6 ms·

A persistent EV challenge looms over NY Auto Show: Charging

13 points by orangebanana1 4y ago

blakesterz 4y ago
I was just made aware of this challenge on vacation recently. I had to rent a car for just a day, more like 8 hours. I had a choice between a Tesla and a regular car. I didn't feel safe enough with the Tesla to go with that as a rental. I was 90% sure I'd be fine, maybe 98% sure I'd be fine. I wasn't driving far, I'd only have it for 8 hours or less. BUT I was in an unfamiliar city, I had no idea where a charger might be, or if I'd need one. I couldn't take the chance. What if I couldn't get it charged? It was just too scary at the time to try. It made me wonder how often I'd be worried about finding a charger if I owned an EV.
- mywittyname 4y ago
  > It made me wonder how often I'd be worried about finding a charger if I owned an EV. There are many apps for locating chargers. Including ones that are built into the cars themselves. They include route planners that tell you where to stop and to what capacity you need to charge. The biggest issue I've heard from road trippers is that non-Telsa charging stations are hit-or-miss. They either don't work, take several tries to work, or charge below stated performance. If you're in the USA: https://chargefinder.com/us/search https://chargefinder.com/us/search
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    That map is missing all of the high power chargers in the area of Berkeley. I suggest https://www.plugshare.com/ https://www.plugshare.com/
    - porkbeer 4y ago
      Thats Exactly part of the problem. If anyone was serious about ev, charging stations would be easier to find than gas stations. And if was profitable, gas stations would all have charger banks.
      - jeffbee 4y ago
        Well, it's not going to be profitable to install a gigantic transformer and megawatt-scale DC dispensers so some guy can leave his F-150 Lightning parked for an hour. It doesn't matter how many Pringles that guy buys. We are never going to replace all ICE cars with EVs. It simply does not pencil out economically or even geometrically. In reality we need to replace the ICE fleet mostly with bicycles, some buses, and a very small number of EVs, preferably in shared fleets.
      - bryanlarsen 4y ago
        > If anyone was serious about ev, charging stations would be easier to find than gas stations. For most EV's, they are. They're built into the nav, and show up on the nav screen when you get close to one, and will route you through them if you need one to get to a destination.
- Tommstein 4y ago
  I rented a Tesla a couple years ago, it told me where to find chargers.
bombcar 4y ago
The article hints at it, but there are two related but separate problems: 1. Perception by non-EV buyers that charging is difficult, slow, unavailable, etc. This is what Tesla fought against at the beginning and arguably has one of the best "solutions" for. 2. Actual usage by EV owners; if the first is perception only then this one shouldn't exist much; but if they are complaining, there is a massive real problem that needs to be addressed - otherwise the EV owners will become non-EV owners over time, and it'll be harder to get them to go back. (If I were a car company wanting to reassure people about the EV issues, I'd have a "bring the car in anytime during the first 5 years and we'll rent you for cheap or free a hybrid for those long trips you're worried about" or similar. The vast majority of vehicle travel can be done with any EV, because they start and end at home and are less than 200 miles.)
- tekknik 4y ago
  > Perception by non-EV buyers that charging is difficult, slow, unavailable, etc. This is what Tesla fought against at the beginning and arguably has one of the best "solutions" for. There’s also an entire segment being ignored, those using their vehicles for off-road, long distance trips with near a ton in cargo weight. How do you recharge in the middle of public land when there’s nothing around you for miles? Also I wouldn’t call this perception, as it implies it’s not true. It doesn’t take 45 mins to refuel a vehicle, therefore it does take 10 times longer or more to recharge an EV. Let’s not even touch the amount of power these things use, each vehicle pulling more than a house does.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    > each vehicle pulling more than a house does. Not even close. The average American house uses 30 kWh per day. The average American drives 37 miles per day, which requires 8kWh in a Tesla.
    - tekknik 4y ago
      But the tesla still pulls 280kw+, which is in fact more than a house
jeffbee 4y ago
