One of six public charging stations installed at Grand Canyon National Park in August 2019, donated through a National Park Foundation partnership with BMW of North America. Credit: Michael Quinn / National Park Service The HERE-SBD EV Index finds positive American perceptions of charging infrastructure rose from 28% to 47% in a year, and 60% now expect it to keep improving, even as US battery-electric market share fell to 5.37%. HERE is headquartered in Amsterdam and was bought from Nokia by Audi, BMW and Daimler in 2015. More Americans say they are open to an electric car than a year ago, InsideEVs reported, even as US battery-electric market share fell to 5.37% after the federal tax credit ended.
The finding comes from the HERE-SBD EV Index, built on charge point data and a survey of more than 4,000 drivers. Charging is what moved. Positive perceptions of charging infrastructure rose from 28% to 47% in a year, HERE said, and 60% of drivers now expect it to keep improving. More than half, 53%, say they are more open to an electric car than they were a year ago. “Consumer sentiment often leads purchasing behavior,” said Robert Fisher, senior consulting manager at SBD Automotive.
Fuel prices came second, named by 57%. Among people who already drive an electric car, 79% name fuel costs. The hardware behind the sentiment is countable. America added 31,600 public charge points, around 13% growth, and total charging power rose 47%, from 14.1 GW to 20.7 GW.
That second number is the one worth stopping on. HERE is not an American company. It is headquartered in Amsterdam, and Audi, BMW and Daimler bought it from Nokia for $3B in 2015, before Intel and Continental took stakes. SBD Automotive, its partner on the index, is British.
One of the four things the index scores is average charger power. Which is how Europe already does it. The alternative fuels regulation sets national targets in kilowatts of publicly accessible capacity rather than in plugs, a distinction TNW has written about as kilowatts, not plugs. The index is not an American study either.
It covers 30 European countries, 34 Indian states and territories and eight Australian ones, alongside the 50 states. In the previous edition Europe added 245,000 public charge points in a year, a 27% rise, against 37,000 in the United States. The 2026 European results were published alongside the American ones and went unreported. One figure needs care.
HERE reports 12% of drivers seeing no barriers to adoption, up from 6%, which is not the same claim as 12% wanting an electric car whatever it costs. The gap the index is measuring is wide and getting wider. European EV share hit 25% in July, against the 5.37% America is arguing about.
