Same in Germany. So many broken chargers for weeks.
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.
Gas stations have attendants. When payment doesn’t work, a person can go tell someone and still pay. When a pump has an issue it can be switch off when it first happens. If it’s an easy fix, it can be done right there. If it’s not an easy fix they can schedule a repair.
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.
> These charging stations were built with a business model of set-it-and-forget-it. This doesn’t work.
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.
Tesla's charging equipment itself is just flat out more reliable than competitors. AFAIK they re-use modules from their vehicles ganged up so benefit highly from using an automotive grade battle-tested component. It also means there are plenty of spares available for replacement.
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.
It could also be faster maintenance response. If Tesla actually fixes their chargers quickly then you would tend not to see it even if the base reliability is lower.
doubtful, because they have the data on costs to repair, and would be minimizing that, whereas competitors just let it stay broken since that is cheaper than fixing.
Tesla chargers have instantaneous telemetry that tell drivers exactly how many charging stalls are functional. Presumably this information is available to Tesla employees, who seem to take action immediately when a charging station reports trouble. Excluding the entire card payments industry from the process (thus excluding a garbage-fire of non-functional third party technology) takes care of the rest.
Tesla removes a lot of potential points of failure - no credit card machine or touchscreen to break and the cord is too short to drive over it with your car.
Tesla does have a robust and responsive repair process in place. They monitor the status of their chargers and quickly send out a repair team. This is opposed to other operators who often wait for customer complaints and even then may not respond for weeks. It’s not that Tesla has magic, unbreakable equipment.
way more mature, sure, but simpler? it has to vend a liquid and measure its amount and then charge you at the pump a specific amount. whereas the EV chargers are a cable and an Internet connection.
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.
Don’t forget gas pumps also have to remove and store vapors from the vehicles’ tanks. So I agree, waaaay more complicated. Other than contractors, I’d imagine there are no moving parts on an ev charger.
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.
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.
Besides Tesla, all the other companies operating charger networks don't really care if they work. The purpose of the other charging stations/networks is for press releases, advertisements, government lawsuit settlements, etc. If it takes some more money and effort to fix malfunctions, and redesign some parts to address observed flaws, well that's not in the budget for this project, which isn't profitable anyway. They're not trying to be competitive in the charging market.
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.
My special talents are disappearing that thing which was just in my hand and pulling up to the out-of-order gas pump without realizing before I've exited the car.
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.
> Read through the article, but I still don't know why so many are broken and stay broken,
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.
> I was expecting some insights into federal subsidies and bad incentives.
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.
Still, I see a single "out of order" pump every once in a while and then a few days later it's working again. The question seems more "why are they allowed to stay broken?"
Regardless, that's most likely leased spaces. If they don't make money, they lose money. And they seem to be off for a significant amount of time given that everyone seems to have a first hand story about it.
That's true, but I doubt people charging their car represent the bulk of their income. The government pays companies to build new stations. Fixing old ones means your techs are tied up, and you're able to bid on fewer projects, which means less revenue. Again, I'm guessing, but it seems like a decent explanation.
Why is government paying subsidies to build charging stations? Must imply they are not a profitable endeavor to begin with. Otherwise entrepreneurs would be all crawling over for the opportunity. If there is no money in it, it will be left to rot.
Green energies in general are heavily subsidized, whereas conventional fossil fuels are heavily taxed. Without these measures, there would be no transition to alternative power sources, because economically they are nonsensical.
> 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
The incentive reason is that rushing to market is more lucrative than waiting for a reliable product. The technical reason is that these early prospecters simply lack the capability to do sufficient reliability engineering. It would be a boring article.
A few months back I had to go to Palm Beach for work. It was right when Miami was flooding. That's over two hours away. But, the Port Everglades, which is where the tankers unload, was flooded too, and even up in Palm Beach there was no gas. I drove in there with low fuel, thinking it wouldn't be an issue since I was so far north. But, then couldn't find gas at all the next day, and driving around and seeing tons of frustrated drivers at various gas stations was haunting.
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.
Well if you had a Tesla your story would have stopped at the start. Many people buy a Tesla for this specific reason. Other manufacturers are converting to the Tesla standard for this reason. If you don't buy a Tesla and have troubles afterwards..well you had a choice at the start.
Yes, but as the commenter pointed out, it would take a significant amount of time.
> 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.
