Charging rant. Shell Recharge

[WallyS56]

We often travel to the Des Moines, IA area. This is the capital of our great State. The population is 750k. You would think this area would have some decent chargers. Most of the “high speed” are Shell Recharge, operated by Mid-American Energy. The one near my daughter’s house has been down for months. I went to the next closest one. It was listed as 150 kW. One side was doing 25 and the other was giving 49. I searched in the Ford app and found one at a grocery store that was listed as 300 kW. When I arrived, one side was completely down and the other was only charging at 48 kW. I had time to kill so I drove to another site that was listed as 150 kW. Both sides seemed to be working. The first one I connected to wouldn’t read my Shell RFID card. The other one read the card but, again, would only output at 49 kW. There seems to be a thread here. I’m going to attempt to contact Shell and Mid-America but don’t hold out too much hope of resolving anything. I installed a 220v outlet in my daughter’s garage to use my mobile charger when we’re staying overnight. It may be time to install a mid level charger at her house.

What’s the Tesla Supercharger situation in Iowa? Have your adapter? We’ve found that’s the best way to go.

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[dbsb3233]

Just about any place off the main highway system (ie-I80) in the Midwest tends to be a bit of a charging desert. I will not get political but suffice it to say that the vast majority of folks in that part of the country are staunchly anti-EV. One look at the PlugShare map will verify this.

Anti-EV subsidy and anti-EV aren't quite the same thing, but I digress. I think it's more about big geography and small population. So many of those flyover states (WY, SD, ND, MT, etc) are vast spaces to cover with relatively low traffic. The cost equation just doesn't work as well for installing lots of expensive DCFC that will generate little revenue.

And sometimes it's really tough getting high peak power supply to remote locations. We run into that in I-70 in Utah. I-15 is well-covered there, but I-70 has some of looong stretches where there's not a power line in sight.

 

[dbsb3233]

What’s the Tesla Supercharger situation in Iowa? Have your adapter? We’ve found that’s the best way to go.

Like most of flyover country west of the Mississippi River, it's spotty. Still a lot of gaps for CCS because of so many V2s stations. Just depends on where you're going to/from.

 

[steveg95]

What’s the Tesla Supercharger situation in Iowa? Have your adapter? We’ve found that’s the best way to go.

That's what I'm hearing from others. The Tesla station closet to my daughter's is not compatible. There is another one, about 15 minutes away, that should work. Yes, I have an adapter.

 

[steveg95]

I don't which area of Des Moines your daughter lives in, but I looked at the Tesla map and filtered for non-Tesla ev compatible chargers, and there is a compatible supercharger on the northside of Des Moines.

Thanks. I just found that one also.

 

[steveg95]

Isn’t that outlet more than enough for an overnight stay? 10 hours at it should get you 10% to 100%.

When staying overnight, it works great. We've made several day trips, over and back, and then need a faster charge.

 

[steveg95]

Missing some important context here. What was your SOC before plugging in? You won't see close to 150kW unless you're starting in that part of the charge curve with the right conditions.

I was at 20% when I plugged in.

 

[Blue highway]

oh yeah... it's RANT time

Crystal ball says... There will be massive consolidation in the EV charger business in the next few years... because: the GARBAGE must go.

The only thing of value that lots of these small charging companies have is installed high capacity electric access... their dispensers are GARBAGE. their software is GARBAGE. their maintenance mostly does not exist... where it does exist it is GARBAGE.

Would anyone be surprised if EA was for sale? VW is in trouble and could use some cash... EA has a lot of GARBAGE hardware deployed.

• It would be great to see new reliable hardware in place where GARBAGE chargers exist today.
• It would be great to see battery storage installed at the 50 and 62KW rural sites to increase them to 150KW with more plugs.
• It would be great to plug and charge everywhere... it would be great to have credit card tap to pay everywhere... not more GARBAGE apps!

As adapters and/or NACS connectors are ubiquitous across the US in the next 2 years, these GARBAGE providers will be bought out for their electric access.

oh yeah... there will be consolidation.

end of RANT... I feel better now

 

[dbsb3233]

Thanks. I just found that one also.

There's also 3 EA stations around Des Moines, but they're all northwest or west side. We used one of them in May, but I don't recall which one (it was day 15 of a 6300 mile road trip).

The Tesla SC is on the north side.

Stopping to do a top-up at the SC on I-80 at the Grinnell exit each direction is another option.

 

[Deleted member 19354]

We often travel to the Des Moines, IA area. This is the capital of our great State. The population is 750k. You would think this area would have some decent chargers. Most of the “high speed” are Shell Recharge, operated by Mid-American Energy. The one near my daughter’s house has been down for months. I went to the next closest one. It was listed as 150 kW. One side was doing 25 and the other was giving 49. I searched in the Ford app and found one at a grocery store that was listed as 300 kW. When I arrived, one side was completely down and the other was only charging at 48 kW. I had time to kill so I drove to another site that was listed as 150 kW. Both sides seemed to be working. The first one I connected to wouldn’t read my Shell RFID card. The other one read the card but, again, would only output at 49 kW. There seems to be a thread here. I’m going to attempt to contact Shell and Mid-America but don’t hold out too much hope of resolving anything. I installed a 220v outlet in my daughter’s garage to use my mobile charger when we’re staying overnight. It may be time to install a mid level charger at her house.

I’m in Seattle and Shell Recharge is fairly new only since they purchased Volta. I’m only seeing free level2 in my area.

