4 ms·

It's not the standard that made it reliable for you, it's the company that made/maintained the chargers. The vast majority of these companies are shitty, fly-b

It's not the standard that made it reliable for you, it's the company that made/maintained the chargers. The vast majority of these companies are shitty, fly-by-night companies that can't scale up to maintain their network.

parineum 3y ago
And the company that maintains those chargers uses that standard. We don't want the standard, we want the chargers that work.
tw04 3y ago
> The vast majority of these companies are shitty, fly-by-night companies that can't scale up to maintain their network. They really aren’t, it just turns out it’s a hard problem. Electrify America was founded by vw as part of the diesel gate settlement. ChargePoint has been around for almost a decade. Then there are a bunch of OEMs producing chargers for the likes of gas station chains and automobile mfgs. About the only place you’ll find fly-by-night nobody’s is in the home charging space and even those are few and far between. It takes a LOT of capital to build a charging network.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > > The vast majority of these companies are shitty, fly-by-night companies that can't scale up to maintain their network. > They really aren’t, it just turns out it’s a hard problem. Electrify America was founded by vw as part of the diesel gate settlement. Except your sentence there exactly explains why Electrify America is probably the network people love to hate on the most (myself included given the number of times I've visited non-functioning EA chargers), while the Supercharger network is leaps and bounds more reliable. Electrify America was essentially forced into existence as punishment to VW because of dieselgate. Which means it's not surprising that the folks in charge of EA had very little motivation to provide a stellar experience. Contrast this with Tesla, who sees the Supercharger network as an integral part of their business of selling cars. As the owner of a non-Tesla EV who loves my car but is very wary of 3rd party charging networks, you really have to hand it to Tesla for their work in building out the Supercharger network. They had the foresight to realize how critically important a good charging network would be, so much so that they are now able to dictate the "North America Charging Standard" (which given the history of how that name came about takes a ton of chutzpah, but that's a discussion for another post...) for the rest of the automakers - basically all the other EV makers have announced transitions to NACS. So, yes, it may be debatable to call the other charging networks "fly-by-night" companies, but I'll definitely agree with the "shitty" aspect. There are just tons and tons and tons of non-functioning chargers, and the comparison with the reliability of Superchargers is extremely stark.
monero-xmr 3y ago
Yes and they can apply for a get all those sweet tax credits and benefits. Actually delivering the product is secondary
pugworthy 3y ago
Right. It could be 220 outlets that I can plug my own charger in for all I care - just make them work all the time.

parineum 3y ago

And the company that maintains those chargers uses that standard. We don't want the standard, we want the chargers that work.

tw04 3y ago

> The vast majority of these companies are shitty, fly-by-night companies that can't scale up to maintain their network. They really aren’t, it just turns out it’s a hard problem. Electrify America was founded by vw as part of the diesel gate settlement. ChargePoint has been around for almost a decade. Then there are a bunch of OEMs producing chargers for the likes of gas station chains and automobile mfgs. About the only place you’ll find fly-by-night nobody’s is in the home charging space and even those are few and far between. It takes a LOT of capital to build a charging network.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> > The vast majority of these companies are shitty, fly-by-night companies that can't scale up to maintain their network. > They really aren’t, it just turns out it’s a hard problem. Electrify America was founded by vw as part of the diesel gate settlement. Except your sentence there exactly explains why Electrify America is probably the network people love to hate on the most (myself included given the number of times I've visited non-functioning EA chargers), while the Supercharger network is leaps and bounds more reliable. Electrify America was essentially forced into existence as punishment to VW because of dieselgate. Which means it's not surprising that the folks in charge of EA had very little motivation to provide a stellar experience. Contrast this with Tesla, who sees the Supercharger network as an integral part of their business of selling cars. As the owner of a non-Tesla EV who loves my car but is very wary of 3rd party charging networks, you really have to hand it to Tesla for their work in building out the Supercharger network. They had the foresight to realize how critically important a good charging network would be, so much so that they are now able to dictate the "North America Charging Standard" (which given the history of how that name came about takes a ton of chutzpah, but that's a discussion for another post...) for the rest of the automakers - basically all the other EV makers have announced transitions to NACS. So, yes, it may be debatable to call the other charging networks "fly-by-night" companies, but I'll definitely agree with the "shitty" aspect. There are just tons and tons and tons of non-functioning chargers, and the comparison with the reliability of Superchargers is extremely stark.

monero-xmr 3y ago

Yes and they can apply for a get all those sweet tax credits and benefits. Actually delivering the product is secondary

pugworthy 3y ago

Right. It could be 220 outlets that I can plug my own charger in for all I care - just make them work all the time.