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; about 97% of sites 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. By its March 2026 second-anniversary release it had more than 100 sites live and nearly 1,000 charging bays energized, with more than 4,700 bays contracted nationwide; that is small next to Tesla's network but growing, and the venture has stated a goal of 30,000 charging points 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 announced a plan for more than 400 hubs and 2,500-plus high-power chargers across North America; individual hubs typically offer 4 to 12 chargers. Check the network's own app for how many are open today.
Rivian Adventure Network started as a Rivian-only network but has been opening its stalls to other EVs since late 2024. As of July 2026, about 151 of its 156 sites (roughly 97%) were open to non-Rivian vehicles, and the network had passed 1,000 stalls (1,073 at 155 sites in Rivian's second-quarter figures). Most stalls use CCS1 connectors, but Rivian has been adding native NACS connectors since July 2025: about 267 stalls (roughly a quarter) were NACS as of July 31, 2026.
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. 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 still mostly CCS1, with NACS connectors at a growing minority of stalls, so check the connector type at the specific site and carry a CCS1 adapter if you drive a NACS-port car. 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 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 the study's August 2026 release, not a verdict on which network will still lead once size and asset age are more comparable.
Last factually verified: October 19, 2026, against J.D. Power's 2026 U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience Public Charging Study as reported by DriveTeslaCanada and other trade press (6,594-respondent sample fielded January through June 2026; 807/797/755/701 network scores; segment average 666; failed-visit rate 12%; public Level 2 score 595), IONNA's March 2026 second-anniversary release for site and bay counts, Mercedes-Benz's announced hub buildout plan, and EV Charging Stations' Q2 2026 Rivian Adventure Network report (stall count, open-access share, and NACS stalls as of July 31, 2026). The J.D. Power study page and some company pages were not directly readable in this check, so some figures rest on trade-press reports of the same releases; one outlet reported IONNA's score as 803 against 807 in the others. 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.