The technology for charging a car quickly is solved. Modern vehicles accept enough power to add substantial range in the time it takes to buy a coffee. What is not solved is where the chargers go and who pays.
The grid connection bottleneck
A bank of fast chargers is a large electrical load. Connecting one to the network often requires upgrading local infrastructure, and the queue for that work is measured in years in many places.
This is the single largest cause of delay and it is invisible in coverage, which focuses on charger counts rather than connection applications.
The economics of location
Chargers are profitable where utilisation is high. Utilisation is high where there are many electric vehicles. Vehicle adoption is higher where charging exists.
That loop means chargers appear first where adoption is already strong and last where it is weakest, which widens the gap rather than closing it.
Breaking the loop requires subsidy or mandate, and both are politically contested.
The kerbside gap
Households without off-street parking are the largest underserved group by a wide margin. They need charging where they park overnight, which means the street.
Approaches exist – lamp-post units, pop-up bollards, cables under pavement channels. All are in limited deployment and none has scaled.
Reliability, which is underrated
A charger that exists and does not work is worse than no charger, because the driver planned around it. Reliability rates on some networks have been poor enough to be the main complaint from actual owners.
What actually helps
Simplifying grid connection. Requiring chargers in new developments, which costs almost nothing at construction. And enforcing uptime standards, which nobody does.