DCFC in America - it’s falling apart

[daverp]

North Carolina Bill Would Mandate Removal of Free EV Chargers (caranddriver.com)

I do love that the ultra right has gone so far as it actually cross over in to full on communism ideals.

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[Logal727]

Aren’t car company’s using free enterprise and marketing by offering some free electricity to get you to buy their product over someone else’s.

they are paying EVGO, EA or whomever. I would think this is the American way, big business operating to sell more of their product.

I honestly believe they bit off more than they could chew in this instance.

 

[kennethjk]

I honestly believe they bit off more than they could chew in this instance.

I agree but hey it’s America

money would be better spent if they used those funds to repair broken chargers

 

[Logal727]

I agree but hey it’s America

money would be better spent if they used those funds to repair broken chargers

Ideal scenario would be stations with roofs that had solar power and stations had attendants, and maybe some sort of lounge or convenience store type thing.

 

[kennethjk]

Ideal scenario would be stations with roofs that had solar power and stations had attendants, and maybe some sort of lounge or convenience store type thing.

Agreed, thats what Pilot and Caddy or GM will be doing. Maybe not Solar but once normal roadside gas stations, the larger ones (like Pilot Sheeze and others) start adding EVs I think we will see an improvement

 

[DevSecOps]

BUT, your short term needs should trump everyone else's needs, right? Everyone else is greedy but you're entitled to have an available charger whenever and wherever you want one, correct?

If you need DCFC every day for your commute, then a BEV is probably not the right choice

When I'm 300 miles from home and I need to charge my only option is DCFC. When you are using a DCFC station around the corner from your house (where you should be charging) because it's free, hogging it for those who NEED it, then yes I have a problem with that. It doesn't surprise me that common sense and courtesy escape you of all people.

If you want EV adoption you need to get the people who commute and travel. EVs have been well adopted for years among people who are city dwellers and put-put around town.

 

[Logal727]

Agreed, thats what Pilot and Caddy or GM will be doing. Maybe not Solar but once normal roadside gas stations, the larger ones (like Pilot Sheeze and others) start adding EVs I think we will see an improvement

Yeah, by attendants I mean they should be EA employees and able to diagnose and report issues constantly. Right now you can't really bring it up with employees at the Wawa, they know absolutely zero about it, which is fine since it's not their product.

 

[Blue highway]

The problem with free charging, as I've said many times before, is that locals end up at DCFC stations to charge because, well, it's free! Go figure right?

So, anyone who actually needs those chargers, the few that are actually operational, can't get to them because someone is there sucking down free juice instead of paying for it at home. I've even seen physical fights break out over these stations by locals.

Anyone who argues that free charging is a good thing probably doesn't commute in their MME. When you do and you're waiting for hours at a station because some greedy, selfish local is charging their car for free, your opinions may change. There's no need to give someone something for free so that they can try it out, when they need juice they'll get it to work, free or not. All these handouts need to stop.

Assigning costs to things is the best way to allocate them. Nothing is really "free"... assuming things are free causes bad outcomes.

 

[Logal727]

If you need DCFC every week for your commute, then a BEV is probably not the right choice for you

I don't think this is the case at all, pretty much the opposite. If you have to rely on DCFC cause you are in an apartment and since our infrastructure absolutely sucks for L2 charging for people in apartments, it's probably better to wait to get an EV than rely on DCFC and free charging.

 

[daverp]

Instead of giving it away, double the rates and make it profit generating for the locations that install chargers. If you make something profitable people will franchise and install them without much effort.

The world just doesn't work that way. They would have to raise for more than 100% to make up for the loss of the 50% of customers, plus the loss of paying customer that won't pay the higher fees. doubling the rates would probably drive off a larger percentage of paying customers, you would really be looking at 125 or 150% increase in rates. But could they even do that? They are some what price constrained as while there is high barrier to entry in the EV charging market, they do have competitors. EVGo and Chargpoint are expanding and Superchargers are going public. EA would be in a really bad place at that point. Hate to tell you this but not only is the "free" charging not going aways, EA has stated their goal is to obtain more of these, it is the critical piece of the business model and why their competitors have started to pursue these for their expansion.

 

[kennethjk]

The sample and free charging in reality was for when DCFC would typically be used and that is road tripping which for a lot of people stepping into the world of EVs from ICE was going to be one of those things people would have concerns so but offering some amount of free charging it was a way for manufactures to seal the deal.

I have no problems with them doing that the problem for me is that the current location of most DCFC chargers are in the worst place possible, place them along interstates at useful distances in-between towns and you pretty much guarantee that it will just be people traveling that are using them.

Instead we have a large number in placed in walmart / shopping mall car parks, so anybody traveling is fighting to use them with all the locals that will be foolish not to take advantage of the free charging while going shopping. Even if you removed the free charging I doubt things would get much better as you only have look at the state of a costco / sams club gas station packed with cars all overflowing into the car park as everybody decides to fill up when doing the weekly shop.

Rows of L2 destination chargers are far better suited for car parks where locals and people staying in town visiting can top up if needed not a token number of DCFC and until more DCFC appears in useful locations then things will get worse before they get better.

As someone who has been looking to drive to Florida from NY I am happy there are stations at Walmarts up and down the east coast. Make the trip doable As they are very close to the major highways.

I would add that it would have been better to put those EV stations at the major gas stations, such as Pilot or Buckees or whatever. That would be an improvement but I am stuck with Walmart and they have worked for me So far.

 

[AZBill]

One thought I have had about the broken charger situation is that in most cases L2 chargers are much more reliable than DCFC. I wonder why EA and EVGO do not place one or two L2 chargers at each site, just as a backup in case all the DCFCs go down.

I had a situation once several years ago in my Bolt, where the only DCFC (EV Connect in this case) was broken, but they had a couple of L2 chargers at the same location (hotel). I ended up charging for 2 hours in order to get to the next DCFC, but at least I did not have to get towed. Was it annoying, yes, but at least I was able to complete the trip.

 

[Logal727]

One thought I have had about the broken charger situation is that in most cases L2 chargers are much more reliable than DCFC. I wonder why EA and EVGO do not place one or two L2 chargers at each site, just as a backup in case all the DCFCs go down.

I had a situation once several years ago in my Bolt, where the only DCFC (EV Connect in this case) was broken, but they had a couple of L2 chargers at the same location (hotel). I ended up charging for 2 hours in order to get to the next DCFC, but at least I did not have to get towed. Was it annoying, yes, but at least I was able to complete the trip.

That would be a great emergency solution. They could probably put quite a few.

 

[timbop]

It's still not profitable even with manufacturer buy-ins though. Increased usage causes more maintenance, which seems like they are having trouble containing, thus eating into any sort of revenue they've gained. Maybe if it were just a discounted rate for a couple years that would have been a better option.

In order to become profitable, they need their equipment to generate revenue. If the equipment is not profitable at 100% utilization then the fees are too low and regulations governing peak charging are too constraining. A business model wherein the chargers have to be idle in order to be profitable makes no sense.

 

[Billyk24]

what are you trying to argue?

Is evgo installing 50 and 62.5kW chargers and calling them fast? Chargepoint is doing so in the state of Michigan.

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