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Mass adoption won't happen until charging infrastructure improves dramatically. As a non-Tesla owner, I have had the worst experiences at fast charging station

• thatfrenchguy 6y ago
  Opposite experience in 2020 here at EA: sure, I've seen stalls that don't work a few times but it seems to be well correlated with their app showing you they don't work, and most of the time it just works That is in California, did around ~40-50 charging sessions.
• ogre_codes 6y ago
  The supercharger network is Teslas not-so-secret weapon.
• gambiting 6y ago
  I've driven through Germany last summer, tried 3 different charging stations, none of them worked. Or rather, they did, but I couldn't set up the app for them, one because it didn't have an English option, one because it wouldn't accept my non-German card and another because it was giving me an extremely helpful "unspecified" error. But even here in UK it's a mess. There is a charging station near my home that seems to be out of order 90% the time. There is another one where I can't set up an account and their customer support is non existent. Funnily enough the best experiences I ever had with charging stations in the UK were always at Shell charging stations - plug in, tap your payment card on the side, done. No apps, no stupid fobs or anything, it's easier than paying for petrol. I really do think that legislation should come in to force all providers to accept card payment at the charger, even if the cost is higher(offer discount to account holders, but at least let me pay even without an account)
  • buran77 6y ago
    Charging in much of Europe is really not a great experience. It's a fragmented market, different electricity providers (this matters, some chargers really want you to be a customer of a specific electricity provider, some just offer different prices depending on this), different charging networks, different plugs, different apps and payment methods, different behavior even if you're seemingly in the same network, wildly different prices, etc. Every app shows different chargers and different status on whether they're occupied or not. Most are broken anyway. Some are on hotel or supermarket grounds so they're accessible only to some people, and even in the same network might have a different price because the owner of the land asks for a cut (yes, that's a thing). Some are inside a parking lot so you pay the parking on top of the charging. Some are on a free parking spot for EVs so someone will park there all day. Some charge per KWh, per minute, or a combination, plus maybe another one time fee. Chargers need to be as ubiquitous as gas stations, and provide an experience that's just as frictionless. Drive in, pick a plug and start fast charging, get a maximum allotted time to charge, then pay like you'd do in any store, or better yet have the car talk to the charger and handle this for you (ISO 15118) and be on your way. Alternatively, to take advantage of how different electricity is from gas and maybe also use those cars as electricity storage, governments could invest to put charging points on every street parking, in every streetlight, etc.
    • viraptor 6y ago
      This sounds like an opportunity for an independent app unifying all of those and gathering/displaying real usability data. I don't think it could make official app stores due to having to reverse-engineer payment APIs of others, but... maybe something open-source and side-loaded?
      • tyfon 6y ago
        This exists, it's called plugsurfing [1]. They do charge a 10% surplus though. [1] https://www.plugsurfing.com/home https://www.plugsurfing.com/home
  • rconti 6y ago
• coding123 6y ago
  > a non-Tesla owner I think you'll be in the minority.
  • worik 6y ago
    I am never buying a Tesla. I want to own my car
    • fastball 6y ago
      You do own your car if you buy a Tesla?
      • jdeibele 6y ago
        Pretty sure this is a reference to the cases where Tesla has revoked different features (SuperCharger access, AutoPilot, extended mileage) from cars. Sometimes that seems to be because they had the feature enabled by accident or the car was declared as totaled but I haven't been tracking the cases closely enough to be definitive. Not sure that anybody is.
        • fastball 6y ago
          SuperCharger access has nothing to do with "owning your car". Less so but still ditto for AutoPilot, as it is not a piece of hardware but rather software that is constantly being updated and honestly dangerous to deploy/use if Tesla cannot guarantee the integrity of sensors/drive-by-wire mechanisms/etc. Extended mileage does seem weird though – they've revoked software updates that have extended mileage? That would be shitty if true (if not for a good reason), but I honestly haven't heard about that one. And I'd still argue in favor of this being ownership, as updates are not your right as an owner of the vehicle (and with every other car you've ever owned don't come with the vehicle at all). At the very least you always have whatever features you had when you bought the car from Tesla, which is exactly what you expect from any other car you purchase.
      • worik 6y ago
        No you do not. Tesla can change the settings of the car without asking you. For me to change the settings of "my" Tesla I need their permission, which is not available. My electric car will not be connected to the Internet, it will have no wireless network access of any sort. None.