Public DC fast charging, aside from Tesla Supercharger, is a garbage pile that rarely works. Recently I was charging a Bolt EV at a station with six dispensers: three older 100kW stations and 3 newer 350kW stations. Any of them could have maxed out a Bolt EV, that can only draw 40-50kW at best. The first station said it could not detect that car, so I moved to another. It said the same thing. The 3rd dispenser was showing the Windows boot screen permanently. One of the older dispensers started but was only doing about 20kW ... often you find these stations that have one of several modules offline and they superficially work but too slowly to be acceptable. The fifth station I tried was doing the job properly. While I was charging there for about 45 minutes I watched a Kia, a Toyota, and a Ford come to the station, move around several times, and then leave. Oh, and half the time the problem with the EVGo network is their cloud software is just broken.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Tesla could make a moderately stupid amount of money by selling a supercharger-to-other EV adapter system and subscription.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    I think it is an open question as to whether their chargers are more reliable because the fault detection and life safety stuff is easier for a defined fleet of cars and harder for an implementation of an open standard.
david422 4y ago
I own an EV. I love it. I charge in my garage, plenty of range for my every day uses. But recently my charger broke, and the replacement charger did not come in for 3 weeks. Without being able to charge in my garage, finding a place to charge was _very_ challenging. There are only about 5 DC fast chargers within a 1/2 hour of me. Within those 3 weeks, 3 of those chargers had some sort of charge issue. There are some other level 2 chargers within range. The first issue is that with an EV, if I drive 15 minutes to go charge - I need to be assured that the chargers are working, and that they are available. The second issue is that if you have other responsibilities - work, kids etc. - it is very difficult to find the time to just go hang out at an EV charger for an hour - or if you are a level 2 charger - 5 hours. And this is a problem right now, when only the tiniest fraction of cars on the roads are EVs. I honestly don't know why gas stations aren't jumping on the charging train. They will have customers, they'll be preparing for the future, and you're going to have captive audiences to go in and by snacks and drinks... where they make their money anyways.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The EV charger breaking is not even something I had remotely considered - having to wait 3 weeks for a replacement charger could make the vehicle basically useless; even if you have a "regular plugin charger" extra those are much slower. If I go EV I may have to consider convincing a neighbor to get the same type as me. I wonder if you can charge at a dealership, which may help for some.
  - spiderxxxx 4y ago
    eh, I charge with the "regular plugin charger" - I get about 4 miles an hour, so overnight I get 32 miles. It's enough for my daily driving and then some.
  - david422 4y ago
    > The EV charger breaking is not even something I had remotely considered Neither had I. No stores around me had a physical charger in stock, and the ones I could find online were a couple hundred more than I was looking to spend. I ordered a replacement through the dealer - I figured I didn't want any compatibility problems - but if I had known it was going to take 3 weeks - perhaps Amazon could overnight an expensive charger a lot quicker, it would have been worth it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kkfx 4y ago
As an EV owner I see not much reasons to agree, I'm from EU so my point of view might be different but... I almost NEVER charge of public chargers except on highways. I sometimes charge on some sparse public chargers in cities but as a comfy way to have a pack place where no other option is available for the amount of time I need. Essentially: I have not bought an EV if I can't recharge it at home. No one can have a life on public-charging only, no matter how spread will might became. IME the real needs for public charging are: - on highway, for trips longer than the battery range, so fast charge - similar for long range artery not necessarily highways - inside parking lot/garage of hotels/other touristic places, for visitors - casual fast chargers spread just for quick "emergency" charges In this terms the low level of EU offer is already more than enough, try to do more targeting those who do not own a garage is pointless: they'll never buy EVs until being forced and even in this case they'll probably can't afford them anyway.
Yoofie 4y ago
MKBHD did a recent video on this [1]. The car charging infrastructure is just as important to the electric car experience as the electric car itself. [1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2qJKU8t2k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2qJKU8t2k
TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
As an owner of an BEV manufacturers of chargers needs to look on automatic gas pumps and COPY THAT CONCEPT. 1. I will arrive, put CCS connector into my car 2. I will use my contactless debit/credit card to activate charging 3. Charging will automatically stop when battery is full, or there is a button to stop it if you need to leave. 4. When charging is done, money are withdrawn from loaded card. NO applications, NO registrations, NO reading of QR codes. A vending machine can achieve this, you can too.

