WATT were we EVer thinking?

[VictorM]

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[G-Zeus]

My wife asked if this was an event to drive around and get stranded. ?

She’s not pleased with the unreliability and general unavailability of CCS charging in the northeast.

 

[trev5150]

My wife asked if this was an event to drive around and get stranded. ?

She’s not pleased with the unreliability and general unavailability of CCS charging in the northeast.

She’d feel the same way anywhere in this country.

 

[detansinn]

My wife asked if this was an event to drive around and get stranded. ?

She’s not pleased with the unreliability and general unavailability of CCS charging in the northeast.

Odd. There are so many CCS chargers in New England that you can practically wing it. It’s when you get out of the northeast that it starts to get challenging.

 

[sotek2345]

Odd. There are so many CCS chargers in New England that you can practically wing it. It’s when you get out of the northeast that it starts to get challenging.

Same experience here (except in Northern Maine), however reliability still leaves something to be desired.

 

[G-Zeus]

Odd. There are so many CCS chargers in New England that you can practically wing it. It’s when you get out of the northeast that it starts to get challenging.

There are many, but many don’t work, or are slow. To be clear, I’m talking about 150 kW stations. And when you get more north in NH and VT and ME, it can get quite dicey for anything with reliable and decent speed. It’s a crapshoot which makes winging it not fun at all. I’m not interested to sit for 60 minutes at a de-rated station when I have a long drive ahead of me. It requires a lot of planning and a lot of frustration, I don’t mind the bleeding edge but my wife hates it. Looking forward to accessing the Tesla network.

 

[detansinn]

There are many, but many don’t work, or are slow. To be clear, I’m talking about 150 kW stations. And when you get more north in NH and VT and ME, it can get quite dicey for anything with reliable and decent speed. It’s a crapshoot which makes winging it not fun at all. I’m not interested to sit for 60 minutes at a de-rated station when I have a long drive ahead of me. It requires a lot of planning and a lot of frustration, I don’t mind the bleeding edge but my wife hates it. Looking forward to accessing the Tesla network.

I've done the drive from PA to Maine more than a half dozen times.
I've seen more than a handful of Tesla's show up at Electrify America stations in New England, because they couldn't make it to a supercharger -- very few of those folks have the CCS adapter. I now carry a Tesla adapter in my Lightning so that I can be a good Samaritan.

The combination of CCS and Tesla networks is better than just being limited to access to either.

 

[It's Just Me]

Odd. There are so many CCS chargers in New England that you can practically wing it. It’s when you get out of the northeast that it starts to get challenging.

There are many, but many don’t work, or are slow. To be clear, I’m talking about 150 kW stations. And when you get more north in NH and VT and ME, it can get quite dicey for anything with reliable and decent speed. It’s a crapshoot which makes winging it not fun at all. I’m not interested to sit for 60 minutes at a de-rated station when I have a long drive ahead of me. It requires a lot of planning and a lot of frustration, I don’t mind the bleeding edge but my wife hates it. Looking forward to accessing the Tesla network.

I've run into the same thing. As a daily driver the truck is fabulous. However when I've traveled I've had a mixed bag of experiences, mostly pretty crappy.

Very dependent. Cape Cod was difficult. Made it to the top of Mt. Washington last year, but the only charger I could find in N. Conway I swear had individual electrons being carried by snails to charge the truck.

Drove from NH to Hershey Park 4 times in the past year. Smooth as butter (except the last trip because the EA chargers were being upgraded but the damned app said they were good to go.

I think it is hit or miss everywhere. But it's gonna be a long time before the infrastructure meets even today's needs, never mind what we will need in a couple years.

Hopefully Ford and Tesla fix their rectal-cranial inversion and get this settled soon to make more lives easier. But I am not holding my breath.

 

[VictorM]

My wife asked if this was an event to drive around and get stranded. ?

She’s not pleased with the unreliability and general unavailability of CCS charging in the northeast.

Well at least you have the most chargers in the country. If 50% of yours are down it’s still better than half the country. Well done!

Check out this graph from HERE.

 

[ivan256]

Well at least you have the most chargers in the country. If 50% of yours are down it’s still better than half the country. Well done!

Check out this graph from HERE.

From a statistical perspective that is a very odd graph. Adding unrelated things with different units together? Weird. I don't think you can draw any conclusions from that related to charging at all.

If you're thinking about charging I'd think you want to subtract something related to EV Fleet per Charging Point from the Charging Points per Road Length. But even that's not right because the charging points are more for visitors....

