"The EV Charging Experience is Often Awful: Here's Why

Explore ChargerHelp's 2024 report on EV charging reliability. Discover key findings on uptime discrepancies, equipment age effects, and how these issues impact driver experience."

by Maria Guerra, Senior Editor-Battery Technology
August 6, 2024

"Despite a remarkable increase in public EV charge ports in the US, the electric vehicle charging experience (EVCX) remains weighed down with issues that affect the industryโ€™s reputation. To understand the gaps in charging infrastructure reliability, ChargerHelp analyzed over 19M data points from 2023, drawing insights from its direct electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) operations and maintenance (O&M) experience, Parenโ€™s third-party data, the U.S. DOEโ€™s Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) database, and select utility filings. ..."

https://www.batterytechonline.com/charging/the-ev-charging-experience-is-often-awful-here-s-why

#ElectricVehicles #AutomobileServiceandChargingStations #ChargingInfrastructure

The EV Charging Experience is Often Awful: Here's Why

Explore ChargerHelp's 2024 report on EV charging reliability. Discover key findings on uptime discrepancies, equipment age effects, and how these issues impact driver experience.

@johnlogic

Where I live, I don't believe I've seen a payment system at all on any of the EV chargers, and they prominently advertise free charging. I assume the current is rather low, but at least they won't fail due to a malfunction of their nonexistent payment system.

@argv_minus_one

A few days ago at the #SunnyvalePublicLibrary I noticed this electric vehicle charger with solar panels. I expect that it includes a large battery (perhaps just below the panels). It seems to have plugs for two cars and a credit card reader that says #ChargePoint . I didn't happen to look for whether it offers free charging.

I just looked it up and found at https://www.plugshare.com/location/571175 that it costs $1.50 per hour.

Maverik EA NEVI Site (Coming Soon) | Boron, CA | EV Station

4 stalls, coordinates 34.996484, -117.543025 https://www.energy.ca.gov/filebrowser/download/6635?fid=6635#block-symsoft-page-title

@johnlogic

I wonder how that compares to the local electric company and gas stations?

@argv_minus_one

That's a great question.

In my old gas-burner, I can drive at least 5 miles on $1 worth of fuel.

I wonder how many miles of charge one could get from one of those 6.5 kW ("level 2") plugs. (I actually ran the numbers pretty thoroughly in 2009; let's see if I can jog my memory.)

@argv_minus_one

If I remember right, I think I had estimated that I could drag a vehicle powered by heavy lead-acid batteries at up to highway speeds for about 0.77 W per mile.

With modern lightweight lithium-ion batteries I'd expect it would be even less.