Charging infrastructure is generally discussed in terms of how many units exist. Having driven a reasonable distance on public charging, the number that matters is how many work when you arrive.
The failure modes
From my own experience and from what other drivers describe, they cluster.
Out of service entirely, sometimes with a notice on the unit and frequently reported in an application only after somebody has been.
Working at a fraction of the rated speed, which is common and which is the most frustrating because it is not a failure you can see until you have started.
Payment failure, where the unit works and will not accept the card or the application.
Occupied by a vehicle that has finished charging, which is a behavioural problem rather than a technical one and is extremely common at popular locations.
And blocked by a vehicle that is not charging at all, which is a persistent irritation with no technical solution.
Why reliability has been poor
Worth understanding rather than assuming negligence.
These are outdoor unattended machines handling high power, exposed to weather, physical damage and heavy use.
Many were installed under grant schemes that funded installation and not maintenance, which produced a large number of units with no economic case for anybody to repair them.
Fault reporting has historically been poor, so operators frequently did not know a unit had failed until somebody complained.
And the payment layer involves several parties, so a failure can sit with any of them.
Several jurisdictions have introduced reliability requirements with reporting obligations, which has improved matters measurably where it applies.
What I actually do now
Check recent user reports before relying on a location, in one of the crowd-sourced applications. A unit with successful check-ins in the last day is a reasonable bet; one with no recent activity is a risk.
Plan to arrive with enough charge to reach an alternative. This is the single most important habit and it removes most of the anxiety.
Prefer larger sites with several units over single chargers, because the probability of all of them failing is much lower.
Carry more than one payment method and at least one network card, since payment is a common failure point.
And avoid depending on a charger at the end of a long leg, which is where a failure becomes a genuine problem rather than an inconvenience.
The speed you actually get
A related point that affects planning more than reliability does.
A charger's rated output is a maximum. What you receive depends on the vehicle's maximum acceptance rate, the battery's state of charge, and the battery temperature.
Charging slows substantially as the battery fills, typically dropping sharply above about eighty percent, which is why charging to full at a rapid unit is a poor use of time.
Cold batteries accept charge much more slowly, which is why preconditioning before arrival makes a large difference in winter and why cars that do it automatically when navigating to a charger have a real advantage.
And a shared unit splits its output between two vehicles, so arriving second at a busy site can halve your rate.
The etiquette that would help
Since a meaningful share of the problem is behavioural.
Move when charging is complete, particularly at rapid units, where a vehicle sitting at ninety-five percent is occupying a scarce resource to gain very little.
Do not park in charging bays without charging.
Report faults, which takes a minute and is how operators find out.
And leave cables tidy, which sounds trivial and prevents both damage and the next person having to handle something that has been on wet ground.
What is improving
To end fairly.
Contactless payment requirements have removed the multiple-application problem on newer units in several jurisdictions.
Reliability reporting requirements have made operators accountable for uptime.
Newer installations tend to be larger sites with multiple units, which is more robust than scattered single chargers.
And vehicle navigation systems increasingly route via chargers and precondition automatically, which removes a significant part of the planning burden.
The situation is meaningfully better than it was three years ago, and it remains the main practical constraint for anybody without home charging.
The home charger comparison
Worth restating since it frames everything above.
Somebody charging at home encounters none of this. The unit is theirs, it works, and the car is full each morning.
Every problem described here is a problem specific to people who cannot charge where they park, which is a large share of households in dense housing.
Which means public charging reliability is not a general inconvenience but a specific barrier falling on a specific group, and improving it matters more for adoption than adding range to vehicles.
Planning tools
Worth naming the categories since they differ in usefulness.
Built-in vehicle navigation that routes via chargers and accounts for state of charge is the most convenient and is generally conservative in its estimates.
Third-party route planners allow more control, including preferred networks and minimum charge on arrival, and generally have better data on individual units.
Crowd-sourced check-in applications are the most current source on whether a specific unit is working today, which no official database reliably provides.
Using all three for an unfamiliar long journey takes ten minutes and removes most of the risk.