For All You Tesla Haters - Enjoy!

[Spacey]

Would be interesting to hear the views from a Norwegian owner at this time of year.

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[Eric_C_Boston]

so, while Kyle can't stop talking... he did make some good points

• When an EV battery gets below ~ -15F it wont take a charge... the cold soak waiting to charge can render your car unable to charge at all when it is your turn.
  
  
• Lots of CCS chargers had the same problem that Super Chargers had... Because many people (most?) think Tesla=EV the way that Kleenex=facial tissue it got most of the attention.
  
  
• lots of city dwellers use DCFC for all their charging... This plus more charging needed in the cold, (and "free" DCFC) and we can get to a tipping point in cold cities where the DCFC stations get overwhelmed. A few years ago, only people that could charge at home bought EVs... and DCFC was only used for road trips... now lots of people buy EVs and expect to DCFC for all their charging.

Another thing that made sense was to use Level 2 chargers if the wait is going to be five hours anyway. That was something I might not have thought of doing in that situation. Five hours on a Level 2 could charge the car to at least 40%.

I have also come across people who rented EVs and know nothing about charging. Unfortunately charging is like self-service gas stations. You have to know what to do.

 

[nvabill]

 

[ChasingCoral]

There's already a bunch of these non-Tesla Supercharger locations. Maryland has some according to the Tesla App

You do realize those are Tesla chargers, right?

Ford is giving us access to 15,000 SuperChargers by Spring, perhaps Feb, with an adapter we will buy.

Probably more like 12,000. IIRC there are only about 12,000 v3 Superchargers. The others are v2s that won’t charge CCS vehicles even with an adapter.

 

[RickMachE]

Probably more like 12,000. IIRC there are only about 12,000 v3 Superchargers. The others are v2s that won’t charge CCS vehicles even with an adapter.

15,000+ accessible Tesla stations
That's 3,000 more than the initial count from May 2023. (Available spring 2024)

https://media.ford.com/content/ford...-adds-three-charging-providers-and-surpa.html

 

[SWO]

Of course I don't know, and we may never know (Tesla isn't known for exposing negative information), but a year ago when Kyle (Out of Spec) did his CCS charger tests with EA, EGgo, etc. and they all failed supposedly that was because of a relay. Again, not saying this Tesla failure was also a relay, but just saying we have one example in the past so it wouldn't surprise me if this was a common failure point.

I don't remember if it was in the video you embedded or another one he did the same weekend, but he went to a Tesla Supercharger and the first 1-2 chargers he tried also didn't work. In that case, I think it was the locking mechanism which was frozen?

I think the Tesla Superchargers are more reliable, but mostly because they simplify the handshake process with the closed network, and also usually have more stalls at any given location.

 

[ChasingCoral]

15,000+ accessible Tesla stations
That's 3,000 more than the initial count from May 2023. (Available spring 2024)

https://media.ford.com/content/ford...-adds-three-charging-providers-and-surpa.html

Awesome!

 

[Eric_C_Boston]

Since it will only be in the 20s for the next couple of days, I decided to put the MME on my home EVSE. My EVSE is outdoors with the handle holder nearby under a second floor porch. When I connected to the car it did not show any LEDs. The EVSE status and Fordpass showed connected, but no current. I thought it might be a loose connection so I tried reconnecting several times and it got to the point where the LEDs would sequence in a circle for a while and then the red fault circle would appear. It sure looked like there was a problem with the EVSE.

I started the car, turned on the heat, and brought in the J1772 connector to warm it up. Then I noticed the release button was partially pressed and not fully releasing due to some snow/ice. I cleared the problem and the button travelled between pressed and released easily. Now my EVSE worked.

Besides handling the latch, the button also has a switch that tells the EVSE when the connector is being removed. I do not know if this affects DCFC, but it could affect outdoor public Level 2 EVSE since the button on the handle is exposed to the elements. It is simply one more thing to check.

