I visited over 120 EV chargers: why so many were broken
msn.com
msn.com
Read through the article, but I still don't know why so many are broken and stay broken, it says "So what was wrong with these particular machines? It could be one of many things—a broken part, a power issue, a defective connector."
I don't need an article to answer why are chargers broken if the answer is "Could be one of many things, ...". Why are gasoline stations mostly never broken and chargers broken all the time? (from my limited EV experience in Germany). Why are they unrepaired? That would be journalism.
I mean... One of these technologies does have a 100 year head start on the other.
Hahaha... I wish.
https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel...
> fossil-fuel subsidies rose by $2 trillion over the past two years as explicit subsidies (undercharging for supply costs) more than doubled to $1.3 trillion
These charging stations were built with a business model of set-it-and-forget-it. This doesn’t work. It should have been obvious this wouldn’t work, but I’m sure companies were blinded by the apparent simplicity of the business and the idea of being first to market.
This seems like a fairly easy problem to solve for charging stations that are in the parking lot of a business. Provide training and resources for people at those business, and it can work much like the gas station model.
This reminds me of the roll out of NFC payments. Companies had it, but it was always broken and they didn’t bother to fix it right away, as it wasn’t deemed critical, since everyone had another form of payment and people using NFC was rare. It was years before I felt comfortable enough to go somewhere without a physical credit card as a back up. It seems electric chargers are treated with the same, “nice to have, but not critical” attitude.
I have never once experienced an issue with these in my entire life.
You have to properly fit the plug into socket and tolerances are small so connector wear is bigger as people most likely just shove it in or force it connecting or disconnecting.
Gas pump for user still can go wrong but tolerances on user just putting it in a bit wrong are much bigger. Tear and wear on gas pump for me is almost non existent.
Level 2 is similar in complexity to gas stations (beyond the handshake process being more finiky than trusting the user installed it correctly).
High speed chargers are incredibly more complex than gasoline. You need to delivery a specific voltage and amperage to the car and both of those numbers change continuously as the battery charges.
Note the article is about high speed not level 2.
While physically it might not be much more complicated (note pulling off that kind of charging at almost a kW is no small feat) certainly the software is more complicated.
No need for people. EV chargers are all online, you have logs and automation can easily flag unusually unused chargers, or ones with high rate of engagements without completed charge.
Except it does work for Tesla chargers. I never had any issues when using superchargers. But connect to a fast charging station operated by one of the other vendors - payment doesn't work, it's out of order, handshake issues.
I have no other explanation except the hardware and software are low quality.
I’ve seen out of order gas pumps all the time. But never for long. They fix them fast.
Handshake false negatives basically disappear if you control everything.
They also have a lot more "boots on the ground" so to speak so when a station needs service they have someone within a few hours drive at most who is capable of fixing it and likely has the parts on hand. They aren't relying on a bunch of random franchise operators to maintain equipment, nor contractors who are touching an EV charger for the first time and may need to order replacement parts that take months to arrive.
I have seen some people discount the vehicle-to-charger billing system but that is also a reliability factor. Not having to maintain a payment reader is one less thing that might break. It also means the charger can operate even if it loses network connection... it simply queues up the billing records and reports them once connection is re-established. Auth via an app or NFC terminal usually requires internet access which adds yet more points of failure.
Infrastructure always needs maintenance. You can't get away with it. If you build it, you should regularly inspect and maintain it.
Some do, where I live most are unattended. You can only pay by card.
The difference is that running a gas station is a known quantity. Large franchise have been doing it for years.
These things will resolve themselves with time.
Malfunctioning pumps are everywhere but they don't have much impact — there are other pumps, and all the occupied pumps will cycle customers in just a few minutes, and if you must move on to the next station, you almost certainly are able and won't experience further problems.
This is the second time this market dynamic has happened. Only Tesla was really trying to make a actually good EV that people want. Despite all of Tesla's and Musk's faults ... the other car manufacturers were not trying. Critics often said that BMW or VW or any car company could start making way better EVs than Tesla, with better fitment and support, and destroy Tesla in a couple of years. But it took 10+ years for the other car companies to bring competitive models, enough time for Tesla carve dominant market share, and mature.
