentile of imported French prices (about €0.31-€0.87 AC, where per-minute fees make slow charging expensive, and €0.31-€0.69 DC in October 2026).
  • Norway and Sweden: NOBIL publishes no prices, so price is left out of the score there.
  • No published price: price is left out of the score (we never guess it).

Speed

25%

The most power any charger at the station can deliver, from the per-charger kW that stations report to the U.S. Department of Energy (Open Charge Map fills in missing DC fast kW).

  • DC fast 250 kW or more: 10; 150 kW+: 9; 100 kW+: 8; 50 kW+: 7.5; under 50 kW: 5.
  • DC fast with unknown power: 7.5.
  • Level 2 15 kW or more: 4.5; 9.5 kW+: 4; 5 kW+: 3; 3 kW+: 2; slower: 1.5.
  • Level 2 with unknown power: 3. Only slow (Level 1) charging: 1.

Reliability

20%

Did charging actually work here recently? From PlugCompass's one-tap "Did it work?" check-ins and Open Charge Map check-ins and status, over the last 18 months.

  • Share of check-ins that worked, smoothed so one check-in is never treated as certainty: 10 x (worked + 1) / (all + 2).
  • If the latest check-in failed, 1.5 points are taken off.
  • Reported "not operational" with no successful check-in since: 1.
  • Netherlands, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden: the operator's live status (refreshed every 10 / 5 / 10 minutes; in Norway and Sweden a live stream of changes; in France, Norway and Sweden a status older than 7 days is treated as unknown) also counts: every charger reported out of order: 1; otherwise 3 + 6 x the share of chargers that work (all working: 9). With check-ins as well, both count equally. Status older than an hour is ignored.
  • No recent check-ins: reliability is left out of the score.

Access

15%

Can anyone charge here, at any time? From the station's listed hours and access notes.

  • Open 24/7: 10.
  • Limited or unlisted hours: 6.
  • Teslas only: 4.
  • Restricted (customers, guests, residents, employees, permit holders ...): 3.
  • Private, not open to the public: 1.

Ports

10%

More ports mean less waiting and a backup if one charger is broken.

  • 1 port: 2; 2 ports: 4; 3-4 ports: 6; 5-9 ports: 8; 10 or more: 10.

How the parts add up

Each factor gets 0-10 points. The score is the weighted average of the factors that have data, rounded to one decimal. Example: a 24/7 station with four 150 kW DC fast chargers (speed 9, access 10, ports 6), no published price and no check-ins scores (0.25 × 9 + 0.15 × 10 + 0.10 × 6) / 0.50 = 8.7. A higher score means better overall value, not just the cheapest price.

Where the data comes from

U.S. Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center (NREL station API)

Station locations, networks, opening hours and access, number of ports, connector types, per-charger power (kW), facility type and published price text. The map asks NREL live on every search; city and state pages use a full copy refreshed every week. U.S. government data.

Open Charge Map

Driver check-ins, "not operational" reports and DC fast charger power where NREL has none. Fetched per search area and cached for 12 hours. Licensed CC BY 4.0.

OpenStreetMap

Place type (hotel, grocery, parking ...) when NREL and the station name don't say, and the "While you charge" list: cafés, food, restrooms, grocery and shops within about 300 m (a 4-minute walk). Refreshed monthly. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL.

NDW, Nationaal Dataportaal Wegverkeer (Netherlands)

Every public charge point in the Netherlands: location, operator, connectors, power (kW), opening hours, live availability (refreshed every 10 minutes) and pay-as-you-go prices (refreshed every 6 hours). Open data, CC0. Charging data: NDW (CC0).

Fintraffic Digitraffic AFIR API (Finland)

Public charge points in Finland reported by operators under the EU AFIR rules: location, operator, connectors, power (kW), opening hours, live availability (refreshed every 5 minutes) and prices (refreshed every 6 hours). Source: Fintraffic / digitraffic.fi, license CC 4.0 BY.

transport.data.gouv.fr, national consolidated IRVE files (France)

Every public charge point in the national register: location, operator, plugs, power (kW), opening hours, access, free/paid and the published tariff text (refreshed nightly), plus live availability where operators publish it (refreshed every 10 minutes). Licence Ouverte 2.0; the map credits the source and the date of the file we imported.

NOBIL (Norway and Sweden)

Every registered charging station in Norway and Sweden, maintained by the Norwegian EV Association on behalf of Enova: location, operator, plugs, power (kW), access (public, visitors only ...) and 24-hour opening, refreshed daily, plus live availability from Enova's NOBIL live-status stream (a charger gets a status the first time it changes; NLOD licence). No prices. Stations for employees or residents only and truck-, bus- or boat-only chargers are left out. Licensed CC BY 4.0; charging data: NOBIL (nobil.no).

PlugCompass drivers

One-tap "Did it work?" check-ins (count immediately), price reports and feedback. Price reports and feedback are shown on the station but do not change its score.

AI (Anthropic's Claude Haiku) is used only to read messy price text into a per-kWh figure, to write short summaries of driver comments, to screen feedback, and to write the one-line tip above the map. It does not decide or adjust scores.

Update schedule

  • Map searches: NREL station data is fetched live on every search.
  • City and state pages: full NREL copy refreshed weekly (Sundays); last update October 25, 2026.
  • Open Charge Map check-ins and status: refreshed every 12 hours per area.
  • OpenStreetMap place types and "While you charge": refreshed monthly.
  • PlugCompass "Did it work?" check-ins: count immediately.

Limitations

  • Most stations do not publish a price: only about 1 in 7 U.S. stations in the national database lists one, and listed prices can be out of date. Price then simply doesn't count toward the score; always confirm the price in the network's app or on the charger.
  • Charger power (kW) is missing for some stations; those get a cautious default speed score.
  • Reliability needs check-ins. In the U.S. there are still few, so many stations have no reliability score yet.
  • Place types come from NREL first, then conservative station-name rules, then a confident OpenStreetMap match. Unclear cases get no label rather than a guess.
  • Coverage is the United States (50 states and DC), stations listed as open ("available") by NREL, the Netherlands (public charge points published through NDW), Finland (charge points published through Fintraffic Digitraffic), France incl. overseas regions (national IRVE register) and Norway and Sweden (NOBIL database, no prices). Elsewhere in Europe the map says the country isn't covered yet.
  • French prices: only about 1 in 9 stations publishes a usable price (many texts only point to an app or subscription); AI-read prices can contain mistakes, so the original text is shown with the price.
  • Finnish prices: about half of the locations publish a fixed price; many operators charge the hourly spot electricity price plus a margin, which has no fixed price and is left out of the score.
  • Dutch prices are the operators' pay-as-you-go card prices; app and subscription prices can differ.

Charger reliability reports

Separately from the score, we publish a monthly charger reliability report for the Netherlands, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden: which charging networks report the largest share of their charge points out of order, from the official live-status feeds recorded every 15 minutes. Method, thresholds and limitations are on each report.

Open the map

FAQ · EV charging by state · How it works