Its not good enough, really
Discussion
Otispunkmeyer said:
Now I know your experiences my differ and even I myself have had good experiences at times with public fast charging. But more often than not, its not a good experience and this past weekend has just annoyed me to the point I won't be bothering taking the EV on a long journey again. Certainly not if having to go north.
Had a long rambling post but, in short:
Its just wasn't a nice experience. Poor locations for the first set of chargers we stopped at making them tricky to get to when there are 1000s of other people rushing to the shops, chargers not accepting payment, chargers running way below advertised speeds (75kW when its a 350kW charger), having to hunt around for chargers that will work, help lines stuck on elevator music etc etc. 89p/kWh for the privilege meaning the p/mile is worse than our petrol car. Its not really good enough IMO. It certainly doesn't make me want to keep trying.
The other thing is, queuing etiquette: It seems quit stressful this as you arrive, its not clear who's waiting or where they are in the queue. Then you have people rocking up at just the right time as one charger is vacated and the person who'd patiently waited for it, didn't get round to it in time. Then they have to faff about explaining they were waiting and shuffle cars around. That really doesn't work for me. They need to build more chargers or also build someway of forming an orderly queue.
To counter...I've had really good experiences with Gridserve 350kW stations on the M1 when doing jaunts south. But this stuff isn't going to take off if the charging experience is as frustrating as I found it this weekend.
A whole lot of rant there. Never experienced queues or bad etiquette in 2 years of EV driving but..Had a long rambling post but, in short:
Its just wasn't a nice experience. Poor locations for the first set of chargers we stopped at making them tricky to get to when there are 1000s of other people rushing to the shops, chargers not accepting payment, chargers running way below advertised speeds (75kW when its a 350kW charger), having to hunt around for chargers that will work, help lines stuck on elevator music etc etc. 89p/kWh for the privilege meaning the p/mile is worse than our petrol car. Its not really good enough IMO. It certainly doesn't make me want to keep trying.
The other thing is, queuing etiquette: It seems quit stressful this as you arrive, its not clear who's waiting or where they are in the queue. Then you have people rocking up at just the right time as one charger is vacated and the person who'd patiently waited for it, didn't get round to it in time. Then they have to faff about explaining they were waiting and shuffle cars around. That really doesn't work for me. They need to build more chargers or also build someway of forming an orderly queue.
To counter...I've had really good experiences with Gridserve 350kW stations on the M1 when doing jaunts south. But this stuff isn't going to take off if the charging experience is as frustrating as I found it this weekend.
One 2 points I absolutely agree. At 89P it’s way cheaper to run a big petrol or diesel car. Point 2, at 89p for the privilege of a super fast charge it’s effing infuriating when they have a 350kw feed for 10 350kw chargers and everyone gets 35kw and needs hours to achieve what they paid over the odds to achieve minutes. That’s what happens when marketing run a project not technical.
Evanivitch said:
ds666 said:
Another issue with charging points is cars with low charge speed capability using fast chargers ..... like an I pace plugged into a 350Kw charger ...
Yeah, definitely an issue if there are also 150kW chargers available at the same facility. But I don't think people really have much of an idea about charging rates etc .
If I'm going long distance now and need to charge away from home , I'll always try and aim for sites like the one at Banbury with 32 off chargers.
Evanivitch said:
ds666 said:
Another issue with charging points is cars with low charge speed capability using fast chargers ..... like an I pace plugged into a 350Kw charger ...
Yeah, definitely an issue if there are also 150kW chargers available at the same facility. I didnt get an EV to use the public charging network heavily - the majority of our use of the EV will be to and from our house and hence at home charging. However, used public charging quite a bit in the last month and to be honest, its been pretty good.
Used the flagship Electrify America station in San Francisco and it was excellent, when I found it. Free vending machines and it was super clean. Very good. Used a couple of other EA stations but did have a problem in San Jose in a small strip mall where we struggled to get one charger to work. Other than that, its been fast, efficient and a rather pleasant experience. Will be using them again in a few weeks and not concerned at all. But then again, this is California so you would expect this to be the case.
My point is that it does get better. While far from perfect, it does work well and so far I am impressed. Looking forward to many more miles using the public networks.
Used the flagship Electrify America station in San Francisco and it was excellent, when I found it. Free vending machines and it was super clean. Very good. Used a couple of other EA stations but did have a problem in San Jose in a small strip mall where we struggled to get one charger to work. Other than that, its been fast, efficient and a rather pleasant experience. Will be using them again in a few weeks and not concerned at all. But then again, this is California so you would expect this to be the case.
My point is that it does get better. While far from perfect, it does work well and so far I am impressed. Looking forward to many more miles using the public networks.
ds666 said:
Another issue with charging points is cars with low charge speed capability using fast chargers ..... like an I pace plugged into a 350Kw charger ...
Even my old iPace would pick up 100+ miles in about 20 minutes on anything over 100kw. I don't think I've ever charged an EV on a public charger for more miles than that - this country isn't big enough to need much more than that in a trip really.I accept public charging as occasionally required - but I keep the time and money spent doing so to a minimum, I expect most folk do.
Itsallicanafford said:
I know there are more shiny, faster, EV’s with better interiors etc….but, the Tesla supercharger network really is fantastic. No way I would contemplate a long journey relying on anything else.
I've just got back from a round trip to Le Mans, my first road trip in my Taycan rather than my pervious Tesla. 1st stop was Clacket Lane so tried to charge just as I was waiting for my mates to turn up. Row of new chargers, all were online, tried every single one, all gave me an isolation error. Tesla chargers at the tunnel worked perfectly if slow. Had a few other issues along the way with dead handles and de-rated chargers, still did the journey much faster than I ever did in my Model S but defo more work and more hassle.
Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff