US Plans Push To Upgrade Fast Chargers

[MM in SouthTX]

Bottom line on all of this--we are a VERY long way from all electric...if it's even achievable. Rolling out a plan that includes only a check amount is not rolling out a plan.

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[Maquis]

Have you never had to re-swipe your card at a gas station?

Sure I have, but rarely. That’s why my benchmark mentioned 95 to 99% success rate. Not 100%. If the rate of charging successfully was equivalent to that of pumping gas, we’d be golden.

 

[bmwhitetx]

Reading the program details further, the money will be grants and: "Eligible applicants for this program are limited to State departments of transportation and local governments."

 

[Bwanapete]

Yes I have a Lightning, but also have owned a Tesla since 2/2017. The Tesla SuperChargers are reliable and were not built with government money. They were and are now built by fractions of the Tesla car cost. What is wrong with that business model. Why haven’t the mighty Big Three or the high selling battery imports done the same?

 

[RickLightning]

Yes I have a Lightning, but also have owned a Tesla since 2/2017. The Tesla SuperChargers are reliable and were not built with government money. They were and are now built by fractions of the Tesla car cost. What is wrong with that business model. Why haven’t the mighty Big Three or the high selling battery imports done the same?

Really? Billions...

https://goodjobsfirst.org/elon-musk...First,according to the department's website.”

https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc

 

[G-Zeus]

Really? Billions...

https://goodjobsfirst.org/elon-musk...First,according to the department's website.”

https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc

Just give Elon the money to install longer “hoses” at the super chargers we will soon be able to use. I’d happily pay a higher rate to get fast and reliable charging on the first try, with no hopping around. Imagine being able to just drive, not worrying about charger locations or reliability or speed, and just charge whenever you feel like it? Like we do with gas cars today? Until we have that, EVs will never go mainstream.

 

[MM in SouthTX]

Just give Elon the money to install longer “hoses” at the super chargers we will soon be able to use. I’d happily pay a higher rate to get fast and reliable charging on the first try, with no hopping around. Imagine being able to just drive, not worrying about charger locations or reliability or speed, and just charge whenever you feel like it? Like we do with gas cars today? Until we have that, EVs will never go mainstream.

To match gas cars, you would have to be able to go from empty to full in 5 minutes. I don't see that happening.

This group is mostly all-in on the conversion to electric. That means this group is more willing to tolerate inconvenience. If you go stand in a crowd of rural pickup drivers and try to tell them that you only had to charge twice for 30 minutes on a drive from San Antonio to Dallas, they would ask you why you wasted an hour, when they got there on one tank. Then, if they knew their stuff, they would ask how it would go when one of our northers blows in, and you are bucking 20mph wind and it's 40 degrees out.

The idea that we are going to mandate all cars to be electric is a non-starter under current technology.

 

[On the Road with Ralph]

Having to sign into the app a second time or move over one stall should be considered success though. Have you never had to re-swipe your card at a gas station? And everything gets flakier once you involve some stupid app designed to track you first and provide the service you want second. I had WalMart+ for the gas discount for a while and cancelled it 'cause it frequently failed, and required some dumb login every time..... That's not gasoline's fault. I wouldn't even blame the station.

Also, somebody having a bad experience generates complaints. But people move on when a mundane task works correctly.

There's also an issue of expectations. Look at that graph from Rate-Your-Charge above. I think if you did a survey you'd pretty universally find that people ranked non-tesla charging networks something like:

1. EA
2. EvGo
3. Other
4. .
5. .
6. .
7. ChargePoint

I don’t know what planet do you live on, but here on Earth One, ElectrifyAmerica is universally regarded as worthless. Both J.D. Power and Rate-Your-Charge have it dead last, and by a sizable margin. And even a casual review of PlugShare comments would leave you wondering how EA stays in business. My own personal experience - over 60 charging sessions in seven states - has been miserable. I might add that I would generally rate ChargePoint good (my Lightning is plugged into one as I type this).

 

[ivan256]

I don’t know what planet do you live on, but here on Earth One, ElectrifyAmerica is universally regarded as worthless. Both J.D. Power and Rate-Your-Charge have it dead last, and by a sizable margin. And even a casual review of PlugShare comments would leave you wondering how EA stays in business. My own personal experience - over 60 charging sessions in seven states - has been miserable. I might add that I would generally rate ChargePoint good (my Lightning is plugged into one as I type this).

My personal experience is the EA stations are the ones you look for. First of all they work with BlueOval plug-and-charge, which has been 1000% rock-solid in my experience. Plus they have a higher ceiling. Yeah you might only get a fraction of the rated charging rate. But if you go to the competition you'll definitely get the slower rate.

If you look for chargers in the northeast that are 150kW+ capable, most of them will be EA. If you look at the negative reviews on plugshare they'll be things like (some quotes

"One CCS is down on Charger 3 so it's impossible to charge at that stall if your port is on the other side. WORST FAST CHARGER EVER"

"Worst EA experience: Station2 maxed out at 43kW"

(Review marked "could not charge") "Initial attempt to charge failed. Charged on second attempt"

"52kW. Slow AF."

Plenty of complaints about lines.... which are definitely not the charging stations' fault.

Ratings are representative of the gap between expectations and reality. Not of reality itself. I think the expectations are higher for EA because they put that big 350 number on the sticker.

When you're on a roadtrip in a non-Tesla EV, which DCFC brand do you look for?