GM made an EV in the late 90s, but it was a compliance car only available for lease in California, and GM famously destroyed them all at the end of the lease, though many wanted to buy them. It just really did not want to sell EVs.
Anyway, it'll be another 5 years before there are competitive EV charging networks, until then it seems you need a rich unstable obsessive guy, to do something crazy like try to make a good EV charging network. Later the MBAs will figure it out.
Exactly. I was expecting some insights into federal subsidies and bad incentives. Or maybe rushing to be the first on the market, getting the best locations while cutting corners on quality. Or a shortage of qualified technicians.
Still don't know what's wrong.
I would bet a large amount of money on that - there are green subsidies for building the chargers and keeping them built, but the actual operation (selling electricity) is a money losing proposition and a business that doesn't make any sense. So mostly broken chargers is a way to maximize green subsidy for an otherwise unviable business model.
Compare that to a gas station that makes money actually selling the gasoline, with an obvious incentive to keep the infrastructure functional.
But, hey, I have a hybrid Mini, so I can just go to a charging station, right?
What a mess. There are at least two different chargers, and the Tesla ones don't work with my car unless I get a "Tesla Tap" (which I didn't have at the time). And, when you look on the dozens of apps out there, you will see charging stations, and then when you get there, realize it is a freaking outlet in a lamp post in the parking lot of a mall. I'm not joking. If I plugged in the cable I carry in the back of my car, it would have taken 8-12 hours to charge up to the full 18 miles I get on my car.
Some of the stations just didn't work at all. The apps that you use to turn them on are the worst rated apps on the app stores. As an aside, trying to charge is a horrific experience when you are not in your hometown. But, and I'm not sure if this is just Florida or what (judging by the article, seems like no), even my "hometown" of 100k+ people has almost no working charging stations downtown. It is hilarious that the charging station in front of the power company does not work.
When I was in Palm Beach, I drove around to at least five different charging stations. None of them worked. I parked next to a Rivian and admired his range and the ability to charge at those stations which did not work with my car port. Or, finding charging stations which did work with my car, but had no cables open.
I finally found a gas station that had gas, and I remember being so relieved. This was the first time I realized that at least with gas, I can fill up and hand over the pump to the next person. But, with electric, you are not only looking for a working charger, but one that isn't in use. The infrastructure isn't there when there is even a slight weather event, and I can't imagine what it would be like in a true emergency when I couldn't just pull over and work on my laptop at a cafe nearby.
It seems like people will have to relearn the hard way just why gasoline is probably the best energy storage medium ever invented.
Yes, gas has moderately high energy density but there is no such thing as a global optimum. For example, if you’re concerned about energy usage or mechanical simplicity, diesel beats it; if you aren’t comfortable causing an environmental catastrophe, neither of those are great; etc. The Florida fuel shortage was caused by flooding which is becoming more common thanks to using gas, so past performance is not going to be entirely representative, either.
Is it? I am in Florida now for almost 45 years and flooding like that is neither common, nor happening with more frequency.
This isn’t a technology problem. It’s a horse before the feed lot problem.
It's also a difficult investment for businesses (gas stations) because with ev adoption, everybody with 120v and a <60 mile daily commute is likely to charge at home 75% of the time
You charge at home for 80-90% of the time or even more. Practically all day to day driving is extremely cheap, especially with market rate power and some home automation. I've got a pretty expensive setup (rented apartment + 3rd party charger) and it costs me 5,70€ to charge my car from 0-100%. I can buy about 3 liters of gasoline or diesel with that...
So when we as a family go on road trips or visit family, I can't even remember the last time I checked the price on a public charger. I've yet to break "half a tank of gas" -levels on a single trip.
Or like, a 120v plug anywhere at someone who has electricity? That's a lot more ubiquitous than a gas station.
> I'm not joking. If I plugged in the cable I carry in the back of my car, it would have taken 8-12 hours to charge up to the full 18 miles I get on my car.
