Right now, most of us can tolerate a poorly maintained charging
infrastructure. Charging at home means infrequent use of level 3
charging. Recently I was in France and, talking to my cousins and other
people, they complain of the same thing. It may be slightly better there
than US but it's still a large hindrance for EV acceptance.
Soon, though, if we expect urban dwellers without off street parking to
buy EVs, we're going to have to have a more reliable system. Like my
cousins, two of which have no off street parking, what are people to do
if they can't easily recharge once a week at a local level 3 station ?
We can't assume the charge-at-home model much longer.
Peri
<< Annoyed by leaf blowers ? https://quietcleanseattle.org/ >>
------ Original Message ------
From: "Tom Hudson via EV" <ev@lists.evdl.org>
To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <ev@lists.evdl.org>
Cc: "Tom Hudson" <tdhud...@klanky.com>; "EV List Lackey"
<evp...@drmm.net>
Sent: 04-Jun-23 09:38:25
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EV Digest, Vol 127, Issue 14
Watching a lot of YouTube EV content, non-Tesla charging infrastructure is a sad joke. Kyle Connor
of "Out of Spec Motors" has been reporting on CCS charging, including Electrify America,
and it's not a pretty picture. It's not uncommon for an EA charging station with four units to have
three that are inoperable. For WEEKS. It's worse in winter, when their choice of hardware can't
cope with low temperatures. The "All Electric Family", out in Nebraska, had to be towed
on at least one occasion due to inoperable CCS chargers (including EA). There are numerous accounts
of people having to stay at a hotel as a result of being unable to charge on non-Tesla hardware.I
don't know what people expected from EA, an entity born of the Dieselgate scandal and VW's lies --
they cobbled together equipment that wasn't designed to be used in vehicle charging, wasn't
intended for outdoor use with wide temperature variations, didn't set up adequate maintenance
schedules and called it a day.Ford seems t
o
have effectively called it quits with CCS after CEO Jim Farley experienced
some of this on an EV trip with his family (and I'm sure, outcry from customers
who have to deal with this fiasco). They're switching to Tesla's NACS solution
-- so much easier to use (the charging plug is a fraction of the size and
slides into the port with zero effort) and vastly more reliable -- in 5 years
of owning our Model 3, I think I've only seen TWO chargers out of order in
hundreds of SuperCharger visits.Ford is only the first domino to fall, I think.
Other manufacturers will (if they're smart) undoubtedly decide to go with the
solution that costs them less money and delivers better customer experience.As
we all know, 99% of day-to-day charging is done at home and DC fast charging is
primarily for road trips. But when you take a trip, the charging has to be
there -- enough locations and enough FUNCTIONAL chargers per location -- to
make it practical.If I didn't drive a Tesla, a road trip would be
a
miserable exercise in "Range Anxiety" -- something my wife and I actually
joke about on road trips, considering our first EV had less than 50 miles of range (just
17% of our Model 3's range) and no fast charging.-TomSent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy
smartphone
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