Tesla Superchargers vs. CCS Network

RyZt

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Maybe this is an unpopular opinion (or maybe not?) I don't care about pricing of EA. I'll use it so rarely that I'm willing to pay a premium (up to 5X current price?) if it 1) the money can improve their maintenance so that it just work when I arrive at one, and 2) the money can help them expand so that it actually matches Tesla's network.

That's my perspective as someone who rarely do road trips. I live near San Francisco. For Yosemite or Lake Tahoe, I drive. For Los Angeles, I generally prefer flying. However, given Covid and driver assistance features in Mach E (lane centering and hands free), I'll probably do a bit more driving and avoid flights.
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timbop

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Actually, the extended range is at the bottom of the top tier - which will really suck since the information we have says the taper occurs well before the 10 minute mark. Without seeing the actual curve, the projections put the MME at 125 kw or below after only about 7 or 8 minutes - meaning for more than 35 minutes you'll be paying the top tier prices to charge at the mid tier speed.

Glad I can't afford the ER
 

dbsb3233

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Maybe this is an unpopular opinion (or maybe not?) I don't care about pricing of EA. I'll use it so rarely that I'm willing to pay a premium (up to 5X current price?) if it 1) the money can improve their maintenance so that it just work when I arrive at one, and 2) the money can help them expand so that it actually matches Tesla's network.

That's my perspective as someone who rarely do road trips. I live near San Francisco. For Yosemite or Lake Tahoe, I drive. For Los Angeles, I generally prefer flying. However, given Covid and driver assistance features in Mach E (lane centering and hands free), I'll probably do a bit more driving and avoid flights.
It shouldn't affect me much either. And I similarly hope the high pricing leads to quicker build-out. Although it appears usage is so low right now that even at these prices, they're probably losing money. What they really need is more business from more BEVs on the highways. And that will start ramping up quite a bit each year from here on out. I suspect the per-kW pricing they're switching to in most states within 2 years will be better.

Still though, the high price is head-shaking. I calculated it as 2-3x more expensive than gas for my situation. That's especially dramatic since I also calculated my home charging to be 1/3rd the price of gas.

Ford is throwing in 250 kWh free at EA. Helps a little. I peg that at about a $125 value. On my AWD ER, that's about 4 fillups (10-80%). Basically pays for one of our Denver-Vegas drives (but only one way).
 

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tl;dr - I want the supercharger network but I don't really want a Tesla.

Tesla supercharger network has a lot of things going for it. There are numerous stations, a lot of redundancy at each location due to the number of stalls, high charging speeds, and of course the slick vertical integration with each Tesla vehicle.

I'm contrast, while the CCS network is growing fast, the reliability of the network is suspect. Electrify America in particular has me somewhat concerned that they are not working hard enough to make the user experience reliably workable and keep their uptime at each station high. Beyond EA, I keep seeing random single stall stations going into places which is great for distribution but very hard to plan on since if the station is out of order you could be completely screwed.

This guy's trip from Victorville, CA to Denver, CO and back definitely makes me think harder about what I'm getting into. Ignoring the fact that he makes mistakes like falling asleep at the charger and racking up idle fees, he highlights the difficulties that come with CCS life.

Electrify America sucks a fart.
As the owner of two Teslas and an ex-eMustang, I totally agree. You don't know anxiety until you plan your BEV drive and realize there arn't enough chargers at enough places along the way. I drive a Tesla from Palm Springs CA to Salt Spring Island, Canada lots of times (until the boarder was recently closed) and never gave a thought to whether I would make it to the next charger, or if the next charger was slow and would take all day to recharge. The Tesla SuperCharger system is excellent, even if Tesla Inc is difficult to deal with (they are!).
 

DaveRuns

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The Niro EV owner kind of sucks in a few ways, but taking his report of inoperable chargers at face value, it's a problem.

A YouTuber said for a recent NY-TX-NY trip, he successfully charged at EA 73% of the time on the first try. Overall, he was able to eventually charge at 96% of the stations but 1/4 of the time it took plugging into more than one charger to get it to work.
I appreciate the perspective.....thanks.
 


ChasingCoral

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I appreciate the perspective.....thanks.
I've had similar success rates with EVgo and other charging companies as well. One time we drove to the only EVgo DCFC for miles. Before we left our earlier charger, the app said it was working. We called the company and they checked it remotely and even rebooted it to test. When we got there it was dead. Sure, they could do a remote reboot but it wouldn't charge. Very stressful day limping between L2 chargers.
 

dbsb3233

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I've had similar success rates with EVgo and other charging companies as well. One time we drove to the only EVgo DCFC for miles. Before we left our earlier charger, the app said it was working. We called the company and they checked it remotely and even rebooted it to test. When we got there it was dead. Sure, they could do a remote reboot but it wouldn't charge. Very stressful day limping between L2 chargers.
Never had that problem with gas. ?
 

ajmartineau

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I’m going to the beach next weekend. I’m hopeful that the EA chargers in Port Angeles are nearly done.
 

ajmartineau

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The location at the transit center has been level 2 since Oct. I don't think they are going to fix it. For the EA location, I'm on the notification list for when it's complete. I'm going to swing by to check on it when I drive through there.
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