Even four hours would be a long time to sit at a charger. At that rate you’re best off charging overnight at your hotel, or during the day while parked at work. A charging network that doesn’t tell you the charging capacity of the station before you get there is laughably useless.
Even for a BEV, you can usually add 40-50 miles of charge overnight on a 120V plug. Not great for a roadtrip, but plenty for most folks daily commutes. In the example of an evacuation, it’s insufficient of course.
I spent years driving around Africa, and it's eye opening to see what happens when there is a major power outage. All that gas in the ground, and no way to get it out!
I saw lineups literally days long because of it.
Card readers surely should be weather resistant but EV chargers could use more cover.
Petrol pumps with card readers are their own little universe of rules and compliance standards within the credit card industry (the formal term is 'Automated Fuel Dispenser'). It's far enough afield that you're looking at specialized software and vendors, in part because a lot of them support fleet cards, which range from "95% normal Visa/Mastercard, but restricted to a specific merchant category" to "completely different network with its own messaging model".
There's been a lot of new spec documents floating around to accomodate differences due to the EV fueling concepts. I suspect the ways we described petrol-- gallons and grades-- don't perfectly map to electricity, and fleet card customers are looking for similar trackability.
VS an app, where you keep almost 100% of the money AND can track your users better.
I had a Chargepoint key fob for a while, which was also always with the car, but it eventually broke and a replacement was chargeable to me, so I chose not to buy it, as I already had the app.
The app isn’t required, but I prefer it.
There are services that try to combine all that data into a single application (or even the car's infotainment), but every one of those sucks to a different degree.
Not hard to find them, but you're not going to stumble on one if you never leave the city or deviate from the major highways.
The UI for vouchers, the stupid locations of the buttons and the advertising. It was this crap that had me get an EV.
with EV chargers there's no nexus of incentive to the site operator to be aware this is bust unless they actively engage. Maybe, "your rent is conditional on reporting problems" would motivate?
Good news is Tesla standard is coming to most car brands.
Bad news is it's not here yet.
I get it that other charging networks also have the NACS connector. But if the argument is that they are unrealiable and people shouldn't bother, then Tesla will be the only game in town.
That's entirely in-character for Mr. Musk.
BTW, Tesla charges $12.99/mo for access to the SuperCharger network for non-Tesla brands. The $/kW rate is pretty competitive and just .05-.10 higher than the residential depending on time of day.
Saying there is a “reliance on Tesla” makes it sound like they are. That’s going to confuse or mislead some people, maybe not your intent, but it will.
We already live in a world where Teslas can charge at any charger and (recent tentative changes aside) other cars can only charge at unreliable expensive non-Tesla chargers. It’s good that this is changing but the only way it’s good for Tesla owners is that money is going to be raining down to further build out the supercharger network.
No, that's North America. Europe is different:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ
Although Tesla's V4 chargers still suck for 800 volt cars which is a shame. Tesla must try harder:
I'll stick with my dino juice so long as Tesla is the only viable option available for recharging. I'd think about getting an EV for a local commuter car where I can always charge at home, but they're still too expensive for that - though that should change as the used EV market becomes more developed and mature.
In the bay area there's a lot of E85 fuel stations which are ~half the price per gallon (~$2.50) and work with these cars. Slightly less milage but the price difference more than makes up for it. If your car has the 'flex-fuel' sticker you may as well take the cheaper fuel imho.
On the other hand, diesel nozzles didn't really standardize until the last 10 years or so. Mostly diesel stations used the old (larger) standard, unless it was catering to trucks and then it's a really big nozzle for bigger flow. But sometimes you'd get an unleaded gasoline style nozzle, cause those would fit in diesel cars too, and there's no fume recovery system. But then VW and other diesel car makers started putting in rube goldberg systems to try to reduce the amount of gasoline you can put in a diesel car... And then the diesel pumps with the smaller size nozzle became difficult to use, so they've probably been replaced.
OTOH, a funnel is an easy, low tech fix to a nozzle problem. Can't really adapt a charging socket so easily.
Teslas can easily charge at other branded recharging stations; mostly you never see it as there is no point. The Tesla ones are good. There are adaptors to all / most public charging stations for cheap. I keep a few, and my wall-charger (for 120/220v outlets) in the front-trunk.
