Reflections on the State of DCFC Charging in the US

[On the Road with Ralph]

Having just completed my 14th EV road trip of more than 1500 miles (that was preceded by just a couple weeks of another trip totaling 3400 miles), I have a couple of thoughts about the state of DCFC charging in the U.S.

First, in most of the country, there is no valid excuse for NOT using an EV for long distance travel. Sure, there are some pretty wide EV charging deserts in the Centennial states, and I wish more of the western national parks had fast charging like the south rim of the Grand Canyon. But I crossed through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia (not exactly EV friendly states) entirely on secondary roads - most of them two-lane rural roads - without any difficulty whatsoever and with a minimum of route planning. And I am 70 years old and drive an SR Pro.

As a fierce critic of Electrify America this is hard to admit, but I think they might be getting better. I have nearly 200 EA billed charging sessions - and many dozens of failed ones - but lately the failures (including throttled chargers) have become less frequent. Just this week I was at an EA station in Erick (OK) and when I grabbed the plug I noticed both it and the cable were new (attached to an OLD dispenser). Maybe this is a small sign that EA is finally making an effort to properly maintain its equipment.

On my most recent trip (this week), I was surprised by how little congestion there was at the charging stations. I remember in the summer of 2023 it was a much different story. I’m not sure it’s any one factor, but several. There are simply more chargers in the field. Both Tesla and Rivian are opening their networks to other brands, which is taking some pressure off EA. In fact, at a shopping center in Albuquerque, I saw Tesla, Rivian, and EA chargers within 500 feet of each other in the same parking lot (I used the Tesla because they were - by far - the cheapest). I also think that the growing number of hotels/motels that have L2 charging (both free and paid) reduces the dependence on DCFC for long distance travel. I want to offer kudos to a Hyatt property in Mobile (AL) for its excellent array of L2 chargers that were free to guests (see photo).

On the less-good-news front is the cost of DCFC charging. Many of the new players - GM Energy, Rivian, IONNA, etc. are charging ridiculous rates for electrons, and that’s AFTER taking NEVI funds to create their sites. They also don’t offer membership programs. Basically Tesla offers the best network - many good locations, high reliability, reasonable rates, and a membership program that is a fair value.

Finally, all too often EV charging sites lack amenities that we expect at any gas station - canopy protection from the weather, windshield washing sticks, trash cans, restrooms, convenience stores, and so forth. Even brand new locations by the major players are, more often than not, just dispensers stuck in a parking lot. I think there is a missed business opportunity here.

Bottom Line: EV fast charging in America is definitely getting better and there is little excuse for hand-wringing when taking your Lightning outside the city limits. But the quality and cost of that experience need to improve.

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[hturnerfamily]

my '22 PRO SR takes me anywhere, anytime I want to go... recently over 300 miles to the beach, WITH our camper in tow, and POWERING the camper with ProPower for roof air conditioning, ALL the way there.... and back....

and, AGREED, the 'state' of DC Fast Charging LOCATIONS, Distances between locations, AND newer designs, as well as newer BRANDS, along with capabilities for NACS and other 'specific' manufacturers, like RIVIAN, have created a path to success... no matter WHERE you wish to drive.

Admittedly, I steer away from EA and CP and EVgo, since my former years were basically 'stuck' with them as the only options. Now, though, even with Tesla and Rivian, we have GM Ultiums(350kw) at Pilot/FlyingJ locations, and some with AWNINGS, as well as upgraded Chargepoint MERCEDES(200+kwh) and other 'branded' CP units that are MUCH FASTER than the typical 50kw single, or 125kw 'shared', locations... even some RaceTrac fuel stations now have COVERED 350kw CCS/NACS units, using the 'older' Shell ReCharge software/screens, but work well once activated.

Pricing: yes, but I've seen Tesla locations get as low as .27 per kwh during 'overnight' hours, if that fits your traveling schedule - when towing a powered Camper, it works just fine: snack, bathroom, and even napping, are included : )

Locations: yes, it's unfortunate that the locations for many DC Fast Chargers are placements where, well, there could certainly have been more consideration for driver NEEDS: while every gas/fuel station has a bathroom option, EV drivers apparently haven't risen to that importance. We are relegated sometimes to far off parking lot corners, desolate or vacant strip mall outer-lying spaces, or locations with some amenities, but which 'close' far too early.


