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.
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.