On this page
- 01 Why a broken charger costs more than it did two years ago
- 02 What the law requires for EV charger uptime
- 03 What the station tells the platform
- 04 When a station goes down: what to do, in order
- 05 Handling downtime on ELVO
- 06 Frequently asked questions
- 07 Read next and resources
- 08 See what your station reports
Use this article if you own a site with charging stations and one of them has stopped working. Use it if you are the installer who gets that call, or if you run public stations whose status drivers see in their apps.
EV charger uptime is the share of time a station is available, charging or reserved. A station that is down costs you the sessions you do not sell and the driver who marks your site as unreliable. It often costs a visit that a restart would have saved. The platform your stations report to usually shows the fault first.
A building manager we know had stations that only spoke to a phone app at the socket. Every card, every fault, every restart meant walking to the station. The manager’s words: these chargers were giving me grey hair. Once the stations were on a platform, the manager saw each problem from a desk and fixed many of them there. A 30-day free trial of ELVO shows you what your stations report.
Why a broken charger costs more than it did two years ago
Two years ago a station that did not work bothered few people, because few people used it. Many were installed for the image, with one or two cars charging a month. That has changed. Battery-electric cars took 20.7% of new car registrations in the European Union in the first half of 2026, up from 15.6% a year earlier. For the whole of 2025 the share was 17.4%. Plug-in hybrids added 9.8% in the first half of 2026.
Each public point serves more cars than it did. The International Energy Agency counts one public charging point for every 13 electric cars in the European Union, and the ratio fell by more than 10% between 2023 and 2024. More cars share each point than two years ago, so a dead station sends drivers further. The driver remembers the site, not the brand on the station.
Drivers rate reliability first. In the most established UK driver survey, with more than 3,976 battery-electric drivers in autumn 2025, reliability was the key consideration. Drivers also rated ease of use, support, value for money and payment options. Overall satisfaction with the public network rose from 64% to 69% in a year, and reliability scores rose with it.
Your status is public now. At publicly accessible points in the European Union, the operational status and availability of each point have to be published and updated within one minute of a change. The data reaches driver apps through your country’s national access point, the data hub each member state runs for this purpose. A hotel or supermarket car park counts as publicly accessible when customers can drive in, whatever the ownership. About 20% of public chargers in Europe are of that kind. When your station goes down, your feed changes on that clock, and the apps that read it follow on their own schedule.
What the law requires for EV charger uptime
The European regulation does not set an uptime percentage. It sets the conditions that make uptime visible. The UK has gone further and put a number in law. The two are easy to confuse, so the table puts them side by side.
| Rule | Who it applies to | What it asks | Since when |
|---|---|---|---|
| European alternative fuels regulation | Publicly accessible points, in every member state | The point is digitally connected: it sends and receives information in real time, can be monitored and controlled remotely, and can be started and stopped from the platform | 14 October 2024 |
| European implementing regulation on data | Publicly accessible points, in every member state | Operational status, availability and the ad hoc price, the price for a driver with no account, are published as open data and updated within one minute of a change | 14 April 2025 |
| UK Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 | Networks of rapid public points, 50 kW and above, of one operator in the UK | Reliable for 99% of the time on average per calendar year, with compliance published on the operator’s website, and an annual report with the time each point spent in each status, the first one for 2025 due by 14 January 2026 | 24 November 2024 |
| UK Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 | All public points in the UK | Status data updated within 30 seconds of a change and published free in a machine-readable form; a free staffed helpline 24 hours a day, with the number displayed at the station | 24 November 2024, the helpline since 24 November 2023 |
The UK rule defines the count precisely, and the definition is useful anywhere. A point counts as working when its status is available, charging or reserved. It counts as not working when the status is inoperative or out of order. Unknown and blocked are left out of the measurement. Workplace points are outside the UK definition of public, and points in a public car park are inside it even when the car park is only for customers.
Elsewhere in Europe the regulation gives no percentage to meet. The drivers count for you, through the data you publish, from the minute the station goes down. Grant programmes and public tenders often add an uptime clause of their own. That clause is a contract term, not a law, so read it in your contract.
What the station tells the platform
Every station that speaks the open charging protocol, OCPP, reports a status for each connector, and the platform shows it. The statuses, by name, are Available, Preparing, Charging, SuspendedEV, SuspendedEVSE, Finishing and Reserved on the working side, and Unavailable and Faulted on the other. Suspended means the car or the station has paused the session, which is normal, not a fault. Platforms show these under their own labels, such as in use or error, but the station sends the names above.
An offline station and a faulted one need different first moves. A faulted station is connected and tells you what is wrong. An offline station has stopped sending messages, so the platform knows only that the connection dropped. Power and the data connection are the first suspects, in that order.
A faulted station sends an error code with the status. The protocol defines sixteen. One of them, NoError, means nothing is wrong. The other fifteen sort into three piles by what you do next.
| Error codes | What they usually mean | What you do next |
|---|---|---|
| InternalError, OtherError | Something inside the station has got stuck, in its software or in a part it cannot name | Restart from the platform first |
| EVCommunicationError, HighTemperature, OverVoltage, UnderVoltage, WeakSignal, GroundFailure, OverCurrentFailure, LocalListConflict | The car did not answer, the station is too hot, the mains voltage is out of range, the mobile signal is poor, a protection has tripped, or the stored card list is out of step with the platform | Check the cause before you send anyone |
| ConnectorLockFailure, PowerMeterFailure, PowerSwitchFailure, ReaderFailure, ResetFailure | The connector lock, the meter, the contactor that closes the circuit or the card reader has failed, or the station cannot restart itself | Send a technician with that part: the lock, the meter, the contactor or the card reader |
The code saves the second visit. A technician who arrives knowing the station reports PowerMeterFailure brings a meter. One who arrives knowing only that it is broken diagnoses on site and comes back.