That’s specious as i charged my BMW i3 on 110v in our garage for years and that mini hybrid is related. Sounds like they restrict current to it even at 110v?
Yea, that is odd. Wikipedia says that the second generation Mini Countryman (the only hybrid Mini I could find), has a 7.6 kWh battery. A standard wall outlet at 110V and 15A should charge that in four hours. Of course charging causes heat, which is an important consideration. I’m sure that every car monitors the battery temperature and slows down the charge rate to prevent overheating. But still, 12 hours? Wow. A Tesla plugged into the very same outlet would charge to 50 or 60 miles range in that time.
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.
I'm really glad I embarrassed myself in this thread by stating it would take 8-12 hours. I have never really tested the charging (always chasing three kids around!). I do believe others are correct and my assumptions were mistaken. I'm happy to now know that I can expect a full charge in only about 4 hours. Thanks hive mind on HN!
Hybrid cars have batteries significantly smaller than any fully BEV. Sure, it takes that long for a BEV, but 120V should charge a hybrid to full much faster.
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.
> 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
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!
You might have missed the first paragraph where they mentioned the gas shortages. We were in south Florida at the same time, and there were three distinct groups: people driving gas guzzling SUVs and trucks who were waiting in line for 4+ hours at the handful of stations which had any gas (some of the stations put up signs when they were out, but many did not hoping you’d buy something else since you were there), people who drove high-mileage cars appropriate for the area who were aware of but not worried about it until next week, and EV / plug-in hybrid drivers who were largely unaffected.
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.
Except Tesla figured out the feed and nobody else has.
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
From what I've experienced and heard from other EV users, people who charge at home don't care what charging on the road costs.
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.
The payment thing just boggles my mind. I've been paying at card readers at a gas pump for 20 years now and exactly once did it not work. It's the one thing that has been completely solved in industry, and it doesn't work with EVs.
FWIW, I think the card industry itself is having to rethink a lot of stuff for EVs.
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.
Also the average gas payment is about 10x larger than what charging an EV costs around here. So the amount of money "lost" on credit card fees and whatever the actual physical device costs to operate is relatively a lot bigger.
VS an app, where you keep almost 100% of the money AND can track your users better.
Just set a minimum limit on the charge amount for the fee overhead to be acceptble. Why an app? Just pay with a card or NFC. If I have to install an app it's a no go. Funds "lost" in multiple apps, unable to be redeemed, tracking etc.
For me (coming up on 9 years of LEAF ownership), the app is something that helps me find the station in the first place and is something that’s more likely to be with me and easily found than a rarely used card or fob.
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.
I use RFID/NFC tags 99% of the time, but I still need the app if I want real-time information whether a charger is online and available anyway.
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.
ZipCar has an elaborate fleet card setup. I remember having to type in the current odometer value, and some other identifiers, on the gas pump keypad. Never seen something like that before.
I worked as a delivery driver for an auto parts store in ~2010. We had the same thing, but the card was tied to the vehicle (the card was literally attached to the vehicle's key) so we didn't have to type in the vehicle ID.
I've run into more failures than that at gas pumps, but it is mostly rare like you say. However in almost all cases, they're on the same network as the gas station POS, and I assume hard-wired. The card readers I see at EV spots seem to less durable, similar to the card readers you see on vending machines. I bet they mostly are using cellular to communicate.
That probably comes down to how the infrastructure is built out. A lot of companies are selling EV systems that can be installed in a pre-existing parking lot. A gas station requires installing large underground tanks, so it's not much extra effort to throw the data wires. In order to convince someone a business to install an EV charger, every little bit of effort counts.
Almost no other vending process dependent on Paywave breaks longterm. I think its because the refill cycle is frequent enough there's a functional minimum attendance and people with "power" (the agents) who profit from the service are made aware of the bug.
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?
So your car is already registered with your payment, which is what people are disagreeing with. The problem isn't the "app", it's the fact that you need to register with an additional payment processor rather than just tapping your card like everywhere else
Some people won't want to use an app, but the bigger problem is each charging company requires its own app. I don't think most people will mind setting an app once. They sure will mind setting an app every time they go to a charger and manage 10 accounts.
You have your car registered with Tesla one way or the other to accomplish that. I’m totally willing to do that for bpm CCS EV, but I guess this will just be a convenience for NACS.
