U.S. EV charging issues

[slothinker]

The NY Times just published an interesting article on the large percentage of charging stations which are broken at any given time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/16/...onment/electric-vehicles-broken-chargers.html

 

[outie]

On my recent round trip from socal to norcal, I can attest the situation. It’s very frustrating where sometimes multiple chargers are down when there aren’t that many in the first place. There were often people already waiting to charge. Fortunately we were able to skip and moved on to the next stop.

I was bragging to my wife how EA chargers are so much faster and have much more availability when I took delivery of my car from a Norcal dealer driving back to Socal in June. I was thinking to ditch all our Teslas. However on this trip where the whole family is with me and the charging situation was nothing like my trip in June, I am actually having second thoughts.

In all fairness, Tesla chargers sometimes die too but they have so many more chargers at a station, unlike EA when there are 4 chargers 2 are dead!

 

[slothinker]

On my recent round trip from socal to norcal, I can attest the situation. It’s very frustrating where sometimes multiple chargers are down when there aren’t that many in the first place. There were often people already waiting to charge. Fortunately we were able to skip and moved on to the next stop.

I was bragging to my wife how EA chargers are so much faster and have much more availability when I took delivery of my car from a Norcal dealer driving back to Socal in June. I was thinking to ditch all our Teslas. However on this trip where the whole family is with me and the charging situation was nothing like my trip in June, I am actually having second thoughts.

In all fairness, Tesla chargers sometimes die too but they have so many more chargers at a station, unlike EA when there are 4 chargers 2 are dead!

Me too. On a recent trip to Monterey, CA there was only EA charger in the city (5 chargers in a Safeway parking lot). Of those, three were totally non-operational for me (Taycan) while I notice a Rivian charging w/out any difficulty at a fourth.

I can imagine the discussion at EA when they found out the 97% uptime reliability requirement. That's going to be tough.

 

[outie]

Another issue I’ve experienced is that there’s no formal queue or line for a charging spot. With Tesla people usually know where to wait and form a line, not so with EA chargers. People just park around adjacent space and ask people who’s next. However, sometimes there are EA chargers on opposite side or 30ft away and someone told me yea someone is waiting for that one too. Ok so who’s waiting for what and where??

 

[ThePaddyWan]

I can agree to that. We've had issues with some stations being offline, issues initiating the charge, or getting a low charge rate. Never had an issue not being able to charge, just that it takes longer to get working as we'd expected. It's definitely an early stage technology experience.

 

[slothinker]

Me too. On a recent trip to Monterey, CA there was only EA charger in the city (5 chargers in a Safeway parking lot). Of those, three were totally non-operational for me (Taycan) while I notice a Rivian charging w/out any difficulty at a fourth.

I can imagine the discussion at EA when they found out the 97% uptime reliability requirement. That's going to be tough.

So today went to a station near San Luis Obispo (100 mi. north of Santa Barbara). Four units, all more or less disabled. One which had previously been labeled 350 Kwh was now 150 Kwh. My Porsche app indicated that unit "04" was 50 Kwh although the pump was now marked 350 Kwh.

Folks were calling EA and on long wait times. In my case charge started and then stopped after only a couple of minutes. This was the same experience others were having. I'm sympathetic regarding the new technology aspects but it is, at least, an argument in favor of having roving inspectors who come around once in a while to make sure things are more or less working properly.

Meanwhile, 100 yards away, there are about 15 Tesla chargers just waiting for vehicles.

 

[kort]

So today went to a station near San Luis Obispo (100 mi. north of Santa Barbara). Four units, all more or less disabled. One which had previously been labeled 350 Kwh was now 150 Kwh. My Porsche app indicated that unit "04" was 50 Kwh although the pump was now marked 350 Kwh.

Folks were calling EA and on long wait times. In my case charge started and then stopped after only a couple of minutes. This was the same experience others were having. I'm sympathetic regarding the new technology aspects but it is, at least, an argument in favor of having roving inspectors who come around once in a while to make sure things are more or less working properly.

Meanwhile, 100 yards away, there are about 15 Tesla chargers just waiting for vehicles.

the issue with EA in addition to the non operating units is that as more and more EVs hit the roads the ability to charge those cars is not expanding proportionately. in addition to VW group cars there are other manufacturers who are offering similar free charging at EA stations and in addition EA does offer some of the fastest chargers in most areas.
The charging infrastructure is going to be under a lot of stress until charging capacity expands in order to accomodate all the EVs being sold.

 

[slothinker]

the issue with EA in addition to the non operating units is that as more and more EVs hit the roads the ability to charge those cars is not expanding proportionately. in addition to VW group cars there are other manufacturers who are offering similar free charging at EA stations and in addition EA does offer some of the fastest chargers in most areas.
The charging infrastructure is going to be under a lot of stress until charging capacity expands in order to accomodate all the EVs being sold.

I certainly appreciate the challenge of dealing with more and more diverse vehicles. Seeing a line of cars waiting for a charge would prove that point. I've not observed that. Instead it often looks like EA units or storage structure simply wasn't designed to be busy on a regular basis. That combined with the dearth of units generally is a recipe for disaster. That's not hyperbole for travelers who can easily find themselves in dire straits when all or nearly all units in a location are non-operable.