In Oakland, California there is a DC fast charger that has been showing the Windows Update screen all year. These networks do not seem to have the operational know-how to keep the systems running.
The other US networks are at the whim of both 3rd party hardware suppliers & 3rd party software vendors. So they are just integrators really, and do a very terrible job of it. They are slow to get new parts, slow to send out repair teams, etc.
Further a lot of them have screwed up incentives, such that the person charging is not really their end customer. Also they all lose money.
Some of this is the result of legal settlement mandated networks (EA) or them pre-selling some amount of charging to automakers (EA) or partnering with states (evGo) or running an ad network (Volta)..
All of which means you, the person charging, are not the customer. Whether you can successfully charge or not is besides the point, and possibly increases their losses if you do charge!
Yes I know Tesla also receives government money, but it is just one part of the funding, and they are actually performing well as a charging network, because they want to sell more cars. They must make enough money off it that they are willing to open it up to 3rd parties now.
Completely agreed. Tesla is the only one operating them commercially in practice. They probably are cash flow positive, and even if not, are a loss leader to sell cars.
EV DCFC can be commercially viable though considering 1) the markup on electric is HUGE compared to gas (possibly 2x) and 2) they have a captive customer stuck 5x as long as a gas buyer, to spend $$ in their convenience store (where they actually make all their money)
The problem is the current companies are trying to do standalone stalls in others parking lots. I think we will eventually see some gas station chains bring out an offering, but there needs to be demand first.
Something like 90%+ of EVs on the road in US are still Tesla, so CCS has always been a niche within a niche here.
But there are enough people, they are packed.
One particular instance that stands out is I pulled up to a Shell Recharge station and found it completely off; checked their own app and it showed as offline; and called their support and informed them so they could open a repair ticket, being unaware of any problem. There's really no excuse for this: Shell had the information that this station was offline, but didn't have any automated action in place.
For this reason, I've never recommended a non-Tesla to anyone in US, despite having switched from Tesla myself. CCS network cars feel too much like a hobbyist / enthusiast situation for me still. Like 5 years of hoping they'd get behind the 2G iPhone on iOS 1.0 ...
That's what the GP was saying with "There's really no excuse for this: Shell had the information that this station was offline, but didn't have any automated action in place."
You can change the UI and UX after deploying it. Say you want to illustrate the charging differently, you'd just deploy software updates rather than having to switch out a bunch of hardware panels. Company branding changed color and now you want to display those instead? OTA updates, instead of replacing charging station hardware.
Not saying it's great, I prefer good old interfaces myself, especially outside of the internet, but I can totally understand why companies consistently make this choice over and over again.
https://service.tesla.com/docs/Public/diy/modely/en_us/GUID-...
Its a dumb gas pump.