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Bridging the Gap: Why Charging Station Data underpins the EV Experience

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The Data Quality Report 2026: Introduction

The global transition to sustainable mobility is a complex undertaking that relies on more than just the expansion of physical infrastructure. It requires a seamless digital experience that mirrors physical reality. As EV sales continue to accelerate, reliable, accurate charging station data has become increasingly important in furthering consumer trust.

To better understand these challenges, Eco-Movement collaborated with SBD Automotive, a global leader in automotive technology research and consulting, to publish the Data Quality Report 2026. SBD Automotive brings decades of expertise in analyzing the strategic needs of the automotive industry and conducting in-depth consumer research, providing a critical lens through which we can evaluate the real-world impact of charging station data.

The Strategic Impact of Trust Erosion 

SBD Automotive’s research consistently demonstrates that consumer experiences related to charging remain the most significant source of friction in the EV ownership journey. Concerns regarding range, charger availability, and reliability dominate both pre-purchase anxiety and ownership pain points.

Crucially, SBD’s findings indicate that drivers do not view data errors—such as an “available” charger being offline—as isolated technical glitches. Instead, they are experienced as systemic failures of the charging infrastructure itself. This erosion of trust has a direct consequence. Drivers who struggle to access functional chargers are significantly more likely to revert to hybrid vehicles for their next purchase rather than a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV).

To better understand the role of data accuracy in mitigating trust erosion, Eco-Movement’s performance benchmarks in this first Data Quality Report serve to understand what the current issues are with widely used datasets. It also shows where Eco-Movement’s platform helps.

2026 Performance Benchmarks 

The 2026 report establishes a benchmark by evaluating Eco-Movement’s verified dataset against leading European datasets used. The findings highlight the critical importance of a specialized POI data source:

  • Coverage and Visibility: Eco-Movement’s dataset contains 24% more EVSEs on average than the benchmarked datasets, with gaps as high as 84% in mature markets like Norway. This discrepancy often stems from large networks being entirely absent in the benchmarked datasets, effectively making them “invisible” to drivers using native vehicle systems.
  • Geospatial Precision: Accuracy is inseparable from perceived reliability. Approximately 10% of locations in the report required manual coordinate correction. Of these interventions, 60% involved locations misplaced by over 10 meters in other datasets – a distance that can render a charger inaccessible in dense urban environments.
  • Technical Integrity: We identified systemic errors in AC 3-Phase power calculations in benchmarked datasets, leading to overstated capacity for over 45,000 EVSEs. Such errors disrupt the charging experience and damage consumer expectations.
  • Currency and Latency: Real-time availability is essential for reliable route planning. Eco-Movement’s low-latency pipeline processes 80 million raw status updates daily with an internal processing time of approximately 5 milliseconds. Independent testing by an OEM partner confirmed that while other data flows took multiple minutes to propagate, Eco-Movement updates appeared in the vehicle interface within seconds.

The Path Forward: Empowerment through Expertise

Eco-Movement and SBD Automotive believe that high-quality data is the primary tool for growing the adoption of EV. By utilizing Eco-Movement’s proprietary governance framework – which combines automated validation, machine learning, and manual verification by specialized data teams – we empower our partners to provide a predictable, high-quality user experience.

For automotive OEMs, this data integrity creates “stickiness,” encouraging drivers to rely on native navigation and digital interfaces rather than third-party platforms. Ultimately, this strengthens brand perception and ensures that charging becomes a managed, confidence-building interaction rather than a source of uncertainty.

Read more in the full report which you can receive by filling in your details above.