Anyway, Massachusetts and Vermont are up near the top. I drive to both of those places and it's easy to charge in MA. It's a pain in VT. Distance between available chargers is more important than any of those things. 1 charger per 500 miles of road is a lot different if you've got one long 500 mile road vs a grid system of city blocks.

 

[G-Zeus]

I want reliable 150kw+ chargers. Seems too much to ask right now… hopefully EA can get their crap together, with Tesla network opening up and adding competition.

 

[Solar_EE]

I've run into the same thing. As a daily driver the truck is fabulous. However when I've traveled I've had a mixed bag of experiences, mostly pretty crappy.

Very dependent. Cape Cod was difficult. Made it to the top of Mt. Washington last year, but the only charger I could find in N. Conway I swear had individual electrons being carried by snails to charge the truck.

Drove from NH to Hershey Park 4 times in the past year. Smooth as butter (except the last trip because the EA chargers were being upgraded but the damned app said they were good to go.

I think it is hit or miss everywhere. But it's gonna be a long time before the infrastructure meets even today's needs, never mind what we will need in a couple years.

Hopefully Ford and Tesla fix their rectal-cranial inversion and get this settled soon to make more lives easier. But I am not holding my breath.

Plugshare is usually more reliable than EA for the real story on charger reliability. And really there are far too few charging stations- I was ten minutes out from an EA station a few weeks ago- three of four stations were open- but when I got there they were all taken! Fortunately one person was almost finished- but then a Chevy slow-charging Bolt (31kW) took the last open 350kW station! So he's sitting there trickle charging and I was stuck on a 150kW station throttled to 50kW.

 

[Solar_EE]

I want reliable 150kw+ chargers. Seems too much to ask right now… hopefully EA can get their crap together, with Tesla network opening up and adding competition.

That seems like a really reasonable request!!! Just got back from a road trip to NC, 600 miles each way- EA was at least open- but many were throttled to 50kW.

 

[It's Just Me]

Plugshare is usually more reliable than EA for the real story on charger reliability. And really there are far too few charging stations- I was ten minutes out from an EA station a few weeks ago- three of four stations were open- but when I got there they were all taken! Fortunately one person was almost finished- but then a Chevy slow-charging Bolt (31kW) took the last open 350kW station! So he's sitting there trickle charging and I was stuck on a 150kW station throttled to 50kW.

Solar, I have 7 - yes SEVEN - apps to charge on my phone. In my limited experience it wasn't just EA, it was many of them granted I have not used Tesla yet.)

There is just so much incredible variability in location, cost, fees, and most importantly the charging speeds of the chargers themselves (you Bolt story notwithstanding) that it is painful.

And this is making its way into blogs, vlogs, talk shows, newspapers, magazines, and the MSM sources. And I am honest when people ask me about the difficulties about charging on the road trips.

These companies that make chargers and the vehicles need to fix their rectal-cranial inversion and make the issue go away. But they won't. And neither will the dim-bulb politicians and bureaucrats at the state and federal level.

Now, having grown up in Massachusetts and seeing their incredible incompetency in damned near everything they do, this one came as no surprise a few months back.

 

[Solar_EE]

Solar, I have 7 - yes SEVEN - apps to charge on my phone. In my limited experience it wasn't just EA, it was many of them granted I have not used Tesla yet.)

There is just so much incredible variability in location, cost, fees, and most importantly the charging speeds of the chargers themselves (you Bolt story notwithstanding) that it is painful.

And this is making its way into blogs, vlogs, talk shows, newspapers, magazines, and the MSM sources. And I am honest when people ask me about the difficulties about charging on the road trips.

These companies that make chargers and the vehicles need to fix their rectal-cranial inversion and make the issue go away. But they won't. And neither will the dim-bulb politicians and bureaucrats at the state and federal level.

Now, having grown up in Massachusetts and seeing their incredible incompetency in damned near everything they do, this one came as no surprise a few months back.

I agree, just four apps on my phone, but there has to be a better way. I read on this forum where the "Circle K" truck stop has fast chargers that just work- slide in your credit card and charge. I'm not sure why that is not at least an option on these other stations- NFC card readers are easy to install so really just hold the card near the target and then start charging. Totally weather proof and easy to implement.

I use Plugshare while planning my trips. EvGo has generally been pretty good for me except that one of their stations in Norfolk, VA has been down for a month. Since I don't travel very often I really don't care about the high kWh charges- just make the chargers reliable!! I hope that the Ford & Tesla partnership works as there are many Tesla chargers on the roads I drive here in Maryland.

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