 

[dbsb3233]

oh yeah... it's RANT time

Crystal ball says... There will be massive consolidation in the EV charger business in the next few years... because: the GARBAGE must go.

The only thing of value that lots of these small charging companies have is installed high capacity electric access... their dispensers are GARBAGE. their software is GARBAGE. their maintenance mostly does not exist... where it does exist it is GARBAGE.

Would anyone be surprised if EA was for sale? VW is in trouble and could use some cash... EA has a lot of GARBAGE hardware deployed.

• It would be great to see new reliable hardware in place where GARBAGE chargers exist today.
• It would be great to see battery storage installed at the 50 and 62KW rural sites to increase them to 150KW with more plugs.
• It would be great to plug and charge everywhere... it would be great to have credit card tap to pay everywhere... not more GARBAGE apps!

As adapters and/or NACS connectors are ubiquitous across the US in the next 2 years, these GARBAGE providers will be bought out for their electric access.

oh yeah... there will be consolidation.

end of RANT... I feel better now

Who wants to buy out a money-losing operation though? And pour even more money into it with little prospect for profits?

I don't think the power supply alone is all that valuable. The only reason many of these (non-SC/non-EA) stations exist is they got a bunch of taxpayer money handed to them to build them. Charging revenue is still a pittance for most. If it weren't, they'd be spending money on maintenance to protect the valuable revenue stream. The likely reality though is that it's *not* a valuable revenue stream. It's usually meager. DCFC is simply a terrible business model, unless your name is Tesla where you have high volume and low costs (way lower than any other CPO).

You're probably right that some of these smaller CPOs will die off from losing money. But I wouldn't be expecting Tesla and EA to be lining up to take over their dying operations. Tesla and EA have a different model from most in terms of station size and hosts sites.

The future of EA is a good question, now that the remainder of their $2B funding from the VW settlement is about to run out. I sure hope they survive. I find them way better than anyone but Tesla, and they have better coverage than Tesla for CCS vehicles (at least in flyover country). They are improving, and they might have the volume to survive. But it's still a business that needs revenues to survive. I doubt it's enough yet.

 

[Blue highway]

Who wants to buy out a money-losing operation though? And pour even more money into it with little prospect for profits?

I don't think the power supply alone is all that valuable. The only reason many of these (non-SC/non-EA) stations exist is they got a bunch of taxpayer money handed to them to build them. Charging revenue is still a pittance for most. If it weren't, they'd be spending money on maintenance to protect the valuable revenue stream. The likely reality though is that it's *not* a valuable revenue stream. It's usually meager. DCFC is simply a terrible business model, unless your name is Tesla where you have high volume and low costs (way lower than any other CPO).

You're probably right that some of these smaller CPOs will die off from losing money. But I wouldn't be expecting Tesla and EA to be lining up to take their dying operations. Tesla and EA have different model from most in terms of station size and hosts sites.

The future of EA is a good question, now that the remainder of their $2B funding from the VW settlement is about to run out. I sure hope they survive. I find them way better than anyone but Tesla, and they have better coverage than Tesla for CCS vehicles (at least in flyover country). They are improving, and they might have the volume to survive. But it's still a business that needs revenues to survive. I doubt it's enough yet.

I think the business proposition is that it will be possible to buy out a charging company for less than the permitting costs they put into their sites. literally pennies on the dollar. The cost of new hardware is falling, and new hardware is reliable... you could just buy the stations from Tesla and brand them.

The existing brand for lots of these companies (Shell for example) is really tarnished. Without a re-brand they will be held back for years.

By buying the infrastructure at a big discount, the economics of the charging business looks a lot better. And, the number of EV's on the road grows by ~1.5M every year in the US. DCFC will be a business that makes money eventually.

 

[Jgg181]

Like some stocks, it’s a “buy and hold”

 

[Billyk24]

Who wants to buy out a money-losing operation though? And pour even more money into it with little prospect for profits?

I don't think the power supply alone is all that valuable. The only reason many of these (non-SC/non-EA) stations exist is they got a bunch of taxpayer money handed to them to build them. Charging revenue is still a pittance for most. If it weren't, they'd be spending money on maintenance to protect the valuable revenue stream. The likely reality though is that it's *not* a valuable revenue stream. It's usually meager. DCFC is simply a terrible business model, unless your name is Tesla where you have high volume and low costs (way lower than any other CPO).

You're probably right that some of these smaller CPOs will die off from losing money. But I wouldn't be expecting Tesla and EA to be lining up to take over their dying operations. Tesla and EA have a different model from most in terms of station size and hosts sites.

The future of EA is a good question, now that the remainder of their $2B funding from the VW settlement is about to run out. I sure hope they survive. I find them way better than anyone but Tesla, and they have better coverage than Tesla for CCS vehicles (at least in flyover country). They are improving, and they might have the volume to survive. But it's still a business that needs revenues to survive. I doubt it's enough yet.

In the past you have mention it makes more sense to install EV charging stations at "gas or travel" stations where money making food/drink/supplies exist and drivers have on site bathrooms. These are the locations I seek out when road tripping with the Mach E.

 

[dbsb3233]

..

In the past you have mention it makes more sense to install EV charging stations at "gas or travel" stations where money making food/drink/supplies exist and drivers have on site bathrooms. These are the locations I seek out when road tripping with the Mach E.

Yes. A host busines that's already profitable in it's own right, since DCFC is usually a money-loser.

Travel plazas, Walmart lots, Target lots, etc.

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