• cptskippy 6y ago
  It's frustrating when chargers don't work, I was using them frequently for a while when I was taking a child to and from doctors appointments multiple times a week and encountered a few. That being said, I never got stranded and there was always a charger I could use. This was in metro Atlanta in 2017, the situation only got better since then.
• kylecordes 6y ago
  This is a great mystery of electric vehicle charging: why is it so hard for anyone but Tesla to keep most of the chargers working most of the time?
  • Zanni 6y ago
    It's not really a mystery if you understand who the customers are. Tesla's Supercharger customers are Tesla owners (for the most part), and Tesla has a vested interest in keeping them happy. Other charging stations are mostly installed in mall parking lots and so on by government mandate. The owners of the parking lots pay to get them installed and maintained--they are the customers. And since they're (mostly) satisfying a government tick box, there's not nearly as much incentive to keep functioning.
  • theshrike79 6y ago
    Multiple vendors in one system. You've got the provider for the actual charger (a handful of different providers), which needs to negotiate with the car via CCS. This can fail in umpteen different ways, as car manufacturers differ on how they implement CCS (Dunno how, but it happens). Then you've got the software in the charging point, which needs to be customised for the brand you're selling under (another moving part). And lastly, you have the back end system for the brand, which handles authentication, authorization (RFID or App) and billing - this is the bit that ultimately gives the charger the go-ahead to start feeding power to the connected car. Any of these fails, no electricity for you. For 22kW "slow" chargers this is a bit simpler as the actual charger is a lot less complex, it doesn't need to negotiate, it just needs to switch one relay. Tesla is like Apple in this case, they take care of the whole stack. So as long as the charger has power, it'll work. Authentication and authorization are done by having the car negotiate with the charger directly via the charging cable, no dongles or apps needed.
    • manwithaplan 6y ago
      > For 22kW "slow" chargers this is a bit simpler as the actual charger is a lot less complex, it doesn't need to negotiate, it just needs to switch one relay. To be more explicit, the actual AC "slow" charger is built into the car, so it's guaranteed to work (and indeed, it just needs to signal a contactor to close the circuit).
• modeless 6y ago
  Tesla has said they are willing to license the Supercharger network. That said, superchargers are not immune to being broken either. I find that many if not most have at least one broken stall. I got free supercharging for ordering an early Model 3 and didn't expect to use it, but it has been a lifesaver during covid when I suddenly lost access to work charging.
  • core-questions 6y ago
    As a petrolhead who has never even seen a Supercharger station: what exactly is broken? What is there to break? Physical damage to the cable / connector?
    • GloriousKoji 6y ago
      Many things can break: the internet connection, the internal computer, the main power wire to the car connector, something inside the connector, something with the charger circuity like a bad contactor. Then there's the obvious stuff like physical damage from vandalization or someone driving into it.
      • worik 6y ago
        WHat a story for the twenty-first century! It is energy transfer: "Many things can break: the internet connection..." what does the Internet connevction have to do with it? (To be clear, that is a rhetorical question. I know why and how those systems are fundamentally broken - almost by design!)
        • ryandrake 6y ago
          Having never used or even seen a super charger, I have no idea why one would need a friggen internet connection. Don’t you just plug them in and swipe your card like a gas station?
          • fastball 6y ago
• twblalock 6y ago
  I remember in Thanksgiving 2019 that Tesla owners were sometimes waiting in line for hours at Supercharger stations in California -- and California has a lot of those! Even Tesla doesn't have it figured out during peak travel times.
  • theshrike79 6y ago
    You can't build for peak traffic, not in software nor in hardware.
    • twblalock 6y ago
      Gas stations seem to be able to handle it. Why can't we expect the same for charging stations? Build for peak capacity. The chargers don't draw much when they aren't plugged in to cars. If we expect to succeed with charging infrastructure we need to make it convenient, even during holidays.
      • theshrike79 6y ago
        Building a gas station for peak capacity would mean building so many pumps that you never have to queue. Even when people leave their car by the pump while going to the bathroom or grab a slushie and some snacks.
        • Daho0n 6y ago
          That is a solved problem in most of the world. I have waited at a gas station at most 5 times in my life and never more than 2-4 minutes. Going to the bathroom or leaving the pump I have never seen anyone do. If I did I would turn off the pump at the big red STOP button as leaving the pump running unattended is illegal.
          • theshrike79 6y ago
            You can't leave the pump running outside of the US, the fuel nizzle won't lock. I mean the people who fill up their car, and just leave the car at the pump.