Analysis of EV charging stations finds reliability issues galore | Hacker News Reader

Analysis of EV charging stations finds reliability issues galore

emergingtechbrew.com

41 pointsspeckx57 comments

26% actually seems quite low to me. In my experience with EV rentals, it was over 50%, and I kept track.

In 2022, I purposely rented a Kia to go from SF to Sacramento. I wanted to try it out and thought of all places in the US, Northern California would be the safest place to do it. This was the eye opener. Connection issues with the chargers, non-responsive touch screens, damaged chargers, payment systems failing. I was lucky to see "Out of order" messages, because at least I wouldn't be wasting my time.

In 2023, I had a Bolt hoisted on me by Hertz in Boston for a round trip from Logan to Central CT. I planned to charge in CT during my visit, and wasted about an hour with the same issues. Thinking I could super charge, on the way, found 1 super charge station on I-95 between CT and Logan, and that was way past at the exit I left. I had to travel at around 60mph on that whole trip to keep the charge in the green. I arrived at Logan with no charge, and 45 min till my flight took off.

Neither rental company (Avis and then Hertz) provided Tesla adapters.

Also in 2023, Hertz shoved a Tesla on me in Houston, but I figured an urban area, I'd be fine. I was, but the Tesla station closest to where I was staying was completely out for maintenance. Thank God for Buc-ee's. They had a bunch of Tesla chargers there.

Not only are the networks bad, the apps are garbage. Bad, incorrect data is just one problem. The ones I use don't live update your location as you go, requiring manual swipes. I also experienced random crashes.

Imagine fighting with these stupid apps to get to a charger that has a 50/50 chance of working, then use these crappy apps again to get another coin toss.

I'm considering an EV for my commute, but I am going to avoid situations where I rely on the public charging network.

Have owned a Tesla for a year or so. Longest single trip has been 1400 miles.

I've never seen a broken supercharger. I've always been able to find a charger, even if it's a non-Tesla one. That 1400mi used superchargers the whole way and none required interacting with touch screens or apps.

Third party chargers are spottier. The Tesla can navigate to them but many require signing up, apps, etc. Some handle PAYG with a card like a normal fuel pump but they're still rare IME.

But if you're considering buying one, you're probably not driving it in the same way as a rental. We do 40-50mi a day and it just charges at home overnight at a cheap rate. Even catches some solar in summer. It's more convenient than having to do a fuel shop every couple of weeks and about a fifth the price (UK). It's also the most powerful car we've ever owned. You've driven one, you know. Even the single motor Teslas accelerate like supercars.

These articles are pretty much garbage. They never note which chargers, where, were investigated.

For example - are they talking about Tesla chargers or non-Tesla chargers? What geography?

From the article: "ChargerHelp conducted a point-in-time assessment of more than 4,800 charge points to see if reported uptime matched drivers’ actual experience. The company found that 26.3% of test charges failed."

I have owned a Tesla as my daily driver for 6 years. My wife has for 5 years. We have taken many road trips in our cars, ranging from 300 - 1,000 miles (480 - 1,600km) one-way. And, occasionally, for reasons, we find ourselves using a Supercharger locally, not on a road trip. In all that time, we have had one (1) time when a Supercharger failed to initiate a charge, in which case, we moved to the unit 10 feet away.

Of course, the plural of anecdote is not data, but the difference between 1 time in 11 combined years of driving and 26.3% failure rate is extremely suspect.

And when the source is a "study" funded by ChargerHelp, whose website says

>>> ChargerHelp is tackling the biggest hurdle to rapid EV adoption—the charging experience.

>>> We ensure charging stations stay operational, keeping EVs powered and on the move. Reliable access to charging is crucial, whether for personal vehicles or entire fleets, and we make sure drivers can charge anytime, anywhere without interruptions

The smell of bias is, shall we say, not surprising.

They don't even seem to specify what kind of charger they've tested. But I wouldn't be surprised if they found that a quarter of public L2-chargers were out of service. They have tons of failure points and usually very little internal logic to self-report.

