The automaker-backed charging network that nobody outside the industry was talking about a year ago just beat Tesla’s Supercharger in customer satisfaction. That’s the headline out of this year’s JD Power EV charging study, and it belongs to IONNA.
IONNA, the joint venture founded by BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and Toyota, earned a score of 807 out of 1,000 in the 2026 JD Power U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience Public Charging Study. The Mercedes-Benz Charging Network placed second at 797, the Rivian Adventure Network came in third at 755, and Tesla’s Supercharger network ranked fourth. IONNA achieved this in its first year of study eligibility, which means the network has gone from startup to category leader without a single full year on the books.
At the same time, IONNA has more than doubled its physical footprint. The network started 2026 with 80 live sites and has now surpassed 180 nationwide. The scale push accelerated after IONNA announced a strategic partnership with Circle K earlier this year; 40 of those locations have already come online. Anchoring the network at convenience retail does something structurally useful: it places chargers where drivers already stop, rather than asking them to make a dedicated detour. That’s a real infrastructure differentiator from networks built around standalone charging plazas.
IONNA positions itself as the largest 400 kW DC fast charging network in the United States. All of its sites operate at that power level, which matters to drivers charging vehicles capable of accepting higher rates. A slower network with more sites is a different value proposition than a faster network with fewer; IONNA is betting that speed and coverage together are what moves the adoption needle.
The friction-reduction approach goes further than hardware. IONNA deliberately skipped a proprietary app, instead integrating with 19 partner platforms including Presto, ChargeHub, and EV Connect. New Toyota and Lexus app integrations are live now, with Plug and Charge capability for certain Toyota and Lexus models coming soon. Plug and Charge, for readers not yet living with an EV, means the vehicle authenticates with the charger automatically when plugged in, eliminating account lookups and card taps entirely. For a network trying to close the gap between public charging and the frictionless experience of home charging, it’s a meaningful step.
The J.D. Power study result is the kind of third-party validation that matters more than any press announcement a startup can issue on its own. EV buyers who’ve been burned by unreliable fast charging on competing networks read a 807-out-of-1,000 satisfaction score differently than they read a CEO quote about reliability. IONNA CEO Seth Cutler described the industry’s conventional tradeoff between scale and quality as a false one. The study data, at least for this year, backs him up.
For Toyota specifically, the IONNA ranking lands as useful supporting evidence for a broader electrification posture the company has been building carefully. Toyota’s April-June 2026 quarter posted $9.2 billion in net income, up from $5.8 billion a year earlier, which gives the company room to absorb the capital demands of a fast-growing charging joint venture while pursuing EV infrastructure alongside its hybrid-first volume strategy. A charging network that places first in customer satisfaction in year one is exactly the kind of halo result that justifies the investment in the OEM’s own financial storytelling.
IONNA has not announced specific site counts by state or region, and the Circle K expansion timeline beyond the current 40 locations has not been shared. Those are the two figures buyers and fleet operators will want when evaluating whether the network covers their specific corridors.
Eighty sites to 180 in one calendar year, first in satisfaction, faster than Tesla on paper. The next question is whether IONNA can sustain that quality score as the site count climbs past the point where founder attention and startup culture naturally start to diffuse. Networks that ace satisfaction surveys at 180 sites have failed that same test at 500. IONNA’s real proof of concept comes when it stops doubling and starts densifying.
Source: Toyota. Images courtesy of Toyota.
