Shift: A podcast about mobility · Automotive News

Why do EV charging attempts fail? ChargerHelp’s Kameale Terry explains.

November 30, 2025·26 min·1 clip

Engineers built charging industry for engineers—confusing for actual users.

The episode begins with Molly Boygon and Hannah Lutz setting a lighter tone for Thanksgiving week. They step away from the headlines and talk about the vehicle technology they appreciate most. The conversation then shifts to EV charging, where the reliability story is more complicated than uptime charts make it look. Hannah speaks with Camille Terry, CEO and co-founder of ChargerHelp, about why charging attempts often fail even when the chargers are online. Terry says the charging world is packed with connected devices and software complexity, which creates a gap between uptime and first-charge success. She argues that naming the problem clearly helps both operators and drivers understand what actually needs fixing. The report cited in the episode shows that a station can seem almost fully available on paper while a third of charging attempts still fail in practice. Terry frames that gap as a software issue tied to the sophistication of the system. The show uses that point to explain why the consumer experience can feel confusing and inconsistent. It also suggests that many drivers may wrongly assume they did something wrong when a charger does not work on the first try. Instead, the failure may sit somewhere inside the system itself. From there, the discussion moves toward industry maturity and the need for more standardization. Terry notes that the charging world was built by engineers, not product people, which helps explain why the experience can be difficult to navigate. The episode also touches on how more transparent reporting could help users and operators see the problem more clearly. The hosts bring up the possibility of municipalities writing contracts that require better visibility into station performance. Terry says that kind of structure could make it easier for companies like ChargerHelp to provide useful insight into whether a station is actually working, and she points to legislation as part of that path. By the end, the conversation leaves listeners with a practical picture of why charging failures persist even as the industry expands. It is less about hype than about the operational gap between promise and lived experience.

As heard by us

A clear look at why EV charging can fail even when uptime looks fine.

This episode treats EV charging reliability as a plain engineering problem with real consequences for drivers, and that angle works. Camille Terry of ChargerHelp lays out why a charging attempt can fail even when a station looks online, and the conversation keeps circling back…

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Why you'd press play

Listen if you want the real reason an EV charger can be online and still fail you.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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