Can we improve the EV charging experience together?

@curiousev12, your use of the pronoun "We" makes me suspicious. Without taking the jump to some unknown web destination, I can tell you a few of the things every EV driver wants (others will add their own requirements):

1. charging stations that aren't broken
2. charging stations in great enough numbers in convenient locations so I don't have to wait for one
3. charging stations that can charge my EV at its fastest rate
4. charging stations that make payment easy
5. charging stations that don't make users pay unreasonable rates
6. charging network apps that tell me when charging stations are in use
7. charging networks that have accessible support staff with authorization to fix problems quickly

 

I would only add to @insightman that EVs are a system that includes:

1. Hardware - EV must be worthy as a daily driver and cross country vehicle, an ICE replacement
2. Software - EV charging and self-maintenance along with updated control laws
3. Human - EV driver skills

All three are needed to achieve success. Failure of any one often results in bitter recriminations.

Bob Wilson

 

First of all Insightman nailed down the significant problems. I decided to join "Ivy" Ontario's network owned by Ontario Hydro. The app for the phone worked once about a year ago. I hate cellphone apps and prefer the rfid cards. Applying for one through Ivy's website proved fruitless. The site kept saying insufficient or missing information, would clear the page and ask me to start again. Rinse and repeat same results. I had to phone and request a card which they sent in good time. Tried the card out yesterday. There was no tap indicator on the charger indicating where you tap. It took several tries to find the spot only to have the charger read "account not recognized". Couldn't log in with the phone app (probably due to my misremembering the password) and so got home with 5% battery remaining. I was so mad that if someone had offered me cash for my beloved Leaf I would have sold it on the spot and gone back to ICE until things get better.

Public charging is the major bugaboo now for EV adoption. IMHO governments will need to crack down on networks and force them to use common debit and credit cards for payment just like at gasoline pumps. There is going to be serious blowback against governments who are seen to be "ramming EVs down
people's throats without the availability of reliable charging away from the home base.

Ironically I have found the chargers from Quebec based companies Flo and Electric Circuit to be the most dependable and easy to use. They have never let me down. This is not a plug (pun intended) but rather a challenge to Ivy, Petro Canada and Electrify Canada to clean up their damn acts.

 

I think this was a great list. For #5, I hope that the market can take care of this. It should evolve to similar to gas prices. Just like on highway rest stops you have to pay more for gas than at your local stations, conveniently located ultra fast chargers should be able to charge a premium. Slower or less convenient chargers should cost less.

 

About typical. price-performance in the Tesla world:

• 110-120 VAC, 12-15 A, free - visiting friends and family or poor planning
• 208 VAC, ~30 A, free - typically at shops or mini-malls to attract EV customers, also Tesla distribution EVSE at motels
• 208 VAC, ~30 A, cost $0.15/min - Blink pissing off EV drivers if the EVSE are working and some ChargePoint EVSE with time limits
• 240 VAC, ~40 A, cost $0.12/kWh - home EVSE in Huntsville but prices vary by City and State.
• ~400 VDC, 300-625 A, cost ~$0.35-0.40 per kWh - Tesla SuperChargers 120-250 kW units that may add local sales tax

Bob Wilson

 

Part of my effort to foster the "community together" feeling is talking to other drivers at charge stops,
and reminding them to call in ANY problems they observe, even if it's not with the specific unit they're
trying to use. We on the road need to be the eyes and ears of the charging networks sometimes,
because their people aren't on the ground right there. Their networked diagnostics can only tell them
so much.

And every time I call EA, I remind them that they need to let people sign up on the website, receive
an RFID tap-card if they don't or can't use the app, or at least EA should partner with networks that have
tap-cards already with roaming agreements and enable the RFID readers that are already present on most
of their chargers.

I've heard EA reps say disingenuous crap about "well, if we get enough of X type of problem report or
suggestion, then they might act on it"... wrong answer, it's not a question of simple volume, it should
be about the objectiive merit of ideas and fairness of access. And very solid, SLA-enforced contracts with
regional repair and maintenance crews to respond quickly to problems. It feels somewhat futile and
broken-record sometimes, but the consumer voice *is* going to drive a lot of market direction whether
they like it or not.

_h*

 

I use ChargePoint and Electrify America RFID "cards" from my iPhone (digital) wallet. I don't see how those are functionally different from a physical card. There's no internet communications going on, the only communication is between my iPhone and the reader on the charger.

 

I own a 2020 Tesla Model Y, and have been very happy with it overall. Charging it at home is simple, and the Supercharger network is also how all EV charging should function at DC fast chargers. Plug it in, Tesla already has your credit card on file, and when you finish your charging, they send you a bill for how much electricity you got.

I heard Electrify America is trying to move towards that too, and I was able to initiate a charge when testing out the CCS adapter on my Model Y by just plugging it in and letting the station talk to the car.

And I have tried some other non-networked DC fast charging stations. Let's just say that the experience was hit & miss. I hated that there are several different companies, all requiring you download their specific app to charge, such as Greenlots, Chargepoint, Blink, EVGO, and some other smaller one-off stations owned by local power companies I found on Plugshare while exploring areas away from where Superchargers were at.

Aside from having a lot more mostly useless apps to deal with, having to sign up for all of those different places is also tedious, especially if I was only going to be using that site once out of curiosity.

Sometimes the charging station worked. Sometimes they didn't. I'd hate to be in a remote area, and the one or two charging stations available are broken.

I've been to some superchargers where a stall wasn't working. But there was always 5-20 other stalls I could try out if the first one wasn't working. And Tesla usually gets them back up and running fairly quickly. I saw a guy fixing one supercharger in Colorado Springs. After he finished, the stalls he worked on were up and running again, and more Teslas came in to charge there.

I'll definitely echo insightman's post, a decent amount of charging stations that are working most if not all the time, charging reasonable rates, and having a lot of them around to reduce queues as EV's become more mainstream are what will be important.

 

My biggest complaint is that DC Fast Chargers are only located along Interstate highways. There are virtually none located along US or state highways in the US. Take a look at the western half of Kansas and you find that every single DCFC is located along I-70 with not one anywhere else. This makes a road trip to and through anywhere in that part of the country, such as US 50 or 83, as well as eastern Colorado and other adjacent areas simply impossible.

All the expansion programs being announced by EA, ChargePoint, etc do not offer any change in this situation, they only add more charging locations along I-70 and I-25. Between I-40 and I-70 north/south and I-25/I-35 east’west is a no-go area for EV’s


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