[ROFISH]

While this should be especially true for destinations, such as hotels or even apartments, there still needs to be fast-charging infrastructure for road trips. And right now, the not-Tesla charging infrastructure is hot garbage.

Half the plugs don’t work.

The other half is at 1/4 speed, or less.

And because it’s all mostly older people, they don’t understand that it takes like 30 minutes to go from like 0 to 50% but 45-60 minutes to go from 50% to 100%. Which is annoying because:

With so few chargers, and the ones that are working at slow speed, it is VICIOUS out there. People in Porches yelling at other people to get spots.

I don’t know what it’s like for Tesla people, since its twice as much to charge than at the other chargers, but right now the road trip experience for EVs is awful just because of so few working chargers.

This is before you get to the 20-30 minute charge times.

[stetrain]

I have had to wait at a Tesla Supercharger once in 4 years, and that was early on.

They are building new stations in the US faster than one per day (over 400 last year, tracking to over 500 this year). Each stations contains at least 8 chargers, some have 12, 24, 40, or even more.

Charging stops are usually 10-20min since it's best to use the fast part of the charging curve and move on if you're trying to maximize trip speed.

Definitely agreed about fast chargers needing to be reliable and smart. Part of Tesla's magic is a charge network and in-car navigation that talk to each other so you are routed to working chargers at the right part of your trip. And congested chargers can be automatically routed around.

Hopefully the new agreements in the US allowing other cars to access Tesla's network will promote more competition all around between charging providers to provide a better experience.

[marcyb5st]

Tesla owner in Europe. My experience is pretty good even in non Tesla stations. Especially Ionity ones.

However I don't understand your comment about Tesla's costing twice as much. In Italy Tesla's for Tesla owners il less than half compared to 3rd parties (90ish cents kWh vs 44ish)

[theshrike79]

I think in the US it's the lack of competition.

Tesla's chargers are usually the only ones that work at all, so they can charge whatever they want for their product.

[tw04]

>While this should be especially true for destinations, such as hotels or even apartments

It's really not though? I've never come across an L2 charger that doesn't just work. The DC fast charging is where the problems always arise. At least with an L2 charger, the hotel/apartment can easily track the power consumption being utilized, and also lock it down to only allow charging as they see fit via mobile app, NFC card, or pin. With a 14-50 it's a free-for-all.

[CameronNemo]

I have seen a lot of L2 chargers (J1772) that had broken clips and would not charge my vehicle. Also lots that were just turned off or broken.

[tw04]

Sure, physically broken or turned off chargers aren't going to be magically fixed by making it a 14-50 receptacle though. If people don't care to maintain the charging infrastructure it doesn't matter what it's based on.

My point is: I've never plugged in a working J1772 and had it fail to communicate or fail to charge if it's an otherwise working charger. I've definitely seen that with DC chargers and there are plenty of known issues between certain models of cars and certain brands of DC fast chargers.

[poxrud]

In Canada the supercharger experience is great. In 3 years I’ve never had to wait for a spot. The superchargers are usually located in convenient locations in mall marking lots or next to coffee shops or restaurants. I’d love to switch try a different EV but the lack of a supercharger network prevents that.

[skrebbel]

This reads as a strange comment to me without any information about which chargers in which country/region you’re referring to.

Fwiw I’ve never seen that “people in porches yelling” thing play out here in NL.

[ruggeri]

He means the United States. In my limited experience, his comment rings as accurate here in the United States.

[skrebbel]

Woa the whole country? I had assumed that with a place that big and varied, there’d be large regional differences for this stuff.

Wow that’s pretty bad then.

[vel0city]

Definitely not the whole country, I've never experienced it before and am also in the US.

[ruggeri]

My experience is in northern California. Probably no one can speak for the experience across the entire US. FWIW, this guy in Minnesota seems to have had a very similar experience to what I’ve seen:

https://youtu.be/ZJOfyMCEzjQ?si=zPqg88sE9kfZCLXE

[vel0city]

It seems like his experience is more similar to mine given his experiences on the topic available on YouTube. Just look here:

https://youtu.be/1Vm_ASm2zfs?t=294

"Stop number two was just as uneventful as stop number one." Once again, plenty of dispensers available, got charging on the first try.

Third stop, also uneventful.

Fourth stop, "this is getting really uneventful now, its like stopping at a gas station."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vm_ASm2zfs&t=717s

Is this a station with a wait list? Did it fail to charge? No, there were multiple dispensers open without anyone there and it worked on the first try. On his 1,200mi road trip they encountered one dispenser not working but there was another one unused right next to it.

So no, he's not constantly encountering long lines with belligerent people at multiple broken fast chargers, he's pretty much always rolling up to charging locations that are mostly empty and worked on the first try. Technology Connections is not the person to point to trying to showcase how bad charging is in the US. If you're going to paint his experiences as the norm, then I guess most CCS chargers do work fine and there aren't usually lines.

[ROFISH]

Yes, I mean west coast US.

[micromacrofoot]

Yeah it can be terrible... on a trip I was recently waiting for a DC fast charger to become available, the guy using it was charging from 80 to get to 100%. I had a car full of kids that I couldn't get home because I was at 15%. I asked if I could at least charge for 15-20 minutes and he said "I was here first, not my problem."

I charge at home 99% of the time so it's rarely an issue, but I need to be more cautious on road trips than I hoped. Next time I'll plan ahead to charge earlier.

[brianwawok]

> . People in Porches yelling at other people to get spots.

Are you in Cali? In the midwest, Tesla chargers are still empty (like, in 45,000 miles of driving my tesla I have waited 1 time for ~5 minutes on a roadtrip). Even the non-Tesla chargers are cricket land still.

Obviously EV adoption is higher out west, but also I think more apartment living that need to public charge all the time. Out here - you would only ever charge on a roadtrip as 90% of charging is at home.

[vel0city]

I think a lot of EV charging stories are region specific. I pretty much never encounter down chargers, there's always been one working open dispenser available any time I've wanted to charge at a CCS fast charger. I'm not saying people's horror stories aren't real, just that it doesn't seem to be the story everywhere.

[ROFISH]

West coast US; and it’s awful. The only times a spot is free is at like 6am, otherwise you’re waiting at least 30 minutes (actively, so no one can take your spot in line) to wait another 30 minutes to charge.

[seanmcdirmid]

PNW here with an i4. The only time I’ve had problems are on holiday weekends. EA kind of sucks though, lots of broken chargers although most of the time it doesn’t matter. I only use chargers on road trips, so my experience is limited.

[vel0city]

North Texas here, driving around Texas I've never had to wait and I've never had a problem getting a charge on the first try.