NACS is actually just CCS over the Tesla physical form. Hopefully Tesla is mandating and certifying a specific subset of CCS for their Supercharger rollout of NACS.
I think there's a common lesson to CCS1/CCS2/CHAdeMO and HTTP 1.1: Any standards that avoids discussion of payment integration eventually succumbs to monopolistic substitutes.
Another Canadian here. I've seen plenty of stations that don't have tap to pay. A few that don't have pay at the pump enabled and require you to go into the store. I refueled at a few this summer that couldn't automatically refund unused prepaid balance; you had to go back to the store for the partial refund.
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.
That's actually because most cards (or merchants, perhaps) have a limit for tap to pay that is different to chip transactions ($100-300), and if the gas station does a pre-auth for $125 or so (which is what a lot of Safeway gas stations due) it hits that and requests card insertion.
It's not the standard that made it reliable for you, it's the company that made/maintained the chargers. The vast majority of these companies are shitty, fly-by-night companies that can't scale up to maintain their network.
> > The vast majority of these companies are shitty, fly-by-night companies that can't scale up to maintain their 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.
The issue is maintaining already installed chargers. Lot of chargers are either physically broken or rated for low charging rate because something inside is broken. And no one fixing it in months. Changing the connector won't fix the issue when chargers are not fixed for months on end.
People, especially techie types here on HN, tend to simply forget or not know to begin with just how many service technicians and laborers are necessary to keep all this tech running.
Just because you can imagine it does not mean it's possible, folks.
The problem really is the companies. EA essentially rushed their product out the door knowingly with substandard (both in quality and actual standardization) that's led to their issues.
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.
> 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.
Yes, that's _exactly_ the issue. When they need to service a station, they need just the right parts. That's also from 2018. There a lot of chargers built before then. I read an article not too long ago where the new CEO was explaining that the reliability issue is, essentially, they rushed to get the first generations of chargers out so fast that they had to source parts from everywhere and they weren't all well tested and there are a lot of different types.
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.
Contrast this with Tesla who built everything in-house and has an exceptional service record with their charging network. Vertical integration has its perks.
In only 11 years Tesla built the world's best EV charging network to cover the entire US interstate system, highways, major cities, important destinations, and more recently even medium and small cities.
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.
Network effects drive Tesla sales. In this case, the network of chargers. I was a Tesla passenger for a short trip from Seattle to Vancouver and the charging at the Tesla "station" was quick and easy. Other stations were a roll of the dice and highly inconvenient.
Relying on a single company seems like bad news to me. Imagine if your car could only refuel at Chevron stations.
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.
This gets at the core as to why I've not (yet) bought an EV - it's absolutely insane that my car purchase dictates the people I have to associate with for refueling. As you point out - I would never buy a car having the stipulation I could only refuel at Chevron stations.
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.
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.
Not to mention that EV owners charge at their house overnight 99% of the time so the notion that you have to use "one brand" is a gross misunderstanding
True. I installed a L2 charger for <$1k all in, and basically only charge once, maybe twice a week at $0.115/kwh. Superchargers are generally $0.33-60/kwh.
You can charge Teslas at other charging stations. It’s just that other chargers are inconvenient and unreliable. You usually need an adapter. You have to pull out a credit card and maybe install an app on your phone. With the Tesla chargers you just plug in and everything’s billed automatically.
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 have a Tesla here in Australia, and have 3-4 charging apps and 2 RFID(!) cards -- it does feel like a backwards step. There are gaps in the Tesla supercharger network in parts here which mean you have to rely on the other networks for some long distance trips.
To be clear, they pretty much already do. There are only a handful of companies that require an app install. Filtering chargers nearby by company/tap-to-pay is probably a few months away from one of the mapping apps.
They aren't really, it is just that modern engines are incredibly tolerant of what you put in them. Some survey found that the different octane tanks get mis-filled a large portion of the time with other octanes or higher ethanol ratings. Even within an octane rating what is in there varies a lot. The changes needed to make a four stroke work on propane is very small. And an old diesel engine will run on almost any liquid that will burn but not evaporate at stp. The cars will get smarter and be able to do better with different voltages at some point.
A lot of new cars are "Flex-fuel" and will take literally anything short of diesel. They just adjust timing to the octane rating.
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.
Gasoline pumps standardized because a nozzle is relatively simple. And then use a smaller nozzle for cars that only take unleaded gasoline and you can't put leaded gas into the wrong car.
