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I'm amazed there isn't more talk about how bad the nationwide charging infrastructure is. Non-Tesla public chargers are a disaster. Terribly engineered, buggy a

I'm amazed there isn't more talk about how bad the nationwide charging infrastructure is. Non-Tesla public chargers are a disaster. Terribly engineered, buggy as hell, constantly failing, perpetually out of date, improperly configured, insecure. As someone who has worked with them, I would probably not buy an EV at all unless I could use the Tesla chargers, so thank god that's an option now.

rpgwaiter 2y ago
Non-tesla infra has gotten a lot better over the past couple years, at least according to this one YouTube EV road trip I watched recently: https://youtu.be/ouPiwt5hxXQ https://youtu.be/ouPiwt5hxXQ
- sipjca 2y ago
  It’s still not great. I drove I5 North for the holidays and at one stop there was an hour+ long wait at Electrify America. Only 3/4 stalls working and a queue 5 or 6 deep to charge. At the same stop there were 12+ Tesla chargers and no issue with wait and not fully occupied
  - VBprogrammer 2y ago
    I don't have an electric car (not against it in principle but waiting for the right time). One thing that always bothers me is that, from what I've seen, queuing for charging seems to be based on coordination and trust between EV drivers. Surely it would make far more sense to have some kind of virtual queuing system built in. Then when a charger becomes free it automatically sends you an alert and gives you some period to connect to the charger. Longer term, I would hope charging stations would be designed with a layout which lets cars queue sensibly.
    - cogman10 2y ago
      I've rarely had to really queue. While it might make sense to soft lock a stall for queue, that'd be pretty hard to coordinate and wouldn't work well cross manufacturer (you now either need a universal registration protocol or some sort of physical infrastructure that enforces a queue). IMO, the better solution and the one that seems to be happening is more chargers. These charge providers have the numbers on how many people are using their stations so it's not really impossible to map out and plan out where new charging stations are needed. During surge usage, Tesla is deploying temporary charge stations to handle the extra load [1] [1] https://electrek.co/2024/12/23/tesla-deploys-a-fleet-of-megapack-chargers-to-help-with-holiday-travels/ https://electrek.co/2024/12/23/tesla-deploys-a-fleet-of-mega...
    - mikestew 2y ago
      queuing for charging seems to be based on coordination and trust between EV drivers. You are correct, which is why I’m serious when I say that I’m surprised there haven’t been reports of physical altercations by now. And even if not fisticuffs, how about saving me the stress of trying to figure out the ad hoc queuing system? The chargers are often way the hell out at the edge of the parking lot, no one is losing usable parking spots by making a few painted lanes.
    - 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
      I suggested the same queueing system like a year ago, haven't heard of anyone implementing it. Even companies doing managed charging, they are in much more of a rush to sign a contract than make it work well. You can tell nobody thought it through, just pushing all the chargers up against the borders of properties because that's what requires the least construction and least coordination with property owners. Customers get the shaft.
  - itsZero 2y ago
    I'm curious if there's a reason why or how Tesla tend to build 10+ stations per location while EA/EVgo tend to only do 4 most of the time. I still need to wait a lot of times at EA/EVgo locations.
    - LeoPanthera 2y ago
      If Tesla charging sucks, people don't buy Teslas. If EA charging sucks... well there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.
  - r00fus 2y ago
    EA is struggling with charger outages but they're improving. The real story is the L2 players providing a lot more L3 sites (EVgo, ChargePoint).
- 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
  My team was working with 2 non-tesla charging vendors this summer. Terrible, couldn't get them to work, waiting weeks for the vendors to fix their shit, no support, no documentation (seriously). It was like a college intern who went through a bootcamp tried to throw one together. Wouldn't trust them to make a USB charger.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    Tesla now sells them. And there's a new >800V+ cabinet
LeoPanthera 2y ago
Since you don't own an EV, you probably haven't noticed how much better they've got in the past year. There's been a huge improvement, and many of them are now considerably faster than Tesla chargers, especially if you have an 800v car.
crusty 2y ago
TLDR: The charging infrastructure and charging capacity of vehicles is getting pretty good, but the logistics of the charging stations are awful and either have never been considered or were set down when charging was going to be a multiple hours long ordeal. I've been vicariously experiencing the adjustment to EV life through a busy of mine who recently got an Ioniq 5 (2024, so not the tesla charging port). He does not have access to charging at home but does have the 2 years of free* charging at Electrify America (EA) stations. The charge infrastructure isn't that bad for him. While EV stations aren't nearly as prevalent as gas stations, he has multiple EA station options within his regular driving radius, and far more of he were to leave the EA network. Though it's LA, so it's probably the best in the US. The biggest issue isn't finding a station or being confronted with nonfunctional chargers, it's the variability of charging duration among users and the pre-charging wait logistics. He gets 30 minutes of charging per day for free, but as long as he goes to a 350V charger, he'll hit 80% regardless of his initial charge state in under 30 minutes. Often, he's charging from around 40% to 80-something in under 15 minutes. The trouble starts with the uniqueness of his car's charging rate. Plenty of EVs are not designed to charge at that rate, and it's a waste to have them slowly stopping electrons from the fire hose of the highest voltage chargers. Combine mismatch that with the initial considerations of charge points/stations, when EVs took so long to charge that there was no point in considering a queue waiting to hook up because no one would ever wait for potentially hours and hours for the one car let along two or more car's ahead of them to charge and depart. So EV stations weren't designed like gas stations, they just get stuck in little pockets of empty space or on the periphery of a parking lot, probably marketed to the lot owners as a was to lie in potential shoppers who are going to have to spend the hour or more while they wait for their cars to charge doing something, so why not spending money at the mall or grocery store the chargers are in the lot of. Unfortunately, while that's how the EV stations have developed, that's not really how the cars have. Sure, he might get stuck at a charging station in line behind a Nissan Leaf on 10% battery, but it seems easy more likely he'll be in line for 1 of 3 chargers with 4 or 5 other fairly fast charging EVs. So now he's in the supermarket parking lot awkwardly positioned with a bunch of other EV drivers vigilantly minding a virtual queue communicated through raised eyebrows, grimaces, and expressive stink-eye. There's often probably enough time waiting his turn to go on and do some shopping, but there's no way to do that and maintain the queue. Once he's hooked up, there's usually only enough time to run through like it was a gas station convenience store.

