Tesla's Supercharger network has lost the top spot in J.D. Power's US public-charging study for the first time in six years, and the reason is not reliability or coverage. It is what charging costs.
In the 2026 U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) Public Charging Study, Tesla scored 701 points out of 1,000 among DC fast-charging networks — down from 709 a year earlier, and enough to drop it from first to fourth after five consecutive years at number one.
The 2026 DC fast-charging ranking
| Rank | Network | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | IONNA | 807 |
| 2 | Mercedes-Benz Charging Network | 797 |
| 3 | Rivian Adventure Network | 755 |
| 4 | Tesla Superchargers | 701 |
| — | Segment average | 666 |
IONNA took first place in its first year of award eligibility, and the gap is not narrow: 106 points separate it from Tesla. The study drew on responses from 6,594 battery-electric and plug-in hybrid owners collected between January and June 2026.
Tesla did not get worse. The measure did
The headline reads like a collapse, but the underlying numbers describe a rising tide. Satisfaction with DC fast charging climbed 12 points year-on-year to a record 666, and all ten categories J.D. Power measures improved. Charger availability gained 27 points; location safety and charging cost each gained 18. Failed charging visits fell to 12% of sessions from 14%.
Tesla's eight-point slide happened against that backdrop, which is why fourth place is worse than the raw drop suggests. Rivals built out amenity-rich, reliable sites and closed the gap Tesla spent a decade opening, while Tesla's own score edged down.
J.D. Power attributes Tesla's decline specifically to payment and cost factors. DC fast-charging prices have risen, and at Superchargers a non-Tesla EV pays slightly more per kWh than a Tesla does. A network that opens to every brand inherits every brand's opinion of its pricing — including from drivers who never bought the pricing model along with the car.
What this means for European owners
This is a US study, with US networks and US prices, so the ranking itself does not transfer. IONNA does not operate in Europe. The mechanism, though, is already running here.
Tesla has been opening Superchargers to other brands across Europe throughout 2026, most recently across its Polish network with published non-Tesla rates. That is the same shift that reshaped Tesla's US scores: a larger, more mixed customer base rating the network on price rather than on gratitude for it existing.
European competition is sharpening at the same time. Ionity's new 12-bay Greenwich hub is one of a wave of urban ultra-rapid sites, and Fastned's charging margin reached 88% in H1 2026 — a rival with the headroom to compete on price when it chooses to.
The honest read
Tesla still has the density and the reliability that made the Supercharger network the reason many people bought the car. What it no longer has is an unchallenged claim to being the best network to use, and the thing that cost it that claim is the per-kWh price on the screen. For owners, that is not bad news at all: cost is the one ranking factor that improves when someone else wins.