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.
Gas and Oil didn't start off as standardized (nothing does) - got there over time. I'm sure EV will get there - eventually. Needs a standards group like ASTM maybe.
This will require government regulation, which won't happen until there are enough angry EV drivers to get political attention, and then enough political will to overcome the corporate lobbyists fighting standardization. Remember standardization is good for consumers and bad for producers. Look how long it took to force apple to use usb-c chargers.
This doesn’t make sense. There’s already a standard everyone has adopted (NACS). Tesla has chargers which will start becoming available to other drivers next year. Other companies will compete or die.
Buying a recently manufactured Leaf today is buying technical debt for no good reason. Stuck with a Chademo charging port that has a shrinking installed infrastructure base, an interior that hasn't been significantly upgraded in many years, and a heating system that is sabotaged to the most inefficient heating possible, electric strip heating unless you buy the top SV Plus trim.
For some definition of "reasonable" I guess. Are they under $4k? That's about my limit for what I spend on a car. I have good luck finding reliable ICE vehicles in that price range.
99% of the charging is at home anyway. People fixate too much on the public charge options (unless you are driving hundreds of miles a day, in which case the public chargers brands are probably the least of your worries).
Fair point, I guess I meant "99% of the time", not 99% by energy or miles. I.e., I plug in whenever I'm at home and I only use a tesla charger maybe once a month (but that charge session consumes way more power than the average session because I'm putting more miles in).
This seems backwards. You're demanding that people use alternatives in the market because of competition. But competition is what we have, and the market is choosing winners and losers. So... you're demanding we use the losers' products. So they can compete? Which they... aren't?
Yes, that's why the NACS announcements are good for us Tesla owners. A lot of Tesla owners are worried about cars from other manufactures filling up Tesla charging stations. That's probably a valid concern, but I'm happy about the reduced reliance on Tesla.
Teslas aren’t limited to charging at superchargers.
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.
Seriously, especially with Tesla! I'm imagining a scenario where this becomes the standard and then Elon decides to charge everyone $2.99 per-use or some such nonsense.
EVGo already charges a $3.99 session fee. I made the mistake of topping up a EV rental without reading the fine print.
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.
What do you mean the Tesla standard is coming to most brands?
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.
To be more precise, NACS uses the Tesla physical connector but the CCS signalling protocol.
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).
To clarify #2: the retrofit is the newer controller board that speaks CCS. This is the same thing they've been offering as a "CCS upgrade". It's otherwise unrelated to the NACS switchover, though obviously those are CCS-protocol devices and thus work with 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.
You're like 1 year behind the news. Last year Tesla was adding CCS chargers. They have like 5 now. This year, Ford and others promised to use Tesla plugs on their vehicles and Tesla promised to open their network to other manufactures. "Old" CCS vehicles will use CCS-Tesla adapters.
fwiw there’s a ton of upcoming (and heavily debated/not yet implemented/understood) regulations around EV chargers that will absolutely nuke some of the shittier app-centric/not really functional charging systems that people rely on today. I’m not a Tesla fan per se, but it is remarkable how much better life is for Tesla owners vs. the huddled masses roaming the frozen wastes looking for a charger that can actually dispense a charge or provide users with some useful error feedback.
The US's Federal Highway Administration announced rules National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program. NEVI is being created under Biden's Build America, Buy America Act (enacted as part of Biden's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, 2021).
It provides funding for states to build out, maintain, and monitor EV charging solutions, and sets up common standards required for chargers funded.
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!
I chose a non-Tesla specifically (even canceling a Model 3 order I had), but the network is definitely better for them. Fortunately, many manufacturers are moving to the Tesla standard in the coming years (and Tesla has a limited number of chargers that have CCS plugs)
IMHO the state of the charging network is a major disincentive against buying any CCS equipped EV in the US. Fortunately over the next couple of years every company is switching to NACS and will in theory be able to use Tesla's charging network. This is not great news for the cars bought this year or next though, it would be like buying Betamax.
NACS is CCS with Tesla's plug on the end. 2019 Teslas and earlier won't be able to use it without a CCS retrofit.
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.
If all the adoption does is mean you can use Tesla chargers, that's not a great positive. If existing stations upgrade the plug it doesn't make the charging station any more reliable or the payment system any better.