ALL IN ALL, though, if you want to travel, you can. You may have to plan ahead, and be ready for the 'unmanned' locations, but... yes, it certainly can be done, and, yes, it's certainly LIGHT YEARS ahead of the former years in our LEAF where traveling with a 70 mile range was a possibility, but not necessarily for the faint-of-heart. We learned early, and now, with 240miles range, take nothing for granted.

 

[Vulnox]

Appreciate the update and feelings on the current state of things. I haven't done a long road trip in almost a year in either of our EVs, but the general feel I have gotten is that things must be improving because EVs are still being sold (even if not as rapidly as the manufacturers and most of us would prefer) and more and more are on the road, but the numbers of stories I have seen of major issues has declined significantly.

Even from YouTube channels I watch like OutofSpec who do a ton of long road trips, they don't even seem to mention charging issues any longer.

I know the prices have been going up, this is the part that doesn't bother me as much. I know that developing and deploying these stations is hugely expensive. I hope that in the long term competition and efficiency improvements on the process will bring costs back down.

For now I am happy to pay a premium if it means more companies have an incentive to roll out new sites. Like Ionna (https://www.ionna.com/) who seem to have some of the best sites in terms of charging options and amenities, they are quite expensive right now. But I would gladly pay it to keep them around and growing. Especially since I only do a handful of longer trips every year and my savings for day-to-day charging since I charge at home compared to my hybrid F-150 are still enormous.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I don’t travel as much os you do, Ralph, but I can say that in the ~50-60k miles of road trips with BEVs and hundreds of DCFC charging sessions, we’ve run into only a very few issues with any DCFC.

My experience is that brand-T is less reliable—per post—than any of the other brands, but because they put so many chargers in most stations, it’s almost invisible how poorly maintained their posts really are.

My total reliability index (plugs tried / successful charges) is about 50% with brand-T, about 80% with EA, and the others have too few stations where I travel to be statistically meaningful.

If EA would pull its head out of whatever dark space it stores it and put 20-100 plugs at its stations, I think its reputation would increase substantially.

 

[Rip]

Having just completed my 14th EV road trip of more than 1500 miles (that was preceded by just a couple weeks of another trip totaling 3400 miles), I have a couple of thoughts about the state of DCFC charging in the U.S.

First, in most of the country, there is no valid excuse for NOT using an EV for long distance travel. Sure, there are some pretty wide EV charging deserts in the Centennial states, and I wish more of the western national parks had fast charging like the south rim of the Grand Canyon. But I crossed through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia (not exactly EV friendly states) entirely on secondary roads - most of them two-lane rural roads - without any difficulty whatsoever and with a minimum of route planning. And I am 70 years old and drive an SR Pro.

As a fierce critic of Electrify America this is hard to admit, but I think they might be getting better. I have nearly 200 EA billed charging sessions - and many dozens of failed ones - but lately the failures (including throttled chargers) have become less frequent. Just this week I was at an EA station in Erick (OK) and when I grabbed the plug I noticed both it and the cable were new (attached to an OLD dispenser). Maybe this is a small sign that EA is finally making an effort to properly maintain its equipment.

On my most recent trip (this week), I was surprised by how little congestion there was at the charging stations. I remember in the summer of 2023 it was a much different story. I’m not sure it’s any one factor, but several. There are simply more chargers in the field. Both Tesla and Rivian are opening their networks to other brands, which is taking some pressure off EA. In fact, at a shopping center in Albuquerque, I saw Tesla, Rivian, and EA chargers within 500 feet of each other in the same parking lot (I used the Tesla because they were - by far - the cheapest). I also think that the growing number of hotels/motels that have L2 charging (both free and paid) reduces the dependence on DCFC for long distance travel. I want to offer kudos to a Hyatt property in Mobile (AL) for its excellent array of L2 chargers that were free to guests (see photo).

On the less-good-news front is the cost of DCFC charging. Many of the new players - GM Energy, Rivian, IONNA, etc. are charging ridiculous rates for electrons, and that’s AFTER taking NEVI funds to create their sites. They also don’t offer membership programs. Basically Tesla offers the best network - many good locations, high reliability, reasonable rates, and a membership program that is a fair value.

Finally, all too often EV charging sites lack amenities that we expect at any gas station - canopy protection from the weather, windshield washing sticks, trash cans, restrooms, convenience stores, and so forth. Even brand new locations by the major players are, more often than not, just dispensers stuck in a parking lot. I think there is a missed business opportunity here.

Bottom Line: EV fast charging in America is definitely getting better and there is little excuse for hand-wringing when taking your Lightning outside the city limits. But the quality and cost of that experience need to improve.

