Chargers coming soon?

[beatle]

I've used Plugshare for a while and it's pretty useful for finding both L2 and DCFCs, but it's kind of disheartening to look for DCFCs with 120kw+ plugs and find almost nothing coming soon on the eastern seaboard.

Electrify America's "and our future" map is incredibly low res and has no date associated with it. It appears to improve the huge empty areas in the midwest so cross country trips are at least possible without relying on campground RV charging. That's great, but there are still large empty areas on the beach areas from Charleston to NYC. PA and central VA have a dearth of chargers as well. Not sure why WV is so anti-EV charging as well since it's really the only way to true way to power a modern car with coal.

EVgo and ChargePoint do not even have a coming soon map.

I know things are not going to improve overnight, but they actually don't seem to be improving at all. Not to play the Tesla trumpet, but their coming soon map is updated frequently and there are a load of stations coming soon - most of which have 8+ stations. Has everyone else staked their expansion plans on a stalled/dead BBB bill?

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[Vorador]

Electric vehicle chargers were included in the infrastructure bill that passed. But as Texas has shown, they aren't going with the best option. Tesla offered to build universal superchargers, which cost 1/5 of what Texas picked. So unless you live in an EV friendly state, expect the worse option to be chosen in terms of chargers.

 

[Labs4Lightning]

Tesla’s strength is their 1.2 million cars produced. Probably small amount totaled and retired. We are still playing with traditional car mnfg that have to embrace the new world on ev. Different mnfg’ s have partnered with different charging companies. VW for instance is funding electrify America because of their emotions cheating settlement. Woo hoo we get blue oval network, which what, brings together a few brands to the ford nav system.
-early adoption comes with growing pains. Remember your first iPhone or android or iPad.
i‘m accepting short bed and not the greatest range, but I get a cool truck that can power a lot stuff.

 

[beatle]

It's true that Tesla has a lot of cars, but I wonder how many of these vehicles would use DCFCs?

https://evadoption.com/ev-sales/federal-ev-tax-credit-phase-out-tracker-by-automaker/

Some are PHEVs, I know, but I'd say the numbers aren't completely insignificant. Raw count actually puts the total number just ahead of Tesla.

 

[RickLightning]

First, don't expect EA and other companies to spend a lot of time updating maps from press releases a year ago. They indicate on their website what's coming soon.

Many have noted that up to now, it takes a long time for a station to go in. Permits, approvals, power companies, ... Who knows if the $7.5B is going to speed that up.

 

[adoublee]

Electric vehicle chargers were included in the infrastructure bill that passed. But as Texas has shown, they aren't going with the best option. Tesla offered to build universal superchargers, which cost 1/5 of what Texas picked. So unless you live in an EV friendly state, expect the worse option to be chosen in terms of chargers.

Or Tesla just asked for less free money than other vendors who will provide charging for every non-Tesla vehicle, and Tesla might not have met other requirements solicited for the sites. I dont know the details but the article I saw about this (on Electrek I think) seemed very equally uninformed and Tesla fanboi influenced.

 

[hturnerfamily]

I've seen quite a few brand new DCFC come into the west-central GEORGIA market recently - hosted by GEORGIA POWER(duh!, that certainly makes sense), and CHARGEPOINT.
Albany, Columbus, Macon, Perry, and more...
Georgia Power, as a utility, has done an amazing job in keeping the process fluid - it certainly makes all the sense in the world that THEY would be the one's very interested in making this happen... they have the people, the brains, and they deal with permits and local governments on a daily basis.

 

[GDN]

The only hope of a reliable network is for people to give their money to Elon and have him update his chargers to add CCS. Like it or not, no one will ever get close for years. They already outnumber anyone else and maybe even everyone else put together for true 150kW+ DCFC stations. They are near 100% reliable, they work seamlessly and they grew last year by 35% !

These stations are Tesla's strength - not as much the number of cars although that is over 1.9M now too.

Move beyond the DCFC and Tesla has made huge inroads at hotels with destination charging too. Tons of hotels with a Tesla L2 charger. If you will host it Tesla will give you the charger. Ford needs to get on board with this.

Truly today Ford nor anyone else other than Tesla cares about where you go or how you charge, they are leaving that up to 3rd parties.

If you want it to be reliable, seamless and available - just partner with Elon. Texas didn't seem to want to, so he will outdo the others all on his own and turn his nose up to us driving other brands.

 

[beatle]

I found EA has a map of coming soon stations. They have a pile of them going in around NYC and Long Island and a handful near Boston and Florida. Still a little depressing but better than nothing. I wonder how many people rely on DCFC as their only means for charging? There is a concentration of them in urban areas, but interstate travel can really be hampered by the lack of DCFC in some areas.

https://www.electrifyamerica.com/locate-charger/

Even if the lead time for a station to go in is long, you'd at least think they'd publish their plans to see that the company is growing. Tesla publishes a new map at the beginning of the year. Most stations go in that year, but some are the following year.

 

[beatle]

Destination charging is also of great importance. The only way I was able to take my Model S to the beach in NC last year was from a destination charger in Southport. Tesla/J1772 isn't really that big of a deal if you have an adapter to use a Tesla destination charger on a vehicle with a J1772.

 

[GDN]

We just need a couple million long range CCS DCFC vehicles on the road and someone will fill in the gaps and get it done. Til then it will be sparse.

 

[F-150 Prius]

I've used Plugshare for a while and it's pretty useful for finding both L2 and DCFCs, but it's kind of disheartening to look for DCFCs with 120kw+ plugs and find almost nothing coming soon on the eastern seaboard.