Right, what will happen is, everyone will start charging at Tesla chargers, and the other companies will consolidate until they can convince people they are reliable enough to try.
My city tapped into a federal grant a few years ago to put a charger in one of the parking lots. The problem is they never budgeted maintenance so it's never worked since the day it was built.
They've done this without thinking of the incentives much too.
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.
Anyone work on EV chargers? Other than cable damage or mechanical damage to the plugs, there are no moving parts. So what specifically inside is likely to stop functioning or needs regular repairs/replacement/maintenance?
I recently build my own a level 2 EV charger from an OpenEVSE kit. The heart of the charger is a big mechanical relay, which connects and disconnects the charging cable based on whether a car is connected. To control the relay, there is a small circuit board that communicates with the car, and also provides over-current, over-temperature, and GFCI monitoring. If any of these things go wrong, the relay will not close and the car will not charge.
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.
To deal with the high current on such relatively high (keyword here: relatively) gauge wire there's also massive active cooling involve. This adds even more to the complexity.
Heat. Your typical 150kW fast charging is like 3 houses with 200A service all maxed out. Or 25 houses running at typical load. If you want to convert it from 240V AC to 340-360V DC (actual voltage goes up as the battery charges), you will need a massive cooling system. For a quick perspective, imagine 1500 laptop chargers working all at once!
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.
I have an EV6, and have done a cross-country trip in it. In my limited experience (Texas to California and back, and then across Texas, which is a 200+ mile trip one way) the freeway chargers are pretty dependable, but the ones in the major cities are of lower quality.
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.
What I don’t understand is why car dealerships haven’t jumped at this opportunity by giving up some parking spots for charging stations. They already have a lounge areas, have displayed cars for folks to consider, and many have some kind of snack bar. Add a cut of the charging fee and you a consistent revenue stream.
IME car dealerships generally aren't located in areas you actually want to go. A lot of them are in the "unwalkable suburban strip mall hell" part of town, and they're also closely clustered together. It makes no sense for them to be a charging destination. Besides, a person who just bought a new EV is possibly the least likely person to get lured into a purchase in your showroom.
Wapo had an article last week about how antagonist or unknowledgeable dealers are about new evs.
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)
I have an electric vehicle that I charge in my garage. One day that charger broke and I had to charge at other locations for several weeks.
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.
I've got 4 largely-independent L2 chargers so I don't ever have to worry about a broken charger leaving me up a creek without a paddle. One Clipper Creek plugged into a NEMA 14-50 outlet that's lasted 12 years so far, another Clipper Creek hardwired on another circuit. If the charger with the plug fails I've got my mobile L2 charger and my old Tesla mobile charger with a J1772 adapter.
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.
Was it plugged into a standard 220 outlet? Since I bought mine and my wife's EVs last year, I've used a relatively cheap level 2 charger (about $200) and if it broke I'd Amazon a new replacement in a couple of days. (Perhaps that's the case, and I'm not judging anyone's circumstances; just pointing out that many seem to think the chargers are much more expensive, but the cheaper ones seem to work fine)
I opted to replace the charger with the standard charger from the manufacturer. It was only supposed to take a few days, but shipping ended up hitting multiple delays.
I drove from Houston to San Diego and back a year ago in my EV6, limiting myself to Electrify America chargers (as I had 1000KW credit, and they seemed to be the only option close to the freeway). It was fine, though most locations had around 1/4 of the stalls inoperable.
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.
I had a Spark EV with CCS connector and charged around the Bay Area many times. Apparently my model of car had design issues with the connector and half the time I'd have to try a different charging station. I mostly charged at home but this was annoying when doing local road trips.
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.
Yeah, it's pretty clear Tesla is still the best EV experience. I'm just waiting till the next gen of EVs to have proper connectors before I will consider another one. Our model Y is fine, but I don't want to buy another vehicle from them with Musk at the helm, and they don't plan to have a regular pickup anyways.
I wonder if the Spark shares that flaw with the Bolt EV. When Gig car share had a fleet of Bolts and an agreement with EVgo my experience was that the connections were dodgy and frequently the charging station would claim some kind of fault.
From my understanding, the Bolt corrected the issue (which made it even worse for my Spark since there was no desire to fix the chargers to work around the issue).
I have now rented two electric vehicles this past year, both for semi-long distance trips.
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.
