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Comment by ROFISH | Hacker News Reader

While this should be especially true for destinations, such as hotels or even apartments, there still needs to be fast-charging infrastructure for road trips. And right now, the not-Tesla charging infrastructure is hot garbage.

Half the plugs don’t work.

The other half is at 1/4 speed, or less.

And because it’s all mostly older people, they don’t understand that it takes like 30 minutes to go from like 0 to 50% but 45-60 minutes to go from 50% to 100%. Which is annoying because:

With so few chargers, and the ones that are working at slow speed, it is VICIOUS out there. People in Porches yelling at other people to get spots.

I don’t know what it’s like for Tesla people, since its twice as much to charge than at the other chargers, but right now the road trip experience for EVs is awful just because of so few working chargers.

This is before you get to the 20-30 minute charge times.

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I have had to wait at a Tesla Supercharger once in 4 years, and that was early on.

They are building new stations in the US faster than one per day (over 400 last year, tracking to over 500 this year). Each stations contains at least 8 chargers, some have 12, 24, 40, or even more.

Charging stops are usually 10-20min since it's best to use the fast part of the charging curve and move on if you're trying to maximize trip speed.

Definitely agreed about fast chargers needing to be reliable and smart. Part of Tesla's magic is a charge network and in-car navigation that talk to each other so you are routed to working chargers at the right part of your trip. And congested chargers can be automatically routed around.

Hopefully the new agreements in the US allowing other cars to access Tesla's network will promote more competition all around between charging providers to provide a better experience.

Tesla owner in Europe. My experience is pretty good even in non Tesla stations. Especially Ionity ones.

However I don't understand your comment about Tesla's costing twice as much. In Italy Tesla's for Tesla owners il less than half compared to 3rd parties (90ish cents kWh vs 44ish)

I think in the US it's the lack of competition.

Tesla's chargers are usually the only ones that work at all, so they can charge whatever they want for their product.

>While this should be especially true for destinations, such as hotels or even apartments

It's really not though? I've never come across an L2 charger that doesn't just work. The DC fast charging is where the problems always arise. At least with an L2 charger, the hotel/apartment can easily track the power consumption being utilized, and also lock it down to only allow charging as they see fit via mobile app, NFC card, or pin. With a 14-50 it's a free-for-all.

I have seen a lot of L2 chargers (J1772) that had broken clips and would not charge my vehicle. Also lots that were just turned off or broken.

Sure, physically broken or turned off chargers aren't going to be magically fixed by making it a 14-50 receptacle though. If people don't care to maintain the charging infrastructure it doesn't matter what it's based on.

My point is: I've never plugged in a working J1772 and had it fail to communicate or fail to charge if it's an otherwise working charger. I've definitely seen that with DC chargers and there are plenty of known issues between certain models of cars and certain brands of DC fast chargers.

In Canada the supercharger experience is great. In 3 years I’ve never had to wait for a spot. The superchargers are usually located in convenient locations in mall marking lots or next to coffee shops or restaurants. I’d love to switch try a different EV but the lack of a supercharger network prevents that.

This reads as a strange comment to me without any information about which chargers in which country/region you’re referring to.

Fwiw I’ve never seen that “people in porches yelling” thing play out here in NL.

He means the United States. In my limited experience, his comment rings as accurate here in the United States.

Woa the whole country? I had assumed that with a place that big and varied, there’d be large regional differences for this stuff.

Wow that’s pretty bad then.

Definitely not the whole country, I've never experienced it before and am also in the US.

My experience is in northern California. Probably no one can speak for the experience across the entire US. FWIW, this guy in Minnesota seems to have had a very similar experience to what I’ve seen:

https://youtu.be/ZJOfyMCEzjQ?si=zPqg88sE9kfZCLXE

It seems like his experience is more similar to mine given his experiences on the topic available on YouTube. Just look here:

https://youtu.be/1Vm_ASm2zfs?t=294

"Stop number two was just as uneventful as stop number one." Once again, plenty of dispensers available, got charging on the first try.

Third stop, also uneventful.

Fourth stop, "this is getting really uneventful now, its like stopping at a gas station."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vm_ASm2zfs&t=717s

Is this a station with a wait list? Did it fail to charge? No, there were multiple dispensers open without anyone there and it worked on the first try. On his 1,200mi road trip they encountered one dispenser not working but there was another one unused right next to it.

So no, he's not constantly encountering long lines with belligerent people at multiple broken fast chargers, he's pretty much always rolling up to charging locations that are mostly empty and worked on the first try. Technology Connections is not the person to point to trying to showcase how bad charging is in the US. If you're going to paint his experiences as the norm, then I guess most CCS chargers do work fine and there aren't usually lines.

I didn't watch the video you linked, but I accept your summary of his experience then (1 year ago). The video I link is from 2 weeks ago. A good half of the video is describing many frictions he has encountered with non-Tesla charging networks. Perhaps his experience/evaluation has changed in the intervening interval.