Non-Teslas charging at Tesla stations is new/not really a thing though.
Also Tesla’s navigation automatically adds charging stops for superchargers. You don’t have to do much thinking. Just drive the car (usually on autopilot on the freeway), follow the directions, and every few hours you’re at a charging station next to some restaurants, grocery stores, or pretty landmarks. The view from the charger at Twin Falls, Idaho is particularly beautiful.
I was under the impression that Tesla is introducing new stations that have CCS chargers. Either with multiple cables or an adapter. You start the station using the Tesla mobile app.
It’s in beta available in certain locations
In the USA, though, nearly every major vehicle manufacturer has announced a transition to NACS, the Tesla connector standard.
In consequence:
1: Cars with CCS Type 1 connectors can use a dumb physical adapter to connect to a NACS charger.
2: Older Tesla's (prior to ~2020 depending on model) need a $400 retrofit to be able to charge at non-Tesla NACS chargers. (The $400 retrofit includes a CCS Type 1 adapter, so it might eventually be cheaper without it).
Tesla has the "Magic Dock", which is the built-in CCS adapter that unlocks when you use the app with a non-Tesla car. This is rolling out in a few places.
The other thing is that "NACS" (North American Charging Standard, the same physical plug that Teslas use but with the CCS protocol, with some minor backwards compatible changes for optional higher voltages) is being adopted by almost every EV brand, beginning ~2025. Further, these same brands have committed to providing or selling NACS-CCS adapters to existing cars so they can use Tesla chargers, even without buying a new model of car.
Changing to the Tesla connector on other stations will most emphatically not.
Just because you can imagine it does not mean it's possible, folks.
They are simply not built to last and their bespokeness leads them to be difficult to repair.
This isn't a case of oversimplifying, especially considering we can look across the street at a company who is doing exactly what we're asking for.
https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/21
> Reston, VA (April 17, 2018) – Electrify America announced today it has selected key charging equipment suppliers – ABB, BTC Power, Efacec and Signet – to jointly deploy its new ultra-fast electric vehicle (EV) charging systems throughout the United States.
The result is that each station is basically bespoke and they have to find just the right replacement parts to fix a broken station. The result is that you have to send a technician out to find the broken part and then wait to get a replacement instead of the technician having replacement parts on hand (because there are too many that it might be).
That's why they are ripping out old stations and replacing them with new ones.
I'm confident Tesla can expand their network to cope with additional demand and in a relatively short amount of time. Expanding an existing site is usually a lot faster and cheaper as well.
They really aren’t, it just turns out it’s a hard problem. Electrify America was founded by vw as part of the diesel gate settlement.
ChargePoint has been around for almost a decade.
Then there are a bunch of OEMs producing chargers for the likes of gas station chains and automobile mfgs.
About the only place you’ll find fly-by-night nobody’s is in the home charging space and even those are few and far between.
It takes a LOT of capital to build a charging network.
> They really aren’t, it just turns out it’s a hard problem. Electrify America was founded by vw as part of the diesel gate settlement.
Except your sentence there exactly explains why Electrify America is probably the network people love to hate on the most (myself included given the number of times I've visited non-functioning EA chargers), while the Supercharger network is leaps and bounds more reliable.
Electrify America was essentially forced into existence as punishment to VW because of dieselgate. Which means it's not surprising that the folks in charge of EA had very little motivation to provide a stellar experience. Contrast this with Tesla, who sees the Supercharger network as an integral part of their business of selling cars.
As the owner of a non-Tesla EV who loves my car but is very wary of 3rd party charging networks, you really have to hand it to Tesla for their work in building out the Supercharger network. They had the foresight to realize how critically important a good charging network would be, so much so that they are now able to dictate the "North America Charging Standard" (which given the history of how that name came about takes a ton of chutzpah, but that's a discussion for another post...) for the rest of the automakers - basically all the other EV makers have announced transitions to NACS.