Electrify America's "and our future" map is incredibly low res and has no date associated with it. It appears to improve the huge empty areas in the midwest so cross country trips are at least possible without relying on campground RV charging. That's great, but there are still large empty areas on the beach areas from Charleston to NYC. PA and central VA have a dearth of chargers as well. Not sure why WV is so anti-EV charging as well since it's really the only way to true way to power a modern car with coal.

EVgo and ChargePoint do not even have a coming soon map.

I know things are not going to improve overnight, but they actually don't seem to be improving at all. Not to play the Tesla trumpet, but their coming soon map is updated frequently and there are a load of stations coming soon - most of which have 8+ stations. Has everyone else staked their expansion plans on a stalled/dead BBB bill?

That's about the gist of it. Tesla has the exponential problem of selling a million Model Ys … Rivian, Ford and GM will sell maybe 50,000 or 100,000 combined in 2022, so they're waiting for the govt to spend that $5B on charging infrastructure. Of course, as ever, that money goes into the black hole of corporations and what the taxpayer gets for their money is a few signs and a lot of marketing and brand names and promises … then a year or two goes by and people complain running up to the next election cycle, but higher priorities like gay marriage, marijuana and the ever popular distraction from democracy, war, these somehow become the voting topics on corporate media even if voters are 80%+ already decided on all those topics and want action on health, education, housing, income … government services stuff … so maybe there will be a smattering of 50kW chargers (don't bother, they're useless) or 150kW (don't bother, still far too slow) but a solid network of 350kW chargers spread out every 50 miles like … oh, I dunno … coffee shops along major freeways … that's not going to happen till a billionaire like … well, clearly not Musk, he's had years and hasn't done it … maybe Bezos will see the opportunity to "one up" Musk and put in a private Amazon network for his purposes and sell it like all other Amazon services.

 

[beatle]

I've mentioned this in other threads, but it's pretty relevant here as well. Clearly without a large market, the private sector has to see the value (profit) in building infrastructure. That's just capitalism. But with that in mind, I'm curious why DCFCs are so cheap. They are not inexpensive to build, and though electricity is not incredibly expensive, companies still need to turn a profit and maintain the stations so they're working. Since EVs are still mostly luxury items, most people have the means to charge at home and have the pockets to pay a premium for "fuel" when road tripping. My home to DCFC ratio is 10:1 even with a vehicle with only 243 miles of range. Why not put charge rates at say, $1/kwh at least until the demand catches up for the prices to drop. People pay a premium for convenience in just about any market, and I wouldn't mind shelling out a few more bucks to have more freedom when stopping on road trips.

 

[GDN]

That's about the gist of it. Tesla has the exponential problem of selling a million Model Ys … Rivian, Ford and GM will sell maybe 50,000 or 100,000 combined in 2022, so they're waiting for the govt to spend that $5B on charging infrastructure. Of course, as ever, that money goes into the black hole of corporations and what the taxpayer gets for their money is a few signs and a lot of marketing and brand names and promises … then a year or two goes by and people complain running up to the next election cycle, but higher priorities like gay marriage, marijuana and the ever popular distraction from democracy, war, these somehow become the voting topics on corporate media even if voters are 80%+ already decided on all those topics and want action on health, education, housing, income … government services stuff … so maybe there will be a smattering of 50kW chargers (don't bother, they're useless) or 150kW (don't bother, still far too slow) but a solid network of 350kW chargers spread out every 50 miles like … oh, I dunno … coffee shops along major freeways … that's not going to happen till a billionaire like … well, clearly not Musk, he's had years and hasn't done it … maybe Bezos will see the opportunity to "one up" Musk and put in a private Amazon network for his purposes and sell it like all other Amazon services.

You had such an incredible post, couldn't agree more, until you want to diss on Musk. Why? He put every penny and bit of energy into supporting his cars. Why would he be as concerned about supporting Ford or GM or Polestar? Until about 2 years ago he wasn't sure he was going to make it and not go bankrupt, what do you think he had left to put into the slug chargers the other manufactures were going to build (Ford).

There is a chance now I can see him doing it, he is becoming profitable, he is getting more SC'er out there for Tesla's. He and his team might now have the time and energy and staff to consider expanding and opening the infrastructure for the brands that care to put nothing into their own infrastructure to support the cars they are building.

 

[beatle]

Tesla has already opened the SC network to non-Tesla vehicles in a small pilot in the Netherlands:

https://insideevs.com/news/567601/all-superchargers-netherlands-non-tesla/

I'm no Tesla fanboy (heck, I'm leaving the brand) or even a stock holder, but the charging experience has been very good. 3rd party DCFC companies don't really seem to care. I wonder what incentives it would take for non-Tesla supercharging to happen elsewhere? Tesla would be losing a valuable distinguishing feature of their cars, and they would want a return on the risk they took on the billions they've invested by installing so many stations. I certainly think it's possible to see non-Tesla supercharging in the US in the next few years though. Musk has always said mass EV adoption is his goal, whether it's his company that sells all the cars or not. I think he's waiting to see how 3rd party DCFC companies start to get a bit of momentum before throwing down an option. With most of them apparently sitting on their hands, the gap will just continue to widen and make the SC network more valuable.

I said I would pay extra to have access to more DCFCs. I wonder how much I'd be willing to pay, and via what mechanism? Though I eschew toll roads, the idea of pay-per-use supercharging is nice, even if I were paying 3x of what I pay now as a Tesla owner. Or would manufacturers pay a one-time license fee for the use of the supercharger network on each vehicle they make? This fee would largely be passed on to the consumer, but how much would people be willing to pay? $1k? $3k? More?

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