Good stuff. I think that eventually EVs will just be the norm, and the charging companies will have to start competing on quality. Too often, the chargers are located at the far end of some grocery store parking lot. While they usually have restrooms, they don't always have ready-to-eat food available. I have stayed at some hotels that do have a charging station, but they are usually L1 chargers, and they might only have one or two. One nice one was at the Aloft hotel in Framingham, MA. What made it nice is that the parking lot adjoined the parking lot for a sports bar (That had a Tesla Supercharging station). So I pulled in, charged to 90 percent while we ate at the sportsbar, then checked into the hotel. Later, I plugged into the Aloft's L1 charger and let it run overnight, which took me up to 100 percent.
There will probably come a tipping point where people will start to avoid properties without chargers. That might provide the impetus for hotel companies to invest in adequate charging stations.

 

[21st Century Truck]

I agree with everyone's comments above. We have come quite far pretty fast.. my 1st Mach E long trips in 2022 and my current long trips in the Lightning are what I imagine to be akin to evolution of gas station technology and availability between the 1910s and the 1930s in a gasoline car.

Methinks within about 5 years, this will for the most part glide off the radar screens and discussion boards across the great majority of our Lower 48 states as a non-issue... kind of like the 1980s VCR vs. Betamax angst.

 

[RickLightning]

I don’t travel as much os you do, Ralph, but I can say that in the ~50-60k miles of road trips with BEVs and hundreds of DCFC charging sessions, we’ve run into only a very few issues with any DCFC.

My experience is that brand-T is less reliable—per post—than any of the other brands, but because they put so many chargers in most stations, it’s almost invisible how poorly maintained their posts really are.

My total reliability index (plugs tried / successful charges) is about 50% with brand-T, about 80% with EA, and the others have too few stations where I travel to be statistically meaningful.

If EA would pull its head out of whatever dark space it stores it and put 20-100 plugs at its stations, I think its reputation would increase substantially.

Interesting your stats on reliability. Of course if you know a station is down, and you don't try it, the charging can't fail. EA's got that big screen screaming at you "MS DOS 3.0 1984"...

When we started using Elmo's chargers in March 2024, at our 2nd location we found 2 of 8 out of service. That's 25%, but to your point 6 are open. At a typical EA location with 4 posts, 25% is only one, but now's there are just 3 left. That's the big difference as you note.

I haven't kept good records, but there's no way that my experience matches yours, i.e. plugging in and having a session fail at Elmo's chargers being more than twice as likely as with EA. Of course the definition of a failure might be different - getting EA's 34kW rate is a failure in my book.

 

[Garyl]

I road trip from Illinois to Maryland via Morgantown WV with the EV6. There has been improvement in the DCFC station count but the greatest gain has been in spacing and redundancy. Evenly placed charging vs stopping for 30% here only to have to charge to 95% to get to the next stop. As far as pricing which defiantly increased I think one of the issues is power suppliers demand charge structure. Setting up high amp service for the DCFC with only occasional use that limits the amount of actual Kwh sold vs the demand charge is a real killer.

 

[21st Century Truck]

...As far as pricing which defiantly increased I think one of the issues is power suppliers demand charge structure. Setting up high amp service for the DCFC with only occasional use that limits the amount of actual Kwh sold vs the demand charge is a real killer.

And also price increases likely reflect the change-over-time since 2022 of the State Utility Boards (or their local eq.) as they have adapted to increased EV DCFast charging by allowing an evolution within their regulatory jurisdictions from the old, normal way of regulating electricity end providers to measure by time-of-connection, to the new more EV-conscious regulations that allow measuring amount of kW drawn.

As 400V and 800V electric vehicles with larger and larger traction batteries proliferate, this is a reasonable state-level evolution that reflects in the DC Fast prices.

I remember the vast pricing differences in Fall 2022 & Summer 2023 between New York State and Wisconsin and Utah... in NY it cost me about $42 to fill up the Mach E, whereas in Wisconsin and in Utah, the price for the same car's fill-up was about $6.5.

 

[K6CCC]

Much smaller sample size as I'm only used DCFC 10 times since I bought my truck a few months ago. Nine of those were Tesla (six with a Tesla subscription) and one at EA (with a subscription). I have never had a failure at Tesla, but have noted that the Tesla app indicated one of more stalls out of service, but there were plenty of open working stalls. The one EA station had 12 stalls with one indicated in the EA app as failed, and that happened to be the first one I pulled up to, but the charger indicated it was failed so I moved to a different working stall. I will add that on that same trip, I planned on using another EA location, but EA took the station out of service for equipment upgrade two days before my trip - bad timing for me. I knew about that in advance so did a detour to a Tesla SC.

