(Photo by Ernest Ojeh on Unsplash.)

J.D. Power, a data analytics and consumer intelligence firm, announced that its EV Index, an analytics tool to track the growing electric vehicle (EV) market in the United States, has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help establish benchmarks and monitor ongoing development of EV infrastructure nationwide.

The tool is meant to deliver detailed data on EV infrastructure development and consumer experience with public charging networks at the ZIP code level across the country, and it will be used to provide information on regional trends in infrastructure growth and potential barriers to widespread consumer adoption.

“Universally accessible, equitable, and reliable EV charging infrastructure is a cornerstone to widespread consumer adoption of EVs,” said Michael Berube, deputy assistant secretary for sustainable transportation and fuels in DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, in a press release from Argonne National Laboratory. ?“It is critical that we consistently evaluate detailed trends in the availability of public chargers, specific obstacles consumers face with the existing charging network, and regional variations in consumer demand to ensure resilient grid infrastructure, provide adequate EV charging capacity and coverage, and support access to EVs by all Americans.”

The J.D. Power EV Index tracks millions of data points aggregated into six categories—interest, availability, adoption, affordability, infrastructure and experience—to evaluate the progress to parity of EVs with internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in the U.S. Updated monthly, the EV Index has consistently found that lack of public charging infrastructure has been the top consumer barrier to EV adoption. Additionally, the EV Index illustrates widespread variation in availability and accessibility of charging infrastructure in different parts of the country.

DOE research using the J.D. Power EV Index will be led by Argonne National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary science and engineering research center managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.