 

[Blue highway]

So you mean observe the fuel gauge is near empty, pull up to a pump at one of several of gas staions nearby. Insert a credit card and select fuel grade. Open the fuel door, insert the pump nozzle into the Ford capless filler neck. Then pull and lock the nozzle lever, then wait a few minutes for the tank to fill until the pump automatically shuts off?

With the biggest difficulty being to know which side of the car the fuel fill is on? And the fuel gauge has an arrow pointing to the correct side?

I live in Oregon... for generations we have mandated full serve gas. Within the last few months the law was relaxed to allow some pumps to be self serve.

You might be surprised how many people can't figure out how to do the dance necessary to get a fuel pump to start. Lots of stations have minor differences in the process that you assume is second nature, but it isn't for those that have never done it. The so-what is that DCFC requires a different dance at each brand that is aggravating when you haven't done it before... It will eventually get streamlined... and seem second nature.

plug and charge is easier than pumping gas... but too many DCFC are not plug and charge... yet.

 

[superdave80]

I live in Oregon... for generations we have mandated full serve gas. Within the last few months the law was relaxed to allow some pumps to be self serve.

You might be surprised how many people can't figure out how to do the dance necessary to get a fuel pump to start

My sister-in-law from Oregon (while driving down to visit us in California), texted us to ask some questions about how to pump gas. We had a good laugh about that.

 

[J-orange]

So it seems that most of the people stuck can't charge at home. Didn't think about charging at a level 2 EVSE at a grocery store to get some charge in the battery so it could pre-condition. Yes there is some blame on Tesla's part. However, there seems to be a mental fixation that they could only charge at a Tesla station.

 

[TheSteelRider]

Kyle (Out of Spec) flew to Chicago and did an on-site deep dive on the "frozen chargers" issue. As a bonus, an on-site Mache E owner (Mercy) makes an appearance.

Warning to @Efthreeoh there is definitely more "here is how owners can avoid". That said, again they do highlight this is a real issue. They show on-site chargers that are down, etc. etc. I think this is a more well-rounded video than the previous. Hopefully Kyle can give a kick in the pants to charge point operators.

Luckily this video is chaptered, so you can skip to where you want.

 

[ChasingCoral]

The TL;DR:
1. Too many Uber and Lyft drivers, as well as others with no charging at home or work were clogging the chargers.
2. People were leaving their cars, coming back to cold-soaked batteries and didn't realize they had to precondition first before they would charge
3. Yes, we need more infrastructure but most of it was driver behavior.
4. It also shows the value of more L2 infrastructure in addition to DC Fast Charging.

 

[KevinS]

So, when I look at this from an ICEV perspective it is really just comical. We have a perfectly good solution for personal transportation that has been refined and tuned over 100 years and works for everyone regardless of demographic or socioeconomic status, but we've now decided as a society to trash that and start over with an inferior solution. And all the OEMs are losing their asses, except one.

This perspective makes sense so long as gasoline is affordable to the majority of people.

I choose to be an early adopter of the technology that will become the standard and buy from a domestic car company to help them understand there's a real market for it. I do not want our US auto industry dependent on Tesla alone to compete against a multitude of Chinese brands that are coming to eat our lunch. Tesla is already losing ground in China.

The technological future is not in doubt; it's not gasoline. But, who economically benefits from the future still has some blank pages to be written. I'd like for them to be US companies.

 

[Space_Pony]

This perspective makes sense so long as gasoline is affordable to the majority of people.

I choose to be an early adopter of the technology that will become the standard and buy from a domestic car company to help them understand there's a real market for it. I do not want our US auto industry dependent on Tesla alone to compete against a multitude of Chinese brands that are coming to eat our lunch. Tesla is already losing ground in China.

The technological future is not in doubt; it's not gasoline. But, who economically benefits from the future still has some blank pages to be written. I'd like for them to be US companies.

Right now ICE is more affordable for the condo and apartment livers at these newer DCFC rates.

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