As for L2 charging, I have seen a FAR higher failure rate. I'm not sure I can count high enough as to the number of L2 chargers that were failed. In some cases the appropriate app showed a stall as failed, and in many cases, it did not - or had no actual data. We have 10 public L2 chargers plus one 50KW charger here at work and are currently down to two L2 that are working. Been months since most of them have worked.

 

[Tony Burgh]

Thanks for the review. I appreciated reading it.

We have quit taking the Lightning on road trips. Yes, we do have an ICE option that is just a comfortable. I am shocked at the prices charged by EA and Tesla. Their chargers are in rural ares with lower cost power available. They still charge more than twice the cost of power in urban areas. No thanks.

 

[RickLightning]

Much smaller sample size as I'm only used DCFC 10 times since I bought my truck a few months ago. Nine of those were Tesla (six with a Tesla subscription) and one at EA (with a subscription). I have never had a failure at Tesla, but have noted that the Tesla app indicated one of more stalls out of service, but there were plenty of open working stalls. The one EA station had 12 stalls with one indicated in the EA app as failed, and that happened to be the first one I pulled up to, but the charger indicated it was failed so I moved to a different working stall. I will add that on that same trip, I planned on using another EA location, but EA took the station out of service for equipment upgrade two days before my trip - bad timing for me. I knew about that in advance so did a detour to a Tesla SC.

As for L2 charging, I have seen a FAR higher failure rate. I'm not sure I can count high enough as to the number of L2 chargers that were failed. In some cases the appropriate app showed a stall as failed, and in many cases, it did not - or had no actual data. We have 10 public L2 chargers plus one 50KW charger here at work and are currently down to two L2 that are working. Been months since most of them have worked.

The problem is that most L2 chargers are privately owned by a business that isn't in the charging business, and isn't paying a charging business company to oversee and maintain the chargers. I can't tell you how many times I contact a company to have them say "yes, we know, we have told the owners of the equipment but they haven't fixed it".

That's why NEVI had an uptime requirement, one so high that not even Tesla would have passed it without making changes.

 

[On the Road with Ralph]

SpaceEVDriver, I always appreciate your thoughtful comments.

My experience is that brand-T is less reliable—per post—than any of the other brands, but because they put so many chargers in most stations, it’s almost invisible how poorly maintained their posts really are.

My total reliability index (plugs tried / successful charges) is about 50% with brand-T, about 80% with EA, and the others have too few stations where I travel to be statistically meaningful.

If EA would pull its head out of whatever dark space it stores it and put 20-100 plugs at its stations, I think its reputation would increase substantially.

Your take on Tesla Superchargers is interesting, but different from mine. I generally find them to be pretty reliable, tho' as you point out, their problems are partially masked by the sheer number of stalls at most sites.

My VERY negative experiences with EA were largely shaped in California (and a lesser extent in Nevada and Arizona) where their early generations of chargers simply failed in the desert sun and heat. The well-maintained Gen3 chargers have done better, and Gen4 are definitely an improvement. Also, to be clear, like RickLightning, a charge that never rises above a rate of 34 kW I call a failure.

And I totally agree with you on the number of EA chargers per site - sometimes the disparity with Tesla is comic. In Barstow (CA), EA does slightly better than average - it has 8 chargers at a single site. But Tesla, at three sites open to all brands, has over 200, including one location that has 120 stalls!

 

[TheBigBezo]

I’ve probably crossed 50 fast charges since I got the truck. It is pretty easy these days, and I feel like I’ve seen a huge improvement over the two and a half years I’ve had the lightning. On my current 2,500 mile trip I basically just plug the ABRP route into google maps and it just works. No real thought or planning just driving stop to stop like when I had my gas ranger. Very painless experience.

 

[K6CCC]

In Barstow (CA), EA does slightly better than average - it has 8 chargers at a single site. But Tesla, at three sites open to all brands, has over 200, including one location that has 120 stalls!

And I gotta say that pulling into a charging location with 120 stalls is seriously impressive! And a few of the stalls are specifically set up for and signed for vehicles towing trailers. As I type this, according to the Tesla app, all 120 are operational with 111 available. Cost is $0.45 / KWH (with a subscription - $0.61 without).

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