Why does the station work again after a restart if nothing was repaired?
Because most faults in the first pile are software faults inside the station. A restart clears the stuck state, the station reconnects, and it reports Available again. If the same code comes back within days, the restart was hiding a fault from the third pile, and the station needs a visit. A tripped protection from the second pile that trips again is the same story.
When a station goes down: what to do, in order
Eight steps, most of them at a desk. Do them in this order, because each one rules out the cheaper cause before you pay for the next.
- Open the platform before you drive anywhere and read whether the station is offline, faulted or unavailable. Each of the three has a different first move.
- If it is offline, check the power supply and the data connection first. A tripped breaker or a mobile data subscription that lapsed looks the same as a dead station.
- If it is faulted, write down the error code and what the last session did. The code sorts the fault into one of the three piles.
- If it is faulted, send a soft reset, then a hard reset, from the platform. An offline station cannot receive either, so for it you wait for power and data to come back. If the soft reset does not bring a faulted station back, the hard one reboots it.
- If a cable is stuck in the station socket, unlock the connector from the platform. A cable stuck at the car end is released by the car. ConnectorLockFailure after the unlock means the lock itself has failed.
- If the fault survives the restart, stop restarting and book the visit. The station keeps reporting Faulted, which is the status that keeps drivers away, and repeated restarts hide the pattern from the technician.
- Send the technician the model, the code and what you tried, not a message that says it is broken. The technician then arrives with the right part.
- When it is back, note the cause and the part in your maintenance record. The platform log already keeps the time of every status change, and a spreadsheet is enough for the rest. In the UK, operators of rapid networks report time per status once a year. Everywhere, the record tells you which station to replace.
Handling downtime on ELVO
The platform shows the status the station reports and lets you act on it from the same screen. Each situation looks like this on ELVO.
If a station drops offline, you see it in the station list. Nothing in the platform can say why the connection dropped, so the power and data checks come first.
If a station is connected but faulted, you see the status and the error code the station sent. The error log lists every fault by station, connector and code, so you know which pile it falls into before you call anyone. You restart the station from the dashboard, and ELVO sends the restart to any station that speaks the protocol, so the same button works across brands.
If a driver’s cable is stuck in the station socket, you unlock the connector from the platform. Drivers do not have to wait for someone with a key.
If the fault is in the station’s software, you update the firmware, the station’s own software, from the dashboard. You also change settings such as access rules and pricing without a visit.
If you run several sites with several brands of station, one list shows every station with the same statuses, whatever the brand. You fix up to 9 out of 10 problems remotely without sending technicians on site.
ELVO is compatible with 700+ charger models and holds an Open Charge Alliance certificate, Full and Security, registered as OCA.0016.1071.CSMS in June 2025.
Frequently asked questions
What is EV charger uptime?
The share of time a charging station is available, charging or reserved. Time spent faulted or switched off counts against it. The UK rule for networks of rapid public points, 50 kW and above, measures it per calendar year and asks for 99% on average. Outside the UK no European regulation sets a percentage.
Does European law require a minimum uptime for EV chargers?
The European regulation sets no percentage. It requires publicly accessible points to be digitally connected since 14 October 2024. Since 14 April 2025 their operational status and availability have to be published within one minute of a change. The UK sets 99% a year for networks of rapid public points of 50 kW and above.
What is the difference between an offline charger and a faulted one?
An offline station has stopped talking to the platform, so the platform knows the connection dropped and nothing more. Power and the data connection are the first suspects. A faulted station is connected and reports an error code, which tells you whether a restart, a supply check or a visit with a part comes next.
Can a broken charging station be fixed remotely?
Many can be. The platform can restart the station, unlock a stuck connector, update firmware and change settings over the connection. Faults in the connector lock, the meter, the power switch or the card reader need a visit, but the error code tells the technician what to bring.
What should I tell the technician when a station fails?
The station model, the status the platform shows, the error code, the time it started, and what you already tried. That turns a visit into one visit with the right part instead of a diagnosis trip followed by a repair trip.
How do drivers find out that a charger is broken?
At publicly accessible points, the status and availability you publish under the European regulation reach driver apps through your country’s national access point. Your feed has to change within a minute, and the apps that read it follow on their own schedule. A station that is faulted or offline shows as unavailable in those apps.
Read next and resources
Read next: What OCPP is and what it gives you explains the protocol behind these statuses. Starting an EV charging business covers which sites count as publicly accessible.
Sources:
- Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure, consolidated text
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/655 on the format, frequency and quality of the data
- The Public Charge Point Regulations 2023, UK Statutory Instrument 2023 No. 1168
- Zapmap, EV charging network rankings 2025
- ACEA, new car registrations, first half of 2026
- ACEA, new car registrations, full year 2025
- International Energy Agency, Global EV Outlook 2025, electric vehicle charging
- Open Charge Alliance, Open Charge Point Protocol
See what your station reports
The first restart you send from a desk saves you a trip. Start a 30-day free trial, with no sales call and no commitment, connect the station that gives you trouble, and read what it reports.
ELVO Team. We operate CPMS for manufacturers, distributors, installers, and operators across Europe and beyond.
Published 18 September 2026.