So, yes, it may be debatable to call the other charging networks "fly-by-night" companies, but I'll definitely agree with the "shitty" aspect. There are just tons and tons and tons of non-functioning chargers, and the comparison with the reliability of Superchargers is extremely stark.
Chargers have to be remotely monitorable, offer public real time status, price, and historical uptime information, for each port. Chargers have to be Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) 1.6J or higher, (2.0.1 in 2025) and Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI) 2.2.1 roaming compliant by 2025. They must use 15118-3 and be dual -2 and -20 capable (the standard green phy transport, with Plug & Charge interface on that). DC charge ports must each provide at least 150kW and have to support 250-920V DC voltages. I believe there are also requirements around reliability & uptime, but I haven't found those yet.
I think most of this program is ultimately done through the states, with the federal government paying 80%. My hope is that there's a big enough pool of funding here to compel businesses to get compliant. I do think the standards here are such that compliant charging stations will offer a good experience to consumers! The public access data requirements also make me think consumers will have a much better time understanding what options they have available, and whether those options seem trustworthy!
Link dumps: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/28/2023-03... https://afdc.energy.gov/laws/12744 https://www.edrv.io/guide/nevi-minimum-standards-for-ev-char...
CHAdeMO may be the new Betamax, but CCS is more like VHS-C.
Payment methods are orthogonal to the connector type.
You'll be able to use CCS cars can use a passive adapter. And maybe some manufacturers will also offer retrofits.
The EV infrastructure situation in North America is stupid and will take a few years yet to shake out. The failure to standardize has been a stupid waste of time and money for everyone.
A supercharger station I visit is on the outskirts of an old mall (dead after 8pm) parking lot (with no pedestrian experience to the mall). It is okay to go get a milkshake or cookie at until 9 and the walk and bathroom break can top up on supercharger nicely. (The mall bathroom though is poorly maintained)
Or my state incentived chargers at State and city parks that are theoretically closed at dusk, and have no full time maintenance staff or security.
Who did this seeing gas stations and thought, let's put this charger in place that is busy only on fair weather days, not safe at dark (be it wildlife, crime, or the ability to injure yourself), with no secondary revenue (snacks, food) or even bio (restrooms closed after dark or you have to walk through a basketball practice) and said, this is the infrastructure we need. The power co has wisened up now though and worked with gas stations to add a few chargers.
The DC fast chargers include similar safety features, in addition to a big AC-DC converter. The DC power supply puts out several hundred amps at whatever voltage the car requests (usually 300V, but sometimes much higher). Normally, currents this high would require super thick & heavy cables, but DC fast chargers often avoid this using water cooling and active temperature monitoring in the cable. As the cable heats up from the excessive current, the charging equipment actively throttles the charging session to keep things from melting.
So yeah, there are a few mechanical things that can go wrong.
TIL that charging cables can be water cooled. Going to geek out a bit on this tonight.
Getting it into the vehicle is another thing. 150kW at 360V is about 400A - twice what a modern detached house gets. That needs to get into the vehicle through a relatively flexible cable with a connector. IIRC, that requires an active cooling system (i.e. water loop) inside the cable itself, and the connector will still go through massive temperature swings. So you need materials that can insulate against 400V, bend well, and not crack when you repeatedly heat and cool them several times a day.
Oh, and many chargers [0] don't actually have a 150A or whatever connection to the grid, and instead use internal batteries that load up when nobody is charging, and quickly empty into your car once you pullup to it. That's another cooling loop, extra sensors, and possibly, a heating system, if you want to operate in winter conditions.
The thing that stood out to me was the unreal amount of broken chargers. Tesla charger always seemed to work, but the non-Tesla chargers were broken or slow charging an amazing amount of the time.
* At the base level, it looked annoying. Repeating the charging process several times to find the "blessed" charger. You were lucky if the charger was actually labelled as broken.
* More seriously, the terrible condition of the major EV networks basically made it nearly impractical for a key long drive I need to do. If I wanted to do the trip on a single charging stop, I'd risk getting stranded at a broken fast charger, 50+ miles from the nearest working fast charger. If I stopped 50 miles earlier, I'd need a second stop no matter what. In winter conditions, it was unclear if I'd even be able to make the drive without 3 or 4 stops.
