Hacker News Reader

Comment by CameronNemo | Hacker News Reader

Seriously preposterous that you need an app to charge. Nobody uses an app to charge at a gas station! Just tap your card and you're good. Why do they need my email so bad?

View on HN

Amusing that you're saying this when Tesla requires an app to set up your car for charging in the first place. Sure, you don't need an app at the point of sale, but I'd argue tying your car permanently to your identity is even worse.

I'm also not sure where people have needed an app to charge. In my experience at both EVGo and Electrify America stations, the credit card readers work just fine. I've never made an account for either of them. ChargePoint is the exception, but their system is extra stupid (you need to use the app, then NFC your phone)

For me it's less about identity and more about just the damn charger working.

I've never had an official Tesla charger fail to charge when plugged in. Their maintenance is top notch.

The apps hardly work, and it doesn't help that I have to fiddle with a map and a list to find the charger I'm standing in front of by some name like "Agustin" or "Bashir", instead of just scanning a QR code or NFC tapping the physical plug which would have been a much better experience.

ChargePoint works well; EVGo almost never works. EA usually works after unplugging and plugging and trying about 3-4 times.

You car is tied to your identity with your VIN and registration. These records are available to anyone willing to pay a nominal fee. If you rent, auto rental company has your drivers license on file.

(caveat being if you register your car in Montana using an anonymous LLC with an agent)

They seriously don't let you set up an account on their website? Ugh. I never said Tesla was better, though.

I've mostly used chargepoint (and Volta, heh). I used evgo quite some time ago and thought they pushed you to use the app. My sister recently used an evgo for a rental car and she said she had to install an app.

Chargepoint requires you to maintain an account balance, and requires auto-refills. You can't just bill a CC for the entirety of a session through the app/site. Sometimes you can initiate a non-linked session with an EMV tap from a physical card, but that doesn't always work.

> Amusing that you're saying this when Tesla requires an app to set up your car for charging in the first place.

Sounds terrible. I shouldn't need an app to drive my car.

Hopefully this won't be needed soon and all cars and chargers will support Plug & Charge (ISO 15118)[0] after this annoying transition period.

> The user-convenient and secure Plug & Charge feature that envisioned with ISO 15118 enables an electric vehicle to automatically identify and authorize itself to a compatible charging station on behalf of the driver, to receive energy for recharging its battery. The only action required by the driver is to plug the charging cable into the EV and/or charging station, because the car and the charger identify themselves to each other by exchanging certificates which were provided beforehand via a certificate pool to facilitate payment.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118

Just as soon as the PKI gets sorted out...

Nobody uses an app at the gas station because that process was invented long before the smartphone craze and people have gotten used to it. I am pretty sure that if ICE cars were only coming to market now, the gas stations would ask you to use an app to fill up.

The same process which works for automated gas stations since 1990s works for chargers too. There is nothing new on that. And it is already being aggressively regulated into the infrastructure

https://www.europapress.es/comunicados/internacional-00907/n...

I've only used Electrify America chargers, but you can charge using just a credit/debit card.

When I had my gas car, I often used an app at gas stations, primarily to avoid card skimmers. (Tap to pay isn't ubiquitous at the pump)

A couple of benefits to the apps: one is that you get exact information on the charging session.

The bigger benefit is that some charging stations will stop charging once your battery is "full", wait a bit, then start charging an idle rate. The app can notify you about this or you can be texted or both since the station knows who you are.

All EVs have a charging curve and typically the last 80% or 90% to full goes much more slowly than starting from 0% or 20%. In one case, ChargePoint decided that my Bolt EUV was charging too slowly and started charging me the idle rate without notifying me. Since the idle rate was $.25/minute, I ended up getting charged $1.50 or something like that. I didn't think the idle rate was unfair but I was literally waiting in a coffee shop for the car to get as charged as much as possible.

Not to mention about half the chargers in my area (in California, of all places) don't take Visa cards, but they take some other credit card networks. Unfortunately all of my cards are Visa. So the app is the only option. But a lot of the time the app fails to start the charging. Perhaps the chargers have connectivity issues.

According to current statistics most gas refills are done with some sort of rewards card in tandem (Kroger Rewards, Meijer Rewards, etc). To some perspectives, those are also "apps" of a sort that feed the station owners email addresses and other tracking things.

Many chargers don't require an app.

It depends. They might have a screen and can be used directly, but those screens are often broken, so app will still give you a better experience, at least at EA.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com