 

[Zprime29]

Plenty of complaints about lines.... which are definitely not the charging stations' fault.

Wrong, the vast majority of the time there is a line is due to the charging stations not operating as advertised. What should have been a 20 min stop for me was a 2 hour wait due to 2 out of 4 chargers not working (I called support and they where unable to fix), 1 derated to 32kW, 1 working 150kW charger. There where 5 cars trying to charge. Earlier in the year, all 4 stations worked and there was no line and maybe 1 car present. Faulty chargers creates a bottle neck and long waits.

Imagine a Love's truck stop that had one pump working, and a second that only dispensed at a trickle. You're 5 min top up is now a 30-45 min wait. But that's not the truck stop/pump's fault? Imagine if 50% of all gas stations along major travel routes had only 1 or 2 working pumps. Would that be acceptable?

 

[hturnerfamily]

taking a look at the 'future' of a 'total-ev' manufacturing process, and with a little calculator 'rough justice'... it would take no less than 20 years to move to 'ev only' Auto sales, and that's if EVERY gas manufacturer dropped ALL gas vehicles, today, and suddenly ONLY produced EVs.... and then, you'd still have most ALL of the vehicles on the road today, STILL roadworthy, and STILL needing gas.

I think one of the unsupported 'ideas' of EVs is that if we just had enough manufacturing and plenty on dealer's lots, everyone would suddenly move to EVs....but, that'snot reality: most any gas vehicle driver is not going to suddenly trade-in or sale their gas car just because EVs are available - they are going to drive that car for as long as it makes sense to them, especially if they OWN it, outright. Those of us on these forums are probably the exception, not the norm.

This doesn't even take into effect the need for local 'at home' charging equipment, which many don't have easy access to, or don't want to have to 'fool with' to make an EV work for them. Apartments, townhomes, condos, and government-subsidized homes are going to have a really hard time accepting the requirements to own an EV, if not the upfront cost of charging equipment and/or electrical professional charges to meet local/code requirements.

As much as the current president 'lauds' the need for 'blue collar' Americans to be able to afford an EV, he doesn't get all the other parts, requirements, and 'change of habits' that go with that. EV Tax Credits only support those who actually HAVE enough tax burdens to GET that credit - most 'blue collar' and low-income would never - it's just not a practical way to 'push' the average American into an EV. Now, if you lower the monthly payment $100, or $200, maybe that would get someone's attention - especially if you could also build into the monthly payment the required home charging equipment and installation.

 

[RickLightning]

The more EVs that are sold, the more prices get driven down by economies of scale. Ford, GM, and others build battery plants to control costs and production. Costs get driven down.

By pushing EVs and putting in the charging infrastructure, we move faster and faster towards the end goal.

 

[MM in SouthTX]

This doesn't even take into effect the need for local 'at home' charging equipment, which many don't have easy access to, or don't want to have to 'fool with' to make an EV work for them. Apartments, townhomes, condos, and government-subsidized homes are going to have a really hard time accepting the requirements to own an EV, if not the upfront cost of charging equipment and/or electrical professional charges to meet local/code requirements.

I'm told that attempting to charge while driving through Dallas is difficult right now, because all the Level 3 chargers are taken up by apartment residents, who don't have the ability to charge at home. High density urban areas might need L2 chargers for every other car or maybe every car in order to make the full shift happen.

 

[bmwhitetx]

I'm told that attempting to charge while driving through Dallas is difficult right now, because all the Level 3 chargers are taken up by apartment residents, who don't have the ability to charge at home. High density urban areas might need L2 chargers for every other car or maybe every car in order to make the full shift happen.

I suspect its every urban center. On our recent trip back from Austin on a Thursday, the EA chargers at Round Rock were showing little usage all day. But when we arrived around 7pm, they were all full (I was right behind a Mach-E who got the last spot). Checked the EA app and sure enough, they were all used now so app was correct. I noticed several single-person cars with folks in "non-travel" attire. Took 90 minutes to wait for a charger and then charge at a top rate of ~50 kW.

 

[FirstF150InCasco]

I do plenty, thanks. I don't consider getting slower charging a "failure" though. Also, in a year and dozens of sessions I've never seen a charging rate that low. I saw 45kW once. In Auburn MA, actually. And it was stupidly hot out.

Even if you do consider a slower charge to be a failure, I'd not count it if you move to the next stall and that one is fast. If you went to a location with chargers and left with a charge, it didn't fail.



$100M is $100M. For context, Y! Combinator seeds startups at $500k. So that's 200 new tech companies worth of money.

The median mortgage payment in the US is $1600. So that's a year's mortgage payments for 5200 families.

According to the Florida department of transportation, in 2022 it cost $676K per mile to mill and resurface a 4 lane urban roadway and add 4' bike lanes. So $100M is almost 150 miles of updated urban roadway.

The fact that we've gotten used to stupidly big dollar figures on government spending projects doesn't justify wasting huge amounts of money that are slightly less huge. How about these companies pay to fix their own stuff?

Also stop to think that earlier billions got us these existing stations that people are unsatisfied with! Clearly an extra hundred mil will fix it....

Personally I'd take a different approach. If companies can't keep their equipment in working order to some standard level, then they should cease to be eligible for future subsidies. This funding is rewarding - and thus encouraging - incompetence.

Ivan256, I agree with all you say. Run for President!!

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