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Over the summer, my son had a baseball tournament in Detroit, and we were driving from Chicago. I have never driven an EV before, and I wanted to see what it wa

Over the summer, my son had a baseball tournament in Detroit, and we were driving from Chicago. I have never driven an EV before, and I wanted to see what it was like before a lease is up on one of our cars, so I decided to rent one and try the long distance trip. It was horrific. I had no idea you needed separate apps for nearly every station. Every station had broken stalls, or a single stall with a line, and what's the difference between AC and DC for charging, or charging stations ONLY for a single brand (Rivian, how tf is this legal?). The stations were in the middle of nowhere; I thought my son and I could at least stop and get some food while it charged, but we didn't find any of those. Just one at a truck stop outside of Kalamazoo, and another at the end of the runway at the airport outside of Ann Arbor (we got tired of the trickle charge at Kalamazoo and left after 30 minutes, and needed to recharge in Ann Arbor). Downtown Detroit had a handful of charging stations, and I ended up spending 45 minutes at the GM building to charge to 85%. When returning the car in Chicago, it is nearly impossible to get to 100% charge at the place near my house because the stations seem to start trickling after 80%, so it took over 60 minutes to go from 20% to 95% with a "fast" charger, then a 20 minute drive to O'Hare got it below 90% again. And I now have 3 apps on my phone each with a "wallet" with money I will not be using any time in the near future. I know that long-distance isn't necessarily a selling point for EV, but that was only part of it. Every step of the way it was like companies took the worst parts of the internet and app culture and enshitified refeuling/charging. The car itself was pretty nice (Hyandai Ioniq 5), and I enjoyed driving it. But I felt like it was a CONSTANT stress worrying about where we will charge when needed, because of all of the issues; I felt like I had to thinking about finding a charging station when I got under 20% because who knows how long I will have to search for a good station. I can't commit to an EV until they are more prevalent and I can just pull up and use a credit card without an app. Say what you will about Shell or BP, but at least I don't need to worry about them leaking my data in some hack because they have a shitty app or something. We'll definitely be buying a hybrid, probably plug-in, and I'll look at EVs again in 10 years or something.

JohnFen 2y ago
> I had no idea you needed separate apps for nearly every station. The fact that you need an app at all is a serious issue for me.
- taylodl 2y ago
  THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! If I need an app to charge an EV, then I'm not buying an EV - period end. I hear people say Tesla is great because they have the largest charging network. What a load of BS! THAT'S A GIANT STEP BACKWARDS! Right now, I can take my dino car and fill up anywhere. I don't need a station branded for my make of car. I also don't need an app to buy gas. As long as this situation persists, you can count me out of EVs. When I can go to a BP station (just a well-known vendor for discussion) and charge my car using a credit card - I'm in.
  - gambiting 2y ago
    Well, technically EVs have much larger "filling up" network than your dino car, since you can charge it from literally any socket anywhere in the world. It's not like Teslas can only be charged at superchargers. If you can charge at home every night it's likely you will never use a public charger in the lifetime of the car(unless you absolutely have to). But yes, we need government regulation that says any EV charger should just have a card reader and start charging without requiring any kind of app/authentication.
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      > since you can charge it from literally any socket anywhere in the world. Technically, I suppose. In reality, no. You aren't allowed to use almost all of those outlets. > If you can charge at home every night Sure, but there is a huge number of people who can't. For them, charging at commercial stations is the only option, so how available that is, and how they work, might be the most important consideration.
    - timtom123 2y ago
      Running it through a calculator, I am getting 24 hours on a standard 120V 15AMP socket. from 20% to 80% on a Model 3 2024 Tesla. I am using calc at https://evadept.com/calc/ev-charging-time-calculator https://evadept.com/calc/ev-charging-time-calculator So I can charge in my garage but only if I upgrade to 240V?
gambiting 2y ago
This video basically sums it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8 TLDR, the guy does an identical drive in both Polestar 2 and a Tesla, the Tesla just works at every supercharger, he plugs in and that's it, no app no nothing, the car charges at maximum available speed every time. With the Polestar every charger requires a different app, the chargers themselves are not built properly(advertising higher charging rates than the cables they have been installed with can support), broken stalls, and the car almost never charged anywhere close to its maximum charging speed. I love EVs(I own one!) but the state of public infrastructure is absolutely dire, unless you own a tesla and can use superchargers.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > he plugs in and that's it, no app no nothing There's still an app. It's just running in the car instead of your phone.
  - gambiting 2y ago
    Yes, of course - I just mean from an external perspective you don't really need to do anything, other than plugging the car in - Teslas's network knows exactly who to bill for the electricity usage, there's no faffing about with a barely usable app on your phone to even just start the charge first. But yes, ultimately it still has the problem that all charging sessions require tracking and your personal data, you can't use a supercharger anonymously(not as far as I know anyway).

JohnFen 2y ago

> I had no idea you needed separate apps for nearly every station. The fact that you need an app at all is a serious issue for me.

taylodl 2y ago
THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! If I need an app to charge an EV, then I'm not buying an EV - period end. I hear people say Tesla is great because they have the largest charging network. What a load of BS! THAT'S A GIANT STEP BACKWARDS! Right now, I can take my dino car and fill up anywhere. I don't need a station branded for my make of car. I also don't need an app to buy gas. As long as this situation persists, you can count me out of EVs. When I can go to a BP station (just a well-known vendor for discussion) and charge my car using a credit card - I'm in.
- gambiting 2y ago
  Well, technically EVs have much larger "filling up" network than your dino car, since you can charge it from literally any socket anywhere in the world. It's not like Teslas can only be charged at superchargers. If you can charge at home every night it's likely you will never use a public charger in the lifetime of the car(unless you absolutely have to). But yes, we need government regulation that says any EV charger should just have a card reader and start charging without requiring any kind of app/authentication.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    > since you can charge it from literally any socket anywhere in the world. Technically, I suppose. In reality, no. You aren't allowed to use almost all of those outlets. > If you can charge at home every night Sure, but there is a huge number of people who can't. For them, charging at commercial stations is the only option, so how available that is, and how they work, might be the most important consideration.
  - timtom123 2y ago
    Running it through a calculator, I am getting 24 hours on a standard 120V 15AMP socket. from 20% to 80% on a Model 3 2024 Tesla. I am using calc at https://evadept.com/calc/ev-charging-time-calculator https://evadept.com/calc/ev-charging-time-calculator So I can charge in my garage but only if I upgrade to 240V?

gambiting 2y ago

This video basically sums it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8 TLDR, the guy does an identical drive in both Polestar 2 and a Tesla, the Tesla just works at every supercharger, he plugs in and that's it, no app no nothing, the car charges at maximum available speed every time. With the Polestar every charger requires a different app, the chargers themselves are not built properly(advertising higher charging rates than the cables they have been installed with can support), broken stalls, and the car almost never charged anywhere close to its maximum charging speed. I love EVs(I own one!) but the state of public infrastructure is absolutely dire, unless you own a tesla and can use superchargers.

JohnFen 2y ago
> he plugs in and that's it, no app no nothing There's still an app. It's just running in the car instead of your phone.
- gambiting 2y ago
  Yes, of course - I just mean from an external perspective you don't really need to do anything, other than plugging the car in - Teslas's network knows exactly who to bill for the electricity usage, there's no faffing about with a barely usable app on your phone to even just start the charge first. But yes, ultimately it still has the problem that all charging sessions require tracking and your personal data, you can't use a supercharger anonymously(not as far as I know anyway).