yeah, I have seen this in Germany as well. I guess the companies get incentives for installing these chargers, and then just let them sit there until they rot
In our city (~100k) alone I have spotted over 10 chargers that have been defective for at least half a year, some even longer than 1 year. And that's only those that I regularly drive to.
As long as there are no requirements to actually service them and have them in a working condition, the raw numbers of installed chargers are meaningless
Is a requirement really necessary? I'm not aware that any requirement exists to keep your petrol station running (well, maybe there is one). And I'm sure it's not necessary to have one, because if your station does not work you go out of business very fast.
So why are these companies still in business if it's profitable to have non-working charging stations?
At least sometimes, yes. WV’s charger network (“electrify America”) is notorious for perennially broken chargers, and when the government announced the next round of subsidies was contingent on the chargers actually working then suddenly WV got serious about maintenance.