Some of the early fast chargers (outside of Tesla) were notoriously bad, and a lot of them are still around, for better or worse. Many of the early AC and DC chargers were also without any kind of connectivity, making it hard to properly manage them. In the early days even some of the fast chargers at gas station weren't really network connected, and if they were it was poorly implemented. Not that different from pumps at the forecourt.

IME, it's obviously Electrify America and Blink.

I rarely charge outside, but when I do I try to stay away from their chargers as my reliability rate of a successful charge on first plug is like 10%. It used it not matter that much, but with way more EVs out there, you can't just plug in to the next port as they're all taken.

I'm not sure it's bias, just sloppy reporting. I've been a Tesla driver for 5.5 years and had similar experience. I think I've had twice as many problems though (2 times in 5.5 years and had to move 10 feet). The only times I've had any range anxiety was in those rare locations (usually well up in mountain wilderness) where I had to rely on non-Tesla chargers.

The value of the Tesla Supercharger network is totally underrated by the mainstream press.

I would think that Tesla’s really high reliability is probably pulling up the average for Electrify America’s really horrible reliability. So to me, 26% failure rate means like 2% for Tesla and 98% for EA, but ya, context is needed to understand the numbers.

I agree with what you've said, but I think pretty clearly they're not talking about Superchargers.

As any non-Tesla EV owner knows, the other DC fast charging options are pretty egregiously bad - Electrify America was most notorious I think for having abysmal reliability.

In the past couple years, though, every other EV company has pretty much agreed to switch to Tesla's "North American Charging Standard", and an obvious major reason for this is that the Supercharger network is leaps and bounds better than the alternatives. This switchover is still in progress, so over the next few years you'll see CCS decline and more Superchargers.

As a Volvo EV owner I was really excited for Suoerchargers to be available this year. Now it seems Musk firing everyone on the Suoercharger team has put a massive delay into everything, if it happens at all now.

Big issue here in Norway as well. Was driving home from vacation couple of weeks ago, and at a large gas station 90% of the chargers were out of order. In the app they said all was fine, but when you tried it just didn't work.

What I don't get is how they're so unreliable. My buddy has been making his own EVSE and there's really not much to it. Anyone know what's their primary mode of failure? Is it just crappy software written by lowest bidder or?

A 240V AC or whatever EVSE is pretty basic and are generally easy to keep reliable. I doubt your friend is building 1000VDC chargers.

In fact for “L2” charging the charger is part of the car. The thing on the wall/poll is more properly called a “wall box”, and is mostly a contactor that the car can communicate with.

Sure, a supercharger is more complicated than an EVSE. I assume the most complicated part, in terms of hardware, is the AC to DC converter. Though, I have hard time imagining they're still, after years of making these things, having massive reliability issues with the AC-DC converter hardware.

Never had any issues here in Norway, but I only charge on superchargers. Are the others really that bad?

This was all superchargers. Across two different providers no less.

Yet not all of them, so it wasn't a common cause as such.

edit: This was one of the worse cases, but it's not infrequent I experience at least one charger at a station out of service. I would say it's rather seldom I charge on a station where all chargers work.

Tesla reliability is much, much, better than any other network. In the nearly seven years that I've been driving my Model S in eight countries the car has never directed me to a charging station that wasn't working. Sometimes it doesn't count out of order stalls correctly but that just means waiting a bit longer for another car to finish charging; even that is exceedingly rare.

Out of interest I occasionally try to charge at a non-Tesla charger and the experience is dismal with a roughly 50% failure rate. Sometimes the charger won't start, sometimes the payment system won't accept my credit card, sometimes the app doesn't work, sometimes the touchscreen is simply not functioning.

But things are definitely improving in the UK at least. But another problem is that the cost of charging at many motorway service station fast chargers makes refuelling about as expensive as driving an ICE car. Tesla is noticeably cheaper than the other networks.

Making a wild guess that it was a Circle K-station that you went to? They were quite early to the market with fast chargers, and had a lot of reliability issues with some of the chargers. Like you suggested, it's usually software related, and you can often get them to work by just power-cycling them using the emergency stop button. If you hear the loud click from the metal contacts or the charger latches with the port and it doesn't start charging it's almost always a software glitch that a restart will fix.