I personally have experienced those frictions myself, in my limited EV experience. I am glad that you have had a better experience - I absolutely want non-Tesla charging networks to be high reliability and easy to use! For everyone, but also for myself, since I don't want to purchase a Tesla.

In the final analysis, I don't know how Technology Connections feels about the state of non-Tesla charging networks. In fairness, I'm not sure you do either. It sounds like his experience was more positive a year ago. But from his most recent video, it doesn't sound like he feels like non-Tesla charging networks work very well or reliably.

To be clear on one point: I haven't encountered lines or interpersonal conflict at charging points. I have encountered plugs not working, payment not being accepted, and rates lower than advertised capability. Before I had those experiences, I had heard people on HN complain about CCS charging network reliability. After, I saw Technology Connections complain about it. All I can say is that my experience has corresponded with those reports.

I don't know where you're getting "a good half of the video", it barely talks at all about his own personal experiences of CCS. It mostly talks about the history of the plugs, discusses Tesla's process of opening up NACS (and his previous reservations on it), describes how automakers are switching to it, talks about the slow roll out of CCS, talks about how Tesla chargers and 800V cars might not play nice for a while, and then talks about V2G. Could you give me some specific timestamps where he's spending half the video talking about these negative experiences? Which few sections are mostly his experiences? I've seen the video a few times before and just re-scrubbed/watched at 1.75x and I didn't see much of his personal experiences at all.

He does briefly touch on charging networks should work on reliability and just having a new connector won't necessarily improve reliability, but I'm not disagreeing with that. I've got no doubts those who do have bad experiences legit had bad experiences, I'm just suggesting it's often regional and not like every non-Tesla station is plagued with non stop problems. And given his own video publications it seems like his area and the places he traveled had reliable chargers. Maybe most of the issues are on the West coast. Either way that's not half the video nor is it really him talking personal experiences.

Also, kind of funny you're suggesting I watch a video when you refuse to watch one that rebuts your own points. You might want to re-watch both videos if you want to understand his experiences with EV charging. He's got a few of them, and they're generally not filled with routinely bad experiences.

Also, go check out Out of Spec Reviews. They've got a number of videos rightfully critical of the charging networks and several videos showing lots of them failing all at once. But notice how in most of his videos with CCS cars, the experience is almost always rolling up to a station with empty ready to use dispensers, plugging in, and getting a charge. And it doesn't get brought up like some "woah, its actually working this time!" No, instead he'll mention " these are some great Delta units" or "these ABB chargers are top notch" if anything gets mentioned at all. So obviously his experiences, which this is a guy that seems like he's practically on the road every day in multiple different EVs, seems like it's mostly that they work but with some big examples of them not.

At 19:37 https://youtu.be/ZJOfyMCEzjQ?si=cHgDdtSIutz-dWrZ&t=1177

"So now, why are automakers suddenly itching to make this switch? Well, there's a pretty simple answer: the CCS charging networks available here in the US all kinda suck."

Now, is that judgement based on his "personal experience?" I don't know. But that's what he says. He does say about Electrify America that while he's never "been stranded" by it, (18:37), he describes having problems with using the app to use the chargers. He describes more than half the stations having broken NFC readers. He says "It wasn't great and that experience is happening to far too many owners of new EVs." "Meanwhile, the Tesla supercharger network largely just works." He implies that redundancy at EA stations is insufficient (20:42). At 21:07 says that activating the charger is harder than it needs to be...

At 21:30: "The main problems with CCS networks are poor maintenance, horrible up-time, largely terrible apps which are often the only way to start charging, ..." He then says: "Let me go through those one-by-one." And the he does.

Through 26:56 (this section is labeled "The Many Reasons We're Switching"), he describes issues with non-Tesla charging networks. (You're right that he doesn't blame CCS for the problems, and neither do I.)

I didn't watch your video because I conceded your characterization of it. You don't agree with my characterization of this video, but I think you missed this section.

I don't think it's reasonable to characterize his take on non-Tesla CCS charging networks in this video as anything other than quite negative.

Other than him experiencing broken NFC readers and poor app experience it doesn't sound like a lot of personal experiences being shared. Making general statements of uptime isn't necessarily personal; I also agree they should work on uptime because clearly other people do experience problems and I've seen dispensers down I've just used the open one next to them whenever that's the issue. That whole "Many Reasons We're Switching" is largely him talking generally, but a few specific personal experiences are mixed in as short quips (like the charging latches). Him talking about the networks going with more expensive cables and them being slower to replace the cables when failed isn't necessarily a personal experience, just explaining why they struggle with reliability.

As for the app experience, I wouldn't know, I don't use apps to activate the chargers. And that sounds like that was easily half his personal frustrations.

Do you have a CCS car? You mention a limited experience with charging networks. How many years have you used them? How many times have you tried charging at a non-Tesla charger?

You're moving the goalposts. He expresses his judgements about the reliability of CCS charging networks in the video. I suppose that you don't have to credit Technology Connections' assessment if you don't think it's based on his personal experience. But I think you now agree that his assessment (right or wrong) about the state of non-Tesla charging is not positive, and can be (and is) summarized as: "it kinda sucks". And that is what we have been disagreeing about.