I'm extremely excited that NACS is coming to more vehicles. No only does it increase availability, but it drastically increases reliability. I'd feel comfortable doing that same drive on the Tesla network.
That said, it is nerve-racking, and I do find myself stopping more often than necessary, "just in case" the next isn't in good condition. I do look forward to a better network like NACS.
There are some economics that could lead to the conclusion that dealers definitely don't want evs (fewer high margin services on average, except maybe tires for customers that heavy regen, and ultimately fewer new car sales because they fail less)
There are very few fast chargers in my area. When they were not in use, some were broken.
This leaves a pretty big dilemma: My car is low on juice, where do I go? By the time I actually get to an unused charger, it might be taken, or it might be broken. As long as it's not broken, I might have to wait for a charger to free up, especially a location that only has a single charger. And then wait for my car to charge. This can add up to a significant amount of time, and even more so if I have to use a non-fast charger. This time sink is very difficult to work around when you have other responsibilities.
I can only imagine that as people get more EVs, this problem will get a lot worse until infrastructure improves.
For road trips over 150 miles I just use my PHEV. I don't recall the last time I needed to use a public rapid charging station.
In the last year, the EA locations here in Houston have been terrible, with many stalls broken or in low-speed maintenance mode. (Thankfully I charge at home most of the time)
I drove from Houston to Dallas and back this weekend, the first time I've done a road trip since last year. All of the EA spots seemed to be in much better shape than in Houston. I'm guessing EA allocates more resources to keep those going, given the criticality for drivers in those locations.
Currently renting an Ioniq 5 in Florida (cost barely more than a petrol vehicle). Aside from a lack of L3 chargers near Indian Shores, the closest Electrify America near me was perpetually busy and one of the chargers was out of commission. Edit: the L2 chargers nearby require an app, need a payment method added, and require minimum top-ups (waste of money for a rental). And the closest one near me is out of commission anyway.
Compare this to my anecdotal Tesla situation: rented a Model 3 a couple of years ago and every time I'd plug in it would work perfectly (and no need to authenticate or deal with payment).
I love driving EVs but the fast charging situation must be rectified. My old Spark would only do 130 km on a charge and this new Ioniq does 450 km, so less of an issue. But for road trips, messing around with unreliable chargers is a non-starter for a lot of folks.
(archive.is doesn't show full article but MSN does: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/i-visited-over-120...)
The first was a Kia from SF to Sacramento, and back a few days later, thinking this was California and it should be fine. I tried to use twelve stations and seven were broken/out of order for various reasons. I was so shocked about the sad state of affairs on this, I logged/blogged it. The problems were pretty much like the article:
1) Generally out of order message or off for some unknown reason. 2) One had a blatant electrical problem where it charged and then stopped as soon as I walked away. Thinking I was charged, but wasn't. 3) Appear to work, but the payment system was out of order. 4) One was on, but the UI was completely unresponsive. Worker at the business said, "It hasn't been working for almost a year now." 5) App didn't work. Generally, all apps in this space suck bad. Whether it's finding stations or the actual vendor, they are all slow and clunky at best with terrible UIs.
The second was a trip from Boston to central Connecticut and back last month. There was a shortage of cars in the city. Logan was out of cars and I had to go to a neighborhood rental on the outskirts. On top of the shortage was Hertz's botched EV initiative, so there was only one Chevy Volt available at 33% charge.
This experience was even worse. Again, over half the stations I encountered were broken for the same reasons. On top of that, there was essentially just one supercharging station on I-95 from Central CT to Boston, which I missed. It took me three hours because I had to preserve enough charge to make it back to Logan and take my flight out. By the time I got to the Boston Tunnel, the car went into "limited propulsion mode." I fully expected to die in the tunnel on a Friday evening and miss my flight.
The whole thing reminded me that charging stations are complex machines with a myriad of things that can go wrong. On top of that, all these companies are startups who concentrate on growth and marketshare instead of creating an actual reliable usable product. 99% of people can't name one of these companies, and being the best, most trusted charging company is not the goal.