For regular AC-charging all the logic is in the car, so the only thing you really need is some safety features on the outside, typically some ground fault protection and so on. But when you use a DC fast charger the charger itself and the cars battery management system has to work together, which I imagine can cause all kinds of edge cases where people have interpreted the standards differently. It didn't help that there were multiple different standards early on.

In this case it was indeed Circle-K, but also the Mer stations at the same place. But again, not all of them, just almost all of them.

To be fair though, the Mer stations did say "out of order", was just the Circle-K ones which didn't show correct status.

However, when driving alone you don't have the luxury of checking the app while driving. So in almost all cases you don't find out until you're there.

Here in EU (south-east France, north-west Italy to be more precise) most chargers seems operational though they are ALL an immense amount of crapware crap, many with mandatory dysfunctional apps, some with a hell of different smart-cards one per network plus roaming agreements.

Essentially most reliability issues here cane from the client crapware, not the charger itself. Maybe a three-phase main distribution plus HVDC dedicated for quick chargers help, but all issues I found are not electrical and some are really ridiculous like a mandatory dysfunctional app in a zone very bad covered by mobile networks where you can start charging after many efforts, than you are trapped, you have to stop the charge from car to remove the plug and your charging session remain open for restarting a charge on the same credit card and no other question asked. Customer services that IF they respond to their 24/7/365 "call us when you want, we are here to help" they say they can't identify the charger you are at and so on.

Essentially the "engineering parts" it's essentially ok here, the "business and business software part" deserve the use of napalm.

It's very useful to get a multi-network RFID card. I've got ChargeMyHyundai and their card works with all these crappy little networks that feel so important to have an app.

I have some, BUT they tend to have some hyper-high costs on certain networks, so on unusual trips I still need a companion app to verify the price of one of the few I have plus the option to register, download the nth crapplication and so on to avoid roaming costs.

Just try ChargePrice somewhere in the EU no matter what charger, you'll find for the same charge an enormous price difference, often more than 4x or even 10x from the cheapest to the most expensive combo of roaming and own network cards. It's a jungle.

Thankfully as almost any BEV owner I do need public charging only for long trips, not frequently, for the rest I recharge at home, but this also means many in cities would simply never get an EV.

Than ad the absurd price delta from the BRICS countries, let's say an entry-level BEV, BYD Atto 3, ~38k€ here, ~9k€ in Thailand, same battery and accessories. For where I live there are enough public charger for essentially all destinations in the region, it's not a matter of mere availability, it's a matter of a awful market on them with absurdly different prices for the same amount of energy (and time, because some chargers have ha connection fee, a time fee and an energy fee together and you have to do a bit of math to find the cheapest if you want) while gasoline/diesel vary just about few cents around a region an not more than ten cents in the whole EU united to such incredible price difference for the car, essentially BEV are a sound option ONLY if you recharge at home 99% of the time and run them at least 20k km/year or more. Witch makes them sound for just 10% or so of the overall population. While at BRICS costs, not just China they probably be convenient for 50-30% of overall population.

All these apps are just a symptom of there being oxygen wasters employed that rely on “growth & engagement” to justify their careers.

There is no reason an EV charger can’t have a card terminal to take payment like all gas pumps and call it a day, except these people would be out of a job if they no longer have any "engagement" to report on or user data to trade.

Absolutely, but only very few highway chargers here also accept bank cards and they also operate badly, some have only crapplications, some have app+card but the card tend to be costly.

I call this just surveillance capitalism...

The Electrify America operator announcement for the station nearest me reads

"Due to stolen parts within our charging system, the chargers at this location will remain unavailable as we work with law enforcement agencies to determine the source of the property damage. The negative impact on EV drivers is unfortunate, and we hope the matter will be resolved quickly. We will provide an update when the chargers become available. "

Every charging station in Oakland has had its copper cables chopped off by crackheads at some point.

The company found that 26.3% of test charges failed.