rpgwaiter 2y ago

Non-tesla infra has gotten a lot better over the past couple years, at least according to this one YouTube EV road trip I watched recently: https://youtu.be/ouPiwt5hxXQ https://youtu.be/ouPiwt5hxXQ

sipjca 2y ago
It’s still not great. I drove I5 North for the holidays and at one stop there was an hour+ long wait at Electrify America. Only 3/4 stalls working and a queue 5 or 6 deep to charge. At the same stop there were 12+ Tesla chargers and no issue with wait and not fully occupied
- VBprogrammer 2y ago
  I don't have an electric car (not against it in principle but waiting for the right time). One thing that always bothers me is that, from what I've seen, queuing for charging seems to be based on coordination and trust between EV drivers. Surely it would make far more sense to have some kind of virtual queuing system built in. Then when a charger becomes free it automatically sends you an alert and gives you some period to connect to the charger. Longer term, I would hope charging stations would be designed with a layout which lets cars queue sensibly.
  - cogman10 2y ago
    I've rarely had to really queue. While it might make sense to soft lock a stall for queue, that'd be pretty hard to coordinate and wouldn't work well cross manufacturer (you now either need a universal registration protocol or some sort of physical infrastructure that enforces a queue). IMO, the better solution and the one that seems to be happening is more chargers. These charge providers have the numbers on how many people are using their stations so it's not really impossible to map out and plan out where new charging stations are needed. During surge usage, Tesla is deploying temporary charge stations to handle the extra load [1] [1] https://electrek.co/2024/12/23/tesla-deploys-a-fleet-of-megapack-chargers-to-help-with-holiday-travels/ https://electrek.co/2024/12/23/tesla-deploys-a-fleet-of-mega...
  - mikestew 2y ago
    queuing for charging seems to be based on coordination and trust between EV drivers. You are correct, which is why I’m serious when I say that I’m surprised there haven’t been reports of physical altercations by now. And even if not fisticuffs, how about saving me the stress of trying to figure out the ad hoc queuing system? The chargers are often way the hell out at the edge of the parking lot, no one is losing usable parking spots by making a few painted lanes.
  - 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
    I suggested the same queueing system like a year ago, haven't heard of anyone implementing it. Even companies doing managed charging, they are in much more of a rush to sign a contract than make it work well. You can tell nobody thought it through, just pushing all the chargers up against the borders of properties because that's what requires the least construction and least coordination with property owners. Customers get the shaft.
- itsZero 2y ago
  I'm curious if there's a reason why or how Tesla tend to build 10+ stations per location while EA/EVgo tend to only do 4 most of the time. I still need to wait a lot of times at EA/EVgo locations.
  - LeoPanthera 2y ago
    If Tesla charging sucks, people don't buy Teslas. If EA charging sucks... well there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.
- r00fus 2y ago
  EA is struggling with charger outages but they're improving. The real story is the L2 players providing a lot more L3 sites (EVgo, ChargePoint).
0xbadcafebee 2y ago
My team was working with 2 non-tesla charging vendors this summer. Terrible, couldn't get them to work, waiting weeks for the vendors to fix their shit, no support, no documentation (seriously). It was like a college intern who went through a bootcamp tried to throw one together. Wouldn't trust them to make a USB charger.
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  Tesla now sells them. And there's a new >800V+ cabinet