Thanks but no thanks. Nothing against Teslas, but the issue is that reality is far from the vision proposed by proponents of EVs including governments and entrepreneurs. EVs are not reliable for long journeys.
Besides, I don't like vendor lock-in in my software, I don't like vendor lock-in for my cars.
> Nothing against Teslas, but the issue is that reality is far from the vision proposed by proponents of EVs including governments and entrepreneurs. EVs are not reliable for long journeys.
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.
> Nothing against Teslas, but the issue is that reality is far from the vision proposed by proponents of EVs including governments and entrepreneurs. EVs are not reliable for long journeys.
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.
The reasons are obvious - it's not always possible to rent a Tesla, and in fact, it's usually not. Teslas are expensive compared to other electrics. Rental companies, and the world, are diversifying from Teslas, as we should.
This cultish devotion to Tesla is baffling but not surprising.
I don't own or plan to own a Tesla, but the devotion shouldn't be surprising when they seem to have put the most effort and thought into making an EV that's actually functional. They definitely have issues, but most of their competition even now is either a fair bit worse, or even more expensive, or both.
Happy EV owner here (Nissan Leaf), but I can confirm the charging network is a disaster:
- 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]
I also have a leaf and use it for 90% of household driving. As long as there is a second ICE vehicle available there are never any worries about capacity or charging. Even charging overnight off 120V is sufficient since i dont do much late night driving.
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.
The main thing about these chargers is that nobody is monitoring them. At a gas station, an attendant is usually less than 20 feet away, and if anyone has a problem, they come talk to that person immediately. That attendant usually can't fix the problem on their own, but they can take steps to get it fixed quickly.
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.
The systems definitely have a method to communicate for payments, they should add a button to report issues with charger. Of course it's ripe for the button being pressed randomly, but I'm sure there's a smart person that can automate the messages received to catch that. But at least it would provide a possible mechanism to have frustrated users report these unattended units
It is more of installers/maintainers not interested in fixing the chargers. They would already have information about how much is being payed for each charger and from that would know some charger is broken.
I'm sure the installers/maintainers are not the blame here though. Of course they'd like to get paid for doing it. It's the owners of the equipment that don't want to pay for the maintenance. Let's place the blame at the appropriate feet here.
There's really no reason 95% of issues couldn't be caught through self diagnostics. The easiest thing for the button press is to rely on repeated presses at longer intervals, like 3 presses with at least 15 minutes between the first and last within a 2 hour window.
Given the business model for gas stations (~%0 on the gas, huge on the mini-mart) it seems kinda ridiculous they're not rushing to put fast chargers in every station.
I'm usually seeing charging at the front of the parking lots around me. It also wouldn't surprise me if the attendants from charging stations were largely useless as I assume an electrician license would be required for most repairs in most states.
But I agree on the whole no cash or app payment thing.
You would think resetting a breaker could be automatically or remotely done based on some telemetry from a self diagnostic system (or lack of expected telemetry). I would think remotely monitored cameras and a voice interface (would be a nice feature) on the charger would be a more efficient way for watching vandalism and communicating with customers.
This description undersells it. The Tesla chargers work perfectly... and every single Charging America station he tries to visit is broken in some way. It's half an hour of pain and suffering.
Interesting. Here in Hong Kong, apparently the non-Tesla chargers work so well, the Superchargers often lie empty because most Teslas charge at non-Tesla chargers as they are usually cheaper.
Honestly, not much better. There are more chargers but also more EVs. New EVs support fast charging above 50kW, but there are very few chargers that offer that.
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.
TLDR: 27% were out of order, nearly 10% of the working stalls had payment issues, and a handful failed at the handshake (car and charger wont connect).
I have no proof but I have no doubt EV charger companies receive succulent donations from the state for the number of chargers without specifying their operational status.
Total win for them in the long term.
With all due respect, this is just the original article re-hosted, which I was under the impression we were advised against submitting as the canonical link. I really dislike MSN links like this because they make it very difficult to find that actual original URL without going back out to a search engine, and the page is cluttered with advertisement and pushes for Microsoft services. The only indication this was published by WSJ is a badge next to the headline and once you scroll the headline out of view there is no other indication this is published by WSJ and not Microsoft. Arguably sites like archive.ph do a better job of showing attribution than MSN does.
An excellent counter-example to the usual "things with fewer moving parts are more reliable" trope. Design and manufacture play a much greater role in reliability.
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.