I was reliant for 3 years on Chargepoint stations; 25% fail rate sounds about right. Either explicitly out of order, silently fails, or the connector is damaged. Have had much better experience with Tesla stations - no issues in year one.

From my experience in the Netherlands and Germany: chargers basically always work. The question is whether you pay a normal price or double (or even triple!) the normal price. Fastned in the Netherlands is for example about 3 times as expensive as a Tesla Supercharger.

Yeah this problem is somewhat American Exceptionalism at work. We've built charger networks with a completely different economic model and it's going very poorly.

I'm a huge fan of Fastned. They have never failed me. I can rely on their chargers working, and delivering maximum speed.

Ionity is not too far behind, and between the two the coverage is pretty good in Western Europe.

The supercharger network remains Tesla’s largest advantage.

I wonder - there’s probably something similar in the history of cars and gas stations?

Good thing the supercharger team got laid off.

That decision has been a huge problem for the NACS rollout that was supposed to allow Superchargers to sell energy to other brands of cars. The adapters and compatibility from other major car brands are now delayed by months or more. Just total chaos. One wonders if that was Musk's plan all along (potentially violating anti-trust laws) or if it was just a spur of the moment pique.

Originally each manufacturer was approached by various oil companies to use specifically their blend of combustible fuel. Not all of it was even gasoline, or at least gasoline as we know it. Some madmen even made two stroke kerosene engines. Esso and Sunoco (then known as Sun Oil Company) were the earliest to do this pressuring, having approached manufacturers like Stutz and Paige, and are partially to blame for the octane rating system we've had since 1927. The octane system and standardization of additives came about after two decades of reliability issues from vehicle owners buying the "wrong fuel" for their cars, and the oil companies all acted together before lawsuits could run wild and damage what was, at the time, possibly the fastest growing industry.

From my experience it's only been electrify america chargers that have been down. I've never experienced an issue with Rivian charging, and I use that more frequently.

That is true for non-Tesla charging stations, but it's false for Tesla charging stations:

* Avg uptime for Tesla "Supercharger" stations is close to 100%.

* Avg uptime for all Tesla charging stations is around 96%.

Sources:

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a44405743/tesla-ev-charger...

https://electrek.co/2024/08/14/tesla-dominates-charging-expe...

https://insideevs.com/news/664737/tesla-superchargers-averag...

Gas stations make pennies off of gas and nearly all of their profit on concessions.

Instead of giving incentives to hotels and businesses who have little experience or incentive in maintaining working charging stations. A better approach would be to pay gas stations .

It would also work as free marketing for EVs. ICE owners would see suave EV owners sitting comfortably in a sleek EV while they fill up their filthy petrol. Most likely you could pool EV producers to cover the incentive cost so the public cost would be zero

Gas stations don’t have parking for cars to sit there for 30 minutes. Their real estate doesn’t work.

Hotels and parking lots have empty spaces.

Does it still take that long? I thought that was fixed.

You know what gas station this model works at? Buc-ee's. They're the most reliable place to charge your Tesla in Texas.

Katy, TX has 16 stations. You're going to blow 30 minutes to an hour inside the Buc-ee's anyway.

Not being familiar, what is different about Buc-ee's? Why do people spend 30-60 minutes inside?

Lots of brisket.

You can spend 30 minutes in there pretty easy. I would say you could probably spend an hour in there if you tried a little bit. Lots of hot fresh food selections (Best known for their Brisket Sandwiches), lots of gas station food like chips, jerkey etc. Cold Drinks. tons of general merchandise things like T-shirts, Christmas decorations etc. They also have large, clean, well maintained bathrooms.

I've kinda figured that the basic business model is they offer just about everything you need and want if you are on a long car trip. Food, Drink, Gas, Clean Restrooms, a chance to stretch your legs for a little bit. And while you are stretching your legs they sell you a Bucee's Tshirt and tumbler.

This is how I describe Buc-ee's to those who aren't familiar - Imagine a convenience store that's the size of a football field. Inside is freshly made, but not healthy at all food and the cleanest bathrooms you will ever see at a gas station. Next to the store, imagine another football field of gas pumps. Finally, all around the pumps and store is enough paved land to fill yet another football field.

