More EVs than ever are on the road in the U.S., with a surge in sales over the last five years. The number of public EV charging ports in the U.S. has grown more than 6-fold over the last decade, from about 30,000 in 2016 to nearly 196,000 in January 2025.

Most of the charging infrastructure for the growing number of EVs is through private at-home chargers. But public charging infrastructure helps make EV ownership more broadly accessible, while also making long-distance zero-emissions travel possible.

This brief examines the growth and distribution of public charging infrastructure in the U.S. over the past decade (2016-2025), including along popular road trip routes.