I don't accept or trust your pivot to personalize the discussion by focusing on my personal experience. I never said I had vast experience with EV charging (I said it was limited). But for the benefit of anyone reading this thread, I will tell you my experience, and then I'm going to disengage with you.

I have owned a CCS vehicle (Toyota Rav4 Prime) for about 6mo. I live in San Francisco. I have tried to charge it about a dozen times at non-Tesla chargers. I succeeded one or two times. I have also observed friends charge their Tesla vehicles at Tesla chargers about a half dozen times.

In my personal experience, I have had connectivity problems (unable to pay because NFC didn't work, and EA app had no signal in a garage), and chargers labeled as up in the EVgo app were not functional. On the Plug Share app I have seen a non-functional station (https://www.plugshare.com/location/37345), where it has been labeled as up for over 12mo, during which time it has never worked. It happens to be the exact station I have most wanted to use.

Those are some of the exact problems Technology Connections mentions, which is why his video did resonate with me.

It sounds like you've had a good experience with non-Tesla charging, which is great. I wish my experience was as positive as yours, because I am unable to charge at home at my rental unit. I would love to have a great experience with non-Tesla charging, both for myself, and for wide adoption of non-Tesla EVs. It sounds like where you live non-Tesla charging infrastructure works more reliably than it has for me here.

Maybe you're going to tell me I'm a moron and don't know how to charge my car. But I haven't had a great experience at it.

I'm not saying you're a moron or that your experiences didn't happen. I've suggested several times I think a lot of the worst experiences are possibly regional as the vast majority of bad experiences I see here mention being on the West coast. But telling people asking if it's normal for over half the chargers to be practically non-functional, always long lines, etc. as the norm across the whole US is a stretch. It would be like me telling someone outside the US summers for the whole country is like 105+F every day.

I'm not suggesting the non-Tesla chargers are perfect, I'm not even saying they're particularly great. They do need to have faster turn around when even a single dispenser goes offline. They've been adopting regular credit card terminals over needing the apps, which is how it should have been from the start. I'll definitely agree overall Tesla charging experience is better. They've been way more responsive to problems and made the better bet on cheaper but easier to replace components. I agree with practically everything he said in that video, but that doesn't mean it was personal experiences. A lot of my "they need to improve" agreement is looking at plugshare around the country, reading comments like yours, seeing videos on YouTube from places like Out of Spec Reviews, and others, but not much personal other than seeing like 1 of 4 chargers out at the places I've gone to.

I'm just suggesting it's not the way the OP said it is across the entire United States. The poster was essentially describing a charging hellscape, someone asked if it's like that across the whole US, and you said yes based on your experience in SF. Well, maybe SF isn't the whole US.

I am trying to suggest Alec's experience isn't as bad as failing to charge 83% of the time. It sounds like he had a road trip where the EA app was glitchy (which he'd prefer to use over a credit card as his car has free charging through the app), he's run into a few dispensers which should have worked save for a broken clip and used another one at the site, and he's seen some percentage of dispensers out of service when he's gone to charge but still managed to charge. But from most of the content he's posted over both of his channels and other channels he's participated in, it looks like his overall success rate is much higher than 17%. Can we agree on that?

Another poster here mentioned plenty of empty chargers in the Midwest. Another mentioned no problems in the PNW outside of holidays. Multiple people in California talk about charging hellscapes. Maybe it's not a US thing? Maybe we shouldn't tell people it is?

Yes, I mean west coast US.

Yeah it can be terrible... on a trip I was recently waiting for a DC fast charger to become available, the guy using it was charging from 80 to get to 100%. I had a car full of kids that I couldn't get home because I was at 15%. I asked if I could at least charge for 15-20 minutes and he said "I was here first, not my problem."

I charge at home 99% of the time so it's rarely an issue, but I need to be more cautious on road trips than I hoped. Next time I'll plan ahead to charge earlier.

> . People in Porches yelling at other people to get spots.

Are you in Cali? In the midwest, Tesla chargers are still empty (like, in 45,000 miles of driving my tesla I have waited 1 time for ~5 minutes on a roadtrip). Even the non-Tesla chargers are cricket land still.

Obviously EV adoption is higher out west, but also I think more apartment living that need to public charge all the time. Out here - you would only ever charge on a roadtrip as 90% of charging is at home.

I think a lot of EV charging stories are region specific. I pretty much never encounter down chargers, there's always been one working open dispenser available any time I've wanted to charge at a CCS fast charger. I'm not saying people's horror stories aren't real, just that it doesn't seem to be the story everywhere.

West coast US; and it’s awful. The only times a spot is free is at like 6am, otherwise you’re waiting at least 30 minutes (actively, so no one can take your spot in line) to wait another 30 minutes to charge.

North Texas here, driving around Texas I've never had to wait and I've never had a problem getting a charge on the first try.

PNW here with an i4. The only time I’ve had problems are on holiday weekends. EA kind of sucks though, lots of broken chargers although most of the time it doesn’t matter. I only use chargers on road trips, so my experience is limited.

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