LeoPanthera 2y ago

Since you don't own an EV, you probably haven't noticed how much better they've got in the past year. There's been a huge improvement, and many of them are now considerably faster than Tesla chargers, especially if you have an 800v car.

crusty 2y ago

TLDR: The charging infrastructure and charging capacity of vehicles is getting pretty good, but the logistics of the charging stations are awful and either have never been considered or were set down when charging was going to be a multiple hours long ordeal. I've been vicariously experiencing the adjustment to EV life through a busy of mine who recently got an Ioniq 5 (2024, so not the tesla charging port). He does not have access to charging at home but does have the 2 years of free* charging at Electrify America (EA) stations. The charge infrastructure isn't that bad for him. While EV stations aren't nearly as prevalent as gas stations, he has multiple EA station options within his regular driving radius, and far more of he were to leave the EA network. Though it's LA, so it's probably the best in the US. The biggest issue isn't finding a station or being confronted with nonfunctional chargers, it's the variability of charging duration among users and the pre-charging wait logistics. He gets 30 minutes of charging per day for free, but as long as he goes to a 350V charger, he'll hit 80% regardless of his initial charge state in under 30 minutes. Often, he's charging from around 40% to 80-something in under 15 minutes. The trouble starts with the uniqueness of his car's charging rate. Plenty of EVs are not designed to charge at that rate, and it's a waste to have them slowly stopping electrons from the fire hose of the highest voltage chargers. Combine mismatch that with the initial considerations of charge points/stations, when EVs took so long to charge that there was no point in considering a queue waiting to hook up because no one would ever wait for potentially hours and hours for the one car let along two or more car's ahead of them to charge and depart. So EV stations weren't designed like gas stations, they just get stuck in little pockets of empty space or on the periphery of a parking lot, probably marketed to the lot owners as a was to lie in potential shoppers who are going to have to spend the hour or more while they wait for their cars to charge doing something, so why not spending money at the mall or grocery store the chargers are in the lot of. Unfortunately, while that's how the EV stations have developed, that's not really how the cars have. Sure, he might get stuck at a charging station in line behind a Nissan Leaf on 10% battery, but it seems easy more likely he'll be in line for 1 of 3 chargers with 4 or 5 other fairly fast charging EVs. So now he's in the supermarket parking lot awkwardly positioned with a bunch of other EV drivers vigilantly minding a virtual queue communicated through raised eyebrows, grimaces, and expressive stink-eye. There's often probably enough time waiting his turn to go on and do some shopping, but there's no way to do that and maintain the queue. Once he's hooked up, there's usually only enough time to run through like it was a gas station convenience store.