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Check-in Summaries: What 8 Million Drivers Built Together

El Segundo | July 1, 2026

You may notice a new feature when you pull up a location on PlugShare: check-in summaries. For over 15 years, millions of PlugShare users have been leaving reviews at charging stations to help their fellow drivers. We've been collecting these reviews and now we're finding new ways to share this vast amount of helpful information with you. We know you're busy. So rather than scroll through a slew of reviews, we're summarizing the most recent and pertinent information to give you a quicker sense of the charging stations you're considering.

The only reason we can do something like this is because we have so much community support in the form of your check-ins. We're grateful for our community, and we designed our check-in summaries to encourage continued engagement (which we'll explain below).

The Problem: Too Much Signal, Not Enough Summary

Since 2010, we've had a total of 10.3 million check-ins on PlugShare. Our oldest written review is from September 2010 (before Instagram even launched!). The insights from these check-ins are invaluable – containing information on wait times, working status, connector issues, payment quirks, nearby amenities, etc. – but some of this information might be buried under countless other check-ins (some of our locations have over 10,000 check-ins!). While our reviews contain a wealth of information, for some people it can feel like information overload. Our summaries simply bring your most helpful contributions to the surface. Furthermore, our check-in summaries will continuously evolve with the help of your real-time reviews.

What We Built: How the Summaries Work

We engineered our check-in summaries to be more than an automated summary of information. Our summaries are a dynamic, synthesized digest of the most recent community check-ins. These summaries update when enough newly written check-ins accumulate, adding recency and depth. Charging stations need a minimum number of reviews to qualify for a summary. These summaries will not replace your check-ins and reviews, which will still be publicly visible. The summaries are there to help you digest at a glance. Currently, more than 10,000 U.S. locations have check-in summaries, which are now being continuously updated based on your reviews.

What the Data Shows: Trends from PlugShare's Check-ins

While designing our check-in summaries, we investigated what drivers mention the most in their reviews. We wondered if we'd find anything surprising across more than 10,000 stations with active summaries, and our findings were both illuminating and reaffirming of what many EV drivers experience. The most common thing drivers wish they'd known about locations besides charging was whether there were nearby amenities:

  • 35% of our location summaries mention things like restrooms, food, and windshield supplies.
  • 17% of locations flag wait times or crowding as a recurring issue.
  • 14% of locations highlight payment friction (e.g., broken card readers that force drivers to use the app or RFID card).
  • 12% of locations flag "notably expensive" pricing, while 8% are praised as "competitively priced."
  • 11% of summaries mention safety or lighting conditions.

The findings on reliability are a bit nuanced. 81% of locations are described as generally "reliable" – which doesn't mean "frictionless" – but rather, drivers were eventually able to start a charge:

  • 47% of locations (including many of the "reliable" locations) mention at least one individual charger that frequently fails or goes offline.
  • 14% of all summaries describe slower charging speeds than expected (with half of these including specific details about actual vs. expected output or reduced power through load-sharing).

Encouragingly, many locations include instructions from our community to help people work around charger issues. We frequently read things like "use the app instead," "try the left charger," or "call support before you arrive." This type of community knowledge is exactly the type of information we wanted to highlight in our summaries.

5% of locations show issues with etiquette (e.g., ICEing, vehicles more frequently left plugged-in after charging, vehicles occupying spots without app check-ins, or informal queue systems). This is a small percentage, but the check-in narrative around it is unusually rich.

For the EV Industry

Our check-in dataset is one of the most detailed, unbiased, and comprehensive real-world records of EV charging behavior available. Our dataset captures what drivers actually seek and experience across different regions, hardware types, and time periods. For CPOs and industry stakeholders interested in using our community-reported data to improve your offerings, please reach out. Our goal is to amplify our community voices across the EV industry so CPOs can deliver what EV drivers actually want.

Why Check-ins Still Matter

While the purpose of our check-in summaries is to make it easier for drivers to choose a charging station, the engine that creates these summaries is our community. Every location page on PlugShare is a conversation between the people who have been there before and the people who are on their way. The more recent our check-ins, the more useful our check-in summaries become. When our check-in summaries become more useful, the next driver will make a better decision, which will hopefully inspire them to leave a check-in, too. It only takes 30 seconds, and it might be the most useful thing our community can do for another driver today. Thank you again to our community for leaving so many check-ins. We're grateful – and we hope our check-in summaries are helpful.

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