13 points by orangebanana1 4y ago

I was just made aware of this challenge on vacation recently. I had to rent a car for just a day, more like 8 hours. I had a choice between a Tesla and a regular car. I didn't feel safe enough with the Tesla to go with that as a rental. I was 90% sure I'd be fine, maybe 98% sure I'd be fine. I wasn't driving far, I'd only have it for 8 hours or less. BUT I was in an unfamiliar city, I had no idea where a charger might be, or if I'd need one. I couldn't take the chance. What if I couldn't get it charged? It was just too scary at the time to try. It made me wonder how often I'd be worried about finding a charger if I owned an EV.

mywittyname 4y ago
> It made me wonder how often I'd be worried about finding a charger if I owned an EV. There are many apps for locating chargers. Including ones that are built into the cars themselves. They include route planners that tell you where to stop and to what capacity you need to charge. The biggest issue I've heard from road trippers is that non-Telsa charging stations are hit-or-miss. They either don't work, take several tries to work, or charge below stated performance. If you're in the USA: https://chargefinder.com/us/search https://chargefinder.com/us/search
- jeffbee 4y ago
  That map is missing all of the high power chargers in the area of Berkeley. I suggest https://www.plugshare.com/ https://www.plugshare.com/
  - porkbeer 4y ago
    Thats Exactly part of the problem. If anyone was serious about ev, charging stations would be easier to find than gas stations. And if was profitable, gas stations would all have charger banks.
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      Well, it's not going to be profitable to install a gigantic transformer and megawatt-scale DC dispensers so some guy can leave his F-150 Lightning parked for an hour. It doesn't matter how many Pringles that guy buys. We are never going to replace all ICE cars with EVs. It simply does not pencil out economically or even geometrically. In reality we need to replace the ICE fleet mostly with bicycles, some buses, and a very small number of EVs, preferably in shared fleets.
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      > If anyone was serious about ev, charging stations would be easier to find than gas stations. For most EV's, they are. They're built into the nav, and show up on the nav screen when you get close to one, and will route you through them if you need one to get to a destination.
Tommstein 4y ago
I rented a Tesla a couple years ago, it told me where to find chargers.

bombcar 4y ago

The article hints at it, but there are two related but separate problems: 1. Perception by non-EV buyers that charging is difficult, slow, unavailable, etc. This is what Tesla fought against at the beginning and arguably has one of the best "solutions" for. 2. Actual usage by EV owners; if the first is perception only then this one shouldn't exist much; but if they are complaining, there is a massive real problem that needs to be addressed - otherwise the EV owners will become non-EV owners over time, and it'll be harder to get them to go back. (If I were a car company wanting to reassure people about the EV issues, I'd have a "bring the car in anytime during the first 5 years and we'll rent you for cheap or free a hybrid for those long trips you're worried about" or similar. The vast majority of vehicle travel can be done with any EV, because they start and end at home and are less than 200 miles.)

tekknik 4y ago
> Perception by non-EV buyers that charging is difficult, slow, unavailable, etc. This is what Tesla fought against at the beginning and arguably has one of the best "solutions" for. There’s also an entire segment being ignored, those using their vehicles for off-road, long distance trips with near a ton in cargo weight. How do you recharge in the middle of public land when there’s nothing around you for miles? Also I wouldn’t call this perception, as it implies it’s not true. It doesn’t take 45 mins to refuel a vehicle, therefore it does take 10 times longer or more to recharge an EV. Let’s not even touch the amount of power these things use, each vehicle pulling more than a house does.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  > each vehicle pulling more than a house does. Not even close. The average American house uses 30 kWh per day. The average American drives 37 miles per day, which requires 8kWh in a Tesla.
  - tekknik 4y ago
    But the tesla still pulls 280kw+, which is in fact more than a house

jeffbee 4y ago

Public DC fast charging, aside from Tesla Supercharger, is a garbage pile that rarely works. Recently I was charging a Bolt EV at a station with six dispensers: three older 100kW stations and 3 newer 350kW stations. Any of them could have maxed out a Bolt EV, that can only draw 40-50kW at best. The first station said it could not detect that car, so I moved to another. It said the same thing. The 3rd dispenser was showing the Windows boot screen permanently. One of the older dispensers started but was only doing about 20kW ... often you find these stations that have one of several modules offline and they superficially work but too slowly to be acceptable. The fifth station I tried was doing the job properly. While I was charging there for about 45 minutes I watched a Kia, a Toyota, and a Ford come to the station, move around several times, and then leave. Oh, and half the time the problem with the EVGo network is their cloud software is just broken.

