Almost 1/3 of San Francisco charging stations are broken | Hacker News Reader

Almost 1/3 of San Francisco charging stations are broken

electrive.com

41 pointsseibelj23 comments

Title is a bit sensational: Should really be "1/4 of SF charging stations are broke". They rounded 22.7% up to 33.3% bypassing the more logical/sensibleness 25%

I find your comment a bit sensational. They included 4.9% of chargers having short cables and therefore rounded 27.6% up to 33%.

Though I agree that they should not use the term "dud" to refer to chargers that are technically working but non-functional due to a design flaw (cable length). Though of course even 27.6 should round to 25% before it rounds to 33%...

I find your comment a bit sensational. You both arrived at the same percentage.

I find your comment a bit sensational. They both parted from different percentages.

I'd like more details on those "too short" cables, like did they try backing in (or pulling head in if they backed in the first time)?

I've run into a few stations with short cables, but none that couldn't reach the charge port if I parked in the other direction.

Great, EV charging stations are the new McDonald's ice cream machine*

* https://www.npr.org/2022/01/11/1072164745/why-are-mcdonalds-...

With the exception that McDonald's ice cream machines are not generally subject to the random depredations of moron drivers, anti-social types, weather and general malaise.

> anti-social types and general malaise

In Germany we had cases of either anti-tesla-ism, anti-environmentalism, anti-muslimism, or satire, or possibly all of it at once, were people were disabling chargers by putting ground pork into the charging ports.

Add some onion and you got a mettbrötchen

For real? Is like one guy doing it or a movement?

It's difficult to get a good number on the events. The thing is, ground meat in Germany is called "hack". So on another level (that's why it could very well be satire), the charging stations have been "hacked".

Google does not distuingish between both kinds. But vandalism in general is a big problem.

At least they are using electricity over gas to cook their food!

I mean I worked in fast food when I was younger and knowing myself and my coworkers at the time surely it is subject to at least some of those things.

> Only EVs with CCS charge inlets were used. The vehicles used for testing were the Chevy Bolt, Kia Niro, Hyundai Kona, Ford Mustang Mach E, and Porsche Taycan.

It would be good to see a breakdown of which EVs had which problems. They say that all of the "cable too short" problems were with Chevy Bolts only, but it also sounds like they didn't make every EV visit every station. Maybe most EVs would have the same issue at those stations, maybe not.

The Chevy Bolt is also known to have problems with initiating charging sessions. So if most of the charge initiation failures were with Bolts then that may be more of a problem with the car than the station.

This YouTuber tests and reviews a lot of charging sites with his Chevy Bolt. In this recent station test video he talks about some of the Chevy Bolt specific issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgeh3CozLFo

“They tested the functionality of 657 charging connectors at all 181 public charging stations in the Bay area, Tesla chargers excluded.”

Tesla chargers excluded.

I didn’t look up the numbers, but gonna guess most EVs gonna be Tesla. That charge at Tesla chargers.

They won't be, soon, as Tesla gets lapped by every other big car manuf ramping up production.

Tesla chargers also aren't (yet) compatible with non-Teslas. They've said they'll be adopting the standard charger in the coming years, but haven't started yet.

For the record, I didn’t downvote you, and whomever did should at least say something, as the comments aren’t unreasonable.

Debatable, yes, but not unreasonable.

Anyways, the study omits Tesla chargers which has far more usage than non-Tesla chargers, I’ll go out on a limb to claim, as I’ve seen packed stations every other day, while driving past it in my own Tesla :p

I'd expect most people to install a charger at home so you can charge overnight. Is this not done much in the US?

This is about the bay area specifically, where it's nigh-impossible to own a home if you weren't born into the landed gentry.

If you're staying in an apartment, is it possible to install a charger in your car park?

Well, nothing's impossible but good luck convincing your landlord to spend money on a car charger that doesn't provide him any benefits.

Yes and no.

Tesla destination chargers (Level 2 EVSEs) by default have a J1772 compatibility mode that allows other vehicles to communicate with it. Just have to get the right adapter.

Superchargers however are still Tesla only in the US.

Source: Polestar 2 owner, with adapter.

Most of San Francisco is broken.

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