I'm not renting an electric vehicle for a long time. The best use case would be within a city, and unless I'm purposely driving all over a city, I might as well just take public transportation or uber.
Besides, I don't like vendor lock-in in my software, I don't like vendor lock-in for my cars.
This really is not the case in my experience. I drive a different EV for personal use, but always Turo a Tesla when flying into a location and doing any significant travel. In every location I’ve been, absolutely zero issues even when traveling 500+ miles between cities. I can see why non-technical people wouldn’t want to do this, but it takes a negligible amount of time to plan a proper route.
> Besides, I don't like vendor lock-in in my software, I don't like vendor lock-in for my cars.
I don’t even know what this means - Tesla vehicles can charge at any CCS station or level 2 charger (home plug, not DC). Other brands will be rolling out Tesla charger support in early 2024. There is no vendor lock-in.
The person you replied to gave you a counter example which you ignore for ... reasons? All of the five issues you cite are basically non-existent for superchargers. As another anecdote, I have made multiple 1000+mile trips using the Supercharger network with zero problems. The experience mirrors that of pretty much every other Tesla owner that I know.
Also, what vendor lock in? I can charge my car at any J1772 or CCS charger (if I wanted to), or at home from a 110V or 220V outlet. Tesla's charging system uses the CCS signalling standard, which is part of the reason other manufacturers are now going to use it as well.
This cultish devotion to Tesla is baffling but not surprising.
The Chevy Volt, a plug in hybrid discontinued four years ago, or the Chevy Bolt, an electric vehicle?
- Hard to use charging interfaces where you have to arrive to the station with an account already set up. Why can't you simply use your credit card like you do at a gas station?! (The article addresses this, but still…)
- Spotty density (sometimes near, sometimes far) of charging stations.
- Unreliable charging stations where you feel like it is a minor miracle when they actually work.
I almost never use the charging network opting to charge at home. For out of EV range trips, I use my hybrid.
Until EVs are cheaper than ICE vehicles, have the range of an ICE vehicle, and can be charged at the same rate as it takes to fill a tank of gas in a completely reliable manner, I don't really see widespread adoption of EVs in the US. On the other hand, sales of hybrid vehicles in the US are strong [0]
[0] https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/electric-vehicle-buyer-in...
It's easy for people who havent lived with an electric to forget about home charging as there is no gasoline equivalent. I think we need more infrastructure to make chargers available to people without off-street parking. Many of these chargers could also be publically available. We need more public-private partnerships or companies who are willing to take on the risk of mass installing chargers.
By contrast, electric charging stations are typically at the far end of a vast sea of parking. There's nothing, and nobody around, so vandals take advantage, and even when they don't, things just break and there's nobody around to tell about it.
And the whole payment scheme is ridiculous. Imagine a gas station that didn't accept cash, or that you needed an app to pay for. Again, the main problem is that there's nobody around to account for when things go wrong.
If your charger used to generate $X/day and all of the sudden generates $0/day most likely its broken.
But I agree on the whole no cash or app payment thing.
An attendant can reset a pump or circuit breaker though. And more importantly place the service call or call the police for a vandal.
The next 10 years are going to be really interesting for gas stations and car dealerships.
Even if you take just 5% adoption we have so far, that's 3%+ of former once a week gas station customers that now charge at home
Feels like something they would say.
The single biggest issue with the “open” charging network at this point, in my opinion, is that it’s made up of so many different hardware vendors. At a single EA site you may have 3 different manufacturers of hardware. If something breaks you’ve got three completely different architectures that likely have a different technician required to fix, and definitely different internal components. Then add on the software layer that needs to look identical to end users but is also unique per vendor.
Tesla on the other hand owns the stack end to end.
It would be like trying to build HN utilizing dell servers running Linux, hpe servers running windows, and Lenovo servers running FreeBSD all trying to look like a single standardized interface to the end user. The overhead and areas for issues are immense.
I understand why someone like EA doesn’t want to be single sourced but what they’re doing clearly isn’t working.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/i-visited-over-120... .
Microsoft to the rescue.