bombcar 4y ago
Tesla could make a moderately stupid amount of money by selling a supercharger-to-other EV adapter system and subscription.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  I think it is an open question as to whether their chargers are more reliable because the fault detection and life safety stuff is easier for a defined fleet of cars and harder for an implementation of an open standard.

david422 4y ago

I own an EV. I love it. I charge in my garage, plenty of range for my every day uses. But recently my charger broke, and the replacement charger did not come in for 3 weeks. Without being able to charge in my garage, finding a place to charge was _very_ challenging. There are only about 5 DC fast chargers within a 1/2 hour of me. Within those 3 weeks, 3 of those chargers had some sort of charge issue. There are some other level 2 chargers within range. The first issue is that with an EV, if I drive 15 minutes to go charge - I need to be assured that the chargers are working, and that they are available. The second issue is that if you have other responsibilities - work, kids etc. - it is very difficult to find the time to just go hang out at an EV charger for an hour - or if you are a level 2 charger - 5 hours. And this is a problem right now, when only the tiniest fraction of cars on the roads are EVs. I honestly don't know why gas stations aren't jumping on the charging train. They will have customers, they'll be preparing for the future, and you're going to have captive audiences to go in and by snacks and drinks... where they make their money anyways.

bombcar 4y ago
The EV charger breaking is not even something I had remotely considered - having to wait 3 weeks for a replacement charger could make the vehicle basically useless; even if you have a "regular plugin charger" extra those are much slower. If I go EV I may have to consider convincing a neighbor to get the same type as me. I wonder if you can charge at a dealership, which may help for some.
- spiderxxxx 4y ago
  eh, I charge with the "regular plugin charger" - I get about 4 miles an hour, so overnight I get 32 miles. It's enough for my daily driving and then some.
- david422 4y ago
  > The EV charger breaking is not even something I had remotely considered Neither had I. No stores around me had a physical charger in stock, and the ones I could find online were a couple hundred more than I was looking to spend. I ordered a replacement through the dealer - I figured I didn't want any compatibility problems - but if I had known it was going to take 3 weeks - perhaps Amazon could overnight an expensive charger a lot quicker, it would have been worth it.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kkfx 4y ago

As an EV owner I see not much reasons to agree, I'm from EU so my point of view might be different but... I almost NEVER charge of public chargers except on highways. I sometimes charge on some sparse public chargers in cities but as a comfy way to have a pack place where no other option is available for the amount of time I need. Essentially: I have not bought an EV if I can't recharge it at home. No one can have a life on public-charging only, no matter how spread will might became. IME the real needs for public charging are: - on highway, for trips longer than the battery range, so fast charge - similar for long range artery not necessarily highways - inside parking lot/garage of hotels/other touristic places, for visitors - casual fast chargers spread just for quick "emergency" charges In this terms the low level of EU offer is already more than enough, try to do more targeting those who do not own a garage is pointless: they'll never buy EVs until being forced and even in this case they'll probably can't afford them anyway.

Yoofie 4y ago

MKBHD did a recent video on this [1]. The car charging infrastructure is just as important to the electric car experience as the electric car itself. [1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2qJKU8t2k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2qJKU8t2k

TheLoafOfBread 4y ago

As an owner of an BEV manufacturers of chargers needs to look on automatic gas pumps and COPY THAT CONCEPT. 1. I will arrive, put CCS connector into my car 2. I will use my contactless debit/credit card to activate charging 3. Charging will automatically stop when battery is full, or there is a button to stop it if you need to leave. 4. When charging is done, money are withdrawn from loaded card. NO applications, NO registrations, NO reading of QR codes. A vending machine can achieve this, you can too.