If you think I'm exaggerating, here's the Google Maps view of the one in Katy. Measure yourself. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buc-ee%E2%80%99s/@29.77804...

I'm sure ICE owners would get over it quickly when they drive away after 3 minutes and the EV is still there being fleeced for overpriced vending machine coffee.

Don't get me wrong, EVs are good, and if you can charge at home or work, take little marginal time to charge, but an easily-pumped 40MJ/l liquid is a tough mark to beat when you have to fuel at a station.

I suspect that in a couple of decades, EV owners will think it's weird that we used to stop outdoors (in all weather) to put smelly chemicals into our cars.

They won't be surprised that it doesn't take long. They wouldn't stand for it at all if it took longer.

I think we've all priced in a lot of discomforts. Once replaced we will price in different discomforts.

What range and charging time would make this a reality ? It’s not the case now

I think it is the case now. The vast majority of people charge at home. Charging at a station is the exception, not the rule.

What will change is access to chargers in apartments and similar places. When that happens people will find it odd how people used to just assume they'd spend ten minutes a week in a chemical plant.

outliers matter more than averages.

it doesn't matter if you charge 9/10 times at home if you need to charge in the wild and get stuck.

People don't make purchase decisions on the common case they care about the outlying case.

> The vast majority of people charge at home

Another way to read that statistic is "the away from home charging situation is such a hassle that the vast majority of people without chargers at home don't buy EVs".

And the article is about station charging. I think we can all understand that home charging is basically fine.

And that's before the price. Depending on tariffs, home charging is competitive or cheaper than liquid fuel and the motor efficiency is much higher to boot. But charge outside at the "wrong" charger and the price can be up to 10 times higher: around 5-6 times the price of the liquid fuel on a kWh basis, and roughly double the per-mile cost as an ICE.

Perhaps, or maybe people will say "you know in the past, charging your car took under 2 minutes and was always done under a roof, no messing about with cables in the rain and waiting 15 minutes. And a full charge lasted over 1000km!"

Actually have a PHEV, charged at work, but I'm under no illusions that the away from home recharging situation is not a stunning win for the EV side. Since the power delivery of a litre of hydrocarbon fuel per second is 40MW, and the very best chargers bristling with GaN, SiC and fancy controllers barely push 500kW, there's a little way to go.

Tesla has Super chargers co-located at Parkers gas stations along Interstate 16 in Georgia. These are Parker's Kitchens that have a really good selection of Hot foods and places to sit down and eat. I'm assuming based on the spacing its strategic placement for Tesla drivers to get from Atlanta to Savannah or on down I-95 to Jacksonville.

I've also noticed them at Buc-ee's on I-75 and I-95.

I hate charging at gas stations. They're not a place where I want to spend time. Their retail is usually small, food choice is meh, and the surroundings are boring and smelly.

In my experience oil-company-owned charging networks are the least reliable. Shell Recharge is so bad it looks like intentional sabotage.

Gas station chargers aren't even an alternative to hotel chargers. They need different types of chargers — hotels and workplaces can have cheap and simple AC chargers that take a whole day or night to recharge (8-11 hours). Nobody is going to spend a whole day at gas station, so they need much more expensive DC fast chargers (20-30 minutes to recharge). But for fast chargers highway stops with a food court and nicer views are much better.

You don't fuel your ICE car in a stable to parade it in front of horses, and EV owners have no need to sit at a gas station.

In the US there were government subsidies for installing chargers, but no incentive or profitable business reason to keep them running.

I don't understand how once you've installed it you can't just set a price to charge that makes it profitable to maintain, whatever that price is.

Possibly at that price there’s not enough demand. Put another way, it’s possible there’s no price that covers the cost of maintenance per charge and attracts enough people to get enough charges.

The incentive requires the chargers have 97% availability.

I think that is the case now, but I don't believe it was necessary before 2023.

Pretty much a non-article. It talks about a report, but none of the lists of state results or charging vendor results are included.

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