For the first time since J.D. Power started ranking public fast-charging networks by customer satisfaction, Tesla's Supercharger network did not come out on top. The firm's 2026 U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience Public Charging Study, released August 12, 2026, put three other networks ahead of it: IONNA at 807 out of 1,000, Mercedes-Benz Charging Network at 797, and Rivian Adventure Network at 755. Tesla scored 701, down slightly from 709 a year earlier, and landed in fourth place. The study is based on 6,594 battery-electric and plug-in hybrid owners surveyed from January through June 2026, in its sixth year of measuring the public charging experience.
If you charge at home, public fast charging is probably not something you think about often. But this result is worth five minutes of attention, because it says something concrete about who runs a good charging stop now, and because the study's other big finding, a decline in public Level 2 satisfaction, bears directly on the home-versus-public tradeoff.
What actually changed
DC fast charging satisfaction overall climbed 12 points year over year to 666, with gains across all 10 factors J.D. Power tracks. The biggest jumps came in charger availability (up 27 points), how safe drivers feel at a location (up 18), and cost of charging (up 18). The share of visits where a driver could not get a charge at all, J.D. Power's failed-visit rate, fell to 12%, down from 14% a year ago and the lowest the study has recorded.
Tesla's Supercharger network is not getting worse in absolute terms; its score barely moved. What changed is that three newer or newly expanded networks caught up and passed it.
| Network | 2026 satisfaction score (1,000-point scale) | Notable |
|---|
| IONNA | 807 | First year eligible for ranking; automaker joint venture |
| Mercedes-Benz Charging Network | 797 | First year eligible; open to all EVs, not just Mercedes owners |
| Rivian Adventure Network | 755 | First year eligible; over 90% of stalls now open to non-Rivian EVs |
| Tesla Supercharger | 701 | Down from 709 a year ago; still the largest network by far |
Who these networks actually are
IONNA is a joint venture originally founded in 2023 by seven automakers, BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis, with Toyota joining as an eighth investor and founding partner in mid-2024. It began operating in North America in February 2024 and opened its first "Rechargery" site later that year. As of August 2026 it runs roughly 150 stations and 1,375 charging ports, small next to Tesla's network but growing: the venture has committed to at least 30,000 charging points across North America by 2030. Every Rechargery offers both CCS1 and NACS connectors at every stall, so it works for Tesla and non-Tesla vehicles without an adapter, and it is open to the public: no membership or brand loyalty required, with payment by credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Plug and Charge, or any of a long list of manufacturer and third-party apps. Sites tend to include amenities like canopies, restrooms, and food, which likely helps its satisfaction score along with raw charging performance.
Mercedes-Benz Charging Network is similarly open to any EV, not just Mercedes owners, with CCS1 and NACS connectors at every stall. It is smaller than IONNA today but has publicly committed to more than 400 hubs and 2,500-plus high-power chargers across the U.S. and Canada, with completion targeted for 2027; individual hubs typically offer 4 to 12 chargers rated up to 400 kW.
Rivian Adventure Network started as a Rivian-only network but has been opening its stalls to other EVs since late 2024. As of 2026, more than 90% of its roughly 973 stalls are available to non-Rivian vehicles. The stalls use CCS1 connectors, with NACS-vehicle support via an automaker-approved adapter.
None of these three come close to Tesla's total footprint. What the J.D. Power numbers say is not that these networks are bigger or more available; it is that when a driver actually plugs in, more of them come away satisfied than at a Supercharger. That is a real shift and worth knowing before your next road trip, but it is not the same claim as "these networks are now the safer bet everywhere," since coverage is still much thinner than Tesla's.
The finding that matters more if you charge at home
Buried under the DC fast charging headline is a worse number for public Level 2 (the same speed of charging most people install in their garage): satisfaction dropped 12 points to 595, driven mainly by lower scores for ease of payment and ease of charging. That is the opposite direction from DC fast charging, which improved across the board.
This lines up with something we have written about before: public charging reliability has been improving on uptime measures, but uptime and a genuinely smooth charging experience are not the same thing. J.D. Power's satisfaction data adds a second, independent signal pointing the same direction for Level 2 specifically. A public Level 2 charger at a shopping center or a workplace being merely "up" does not mean the payment terminal works or the session starts cleanly on the first try, and drivers are telling J.D. Power that experience got worse this year, not better.
For anyone weighing whether they need home charging at all, or whether they could get by on public Level 2 near work or at a nearby retail lot, this is a data point against relying on that plan. The box on your own wall does not have a payment terminal that can fail, does not depend on someone else's app, and does not compete with other drivers for the plug. If your daily charging currently depends on public Level 2, it is worth reading our comparison of Level 1, Level 2, and DC fast charging to see what a home installation would actually change for your routine.
What to do with this if you road-trip
Any CCS1-equipped EV already works at all three networks without an adapter, since CCS1 is the connector all three share, not NACS. If your car has a NACS port instead, IONNA and Mercedes-Benz Charging Network both offer native NACS connectors alongside CCS1, so no adapter is needed there either; Rivian Adventure Network is CCS1-only, so a NACS-port car needs a CCS1 adapter to use it. See our rundown of what connector standardization means in practice if you are not sure which adapter situation applies to your car. Before your next long drive, it is worth checking whether an IONNA, Mercedes-Benz, or Rivian site sits along your route the same way you would already check a Supercharger location, rather than defaulting to Tesla out of habit. None of these networks has Tesla's national density yet, so route planning still matters more than it would with Superchargers alone; check current site locations and real-time status in the network's own app or an aggregator like PlugShare before you commit to a stop, especially in less-traveled areas.
The honest caveat
A satisfaction score is not a reliability index. J.D. Power surveys the drivers who actually visited and remembers their experience of payment, safety, cost, and availability; it is not the same measurement as the uptime-percentage or first-time-charge-success trackers we have covered elsewhere, and a newer network with fewer, newer stations can score well partly because its hardware has not aged into the failure modes that show up on a five-year-old cabinet. IONNA scoring well in its first eligible year is a genuinely good sign, not a guarantee it holds that position as it scales toward 30,000 charging points. Treat this as a snapshot of August 2026, not a verdict on which network will still lead once size and asset age are more comparable.
Last factually verified: August 20, 2026, against J.D. Power's 2026 U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience Public Charging Study press materials as reported by InsideEVs, Electrek, GoodCarBadCar, and DriveTeslaCanada (all citing the August 12, 2026 release, the 6,594-respondent sample fielded January through June 2026, and the 807/797/755/701 network scores), IONNA's own site and news releases for network size, connector types, payment access, and its 2030 buildout commitment, GM Authority's and Stellantis Media's reporting on Toyota joining IONNA's seven founding automakers in mid-2024, Mercedes-Benz USA's press materials and InsideEVs' reporting on the Alpitronic Hypercharger 400's 400 kW rating and Mercedes-Benz Charging Network's open-access policy and hub buildout targets, and EV Charging Stations' (Tom Moloughney) reporting on Rivian Adventure Network's non-Rivian access share and stall count. Web access to jdpower.com, ionna.com, and mbusa.com directly was unavailable this session, so the figures above were triangulated across multiple independent trade-press outlets citing the same underlying releases rather than confirmed on each company's own page; the figures agree closely across sources. Network size and access figures change as these buildouts continue; confirm current coverage in each network's own app before a trip. evcharginghelp.com is editorially independent and receives no compensation from any company mentioned.