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I visited over 120 EV chargers: why so many were broken

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Re: I visited over 120 EV chargers: why so many were broken

#151

Post by viraptor »

arcanemachiner wrote: post #144
KingOfCoders wrote: post #127

Same in Germany. So many broken chargers for weeks. Read through the article, but I still don't know why so many are broken and stay broken, it says "So what was wrong with these particular machines? It could be one of many things—a broken part, a power issue, a defective connector." I don't need an article to answer why are chargers broken if the answer is "Could be one of many things, ...". Why are gasoline station…

> Why are gasoline stations mostly never broken and chargers broken all the time? I mean... One of these technologies does have a 100 year head start on the other.

Still, I see a single "out of order" pump every once in a while and then a few days later it's working again. The question seems more "why are they allowed to stay broken?"

Re: I visited over 120 EV chargers: why so many were broken

#153

Post by grecy »

closeparen wrote: post #139
aidenn0 wrote: post #99

The payment thing just boggles my mind. I've been paying at card readers at a gas pump for 20 years now and exactly once did it not work. It's the one thing that has been completely solved in industry, and it doesn't work with EVs.

I try tap-to-pay at every gas pump that has the hardware, but only at 1 in 5 or so does it actually work.

Come up to Canada, I've never experienced one NOT to work, and I've also never seen a pump in the last ~5 years that doesn't have tap to pay.

Re: I visited over 120 EV chargers: why so many were broken

#155

Post by toast0 »

Qwertious wrote: post #22
taylodl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets at the core as to why I've not (yet) bought an EV - it's absolutely insane that my car purchase dictates the people I have to associate with for refueling. As you point out - I would never buy a car having the stipulation I could only refuel at Chevron stations. I'll stick with my dino juice so long as Tesla is the only viable option available for recharging. I'd think about getting an EV for a local commut…

The funny thing is that electrical charging isn't fully standardized, but somehow hydrocarbons are.

Gasoline pumps standardized because a nozzle is relatively simple. And then use a smaller nozzle for cars that only take unleaded gasoline and you can't put leaded gas into the wrong car.

On the other hand, diesel nozzles didn't really standardize until the last 10 years or so. Mostly diesel stations used the old (larger) standard, unless it was catering to trucks and then it's a really big nozzle for bigger flow. But sometimes you'd get an unleaded gasoline style nozzle, cause those would fit in diesel cars too, and there's no fume recovery system. But then VW and other diesel car makers started putting in rube goldberg systems to try to reduce the amount of gasoline you can put in a diesel car... And then the diesel pumps with the smaller size nozzle became difficult to use, so they've probably been replaced.

OTOH, a funnel is an easy, low tech fix to a nozzle problem. Can't really adapt a charging socket so easily.

Re: I visited over 120 EV chargers: why so many were broken

#156

Post by grecy »

xrd wrote: post #23

A few months back I had to go to Palm Beach for work. It was right when Miami was flooding. That's over two hours away. But, the Port Everglades, which is where the tankers unload, was flooded too, and even up in Palm Beach there was no gas. I drove in there with low fuel, thinking it wouldn't be an issue since I was so far north. But, then couldn't find gas at all the next day, and driving around and seeing tons of…

> This was the first time I realized that at least with gas, I can fill up and hand over the pump to the next person

I spent years driving around Africa, and it's eye opening to see what happens when there is a major power outage. All that gas in the ground, and no way to get it out!

I saw lineups literally days long because of it.

Re: I visited over 120 EV chargers: why so many were broken

#157

Post by clouddrover »

natch wrote: post #25
bryanlarsen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's why the NACS announcements are good for us Tesla owners. A lot of Tesla owners are worried about cars from other manufactures filling up Tesla charging stations. That's probably a valid concern, but I'm happy about the reduced reliance on Tesla.

Teslas aren’t limited to charging at superchargers. Saying there is a “reliance on Tesla” makes it sound like they are. That’s going to confuse or mislead some people, maybe not your intent, but it will. We already live in a world where Teslas can charge at any charger and (recent tentative changes aside) other cars can only charge at unreliable expensive non-Tesla chargers. It’s good that this is changing but the on…

> We already live in a world where ... other cars can only charge at unreliable expensive non-Tesla chargers.

No, that's North America. Europe is different:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ

Although Tesla's V4 chargers still suck for 800 volt cars which is a shame. Tesla must try harder:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJ2KtzMeh8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJgThJtCR2g

Re: I visited over 120 EV chargers: why so many were broken

#158

Post by ggm »

aidenn0 wrote: post #99

The payment thing just boggles my mind. I've been paying at card readers at a gas pump for 20 years now and exactly once did it not work. It's the one thing that has been completely solved in industry, and it doesn't work with EVs.

Almost no other vending process dependent on Paywave breaks longterm. I think its because the refill cycle is frequent enough there's a functional minimum attendance and people with "power" (the agents) who profit from the service are made aware of the bug.

with EV chargers there's no nexus of incentive to the site operator to be aware this is bust unless they actively engage. Maybe, "your rent is conditional on reporting problems" would motivate?

Re: I visited over 120 EV chargers: why so many were broken

#159

Post by trimethylpurine »

viraptor wrote: post #151
arcanemachiner wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are gasoline stations mostly never broken and chargers broken all the time? I mean... One of these technologies does have a 100 year head start on the other.

Still, I see a single "out of order" pump every once in a while and then a few days later it's working again. The question seems more "why are they allowed to stay broken?"

Because gas customers are greater in number, regular, more frequent, and higher paying. Just guessing.

Re: I visited over 120 EV chargers: why so many were broken

#160

Post by al_borland »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #127

Same in Germany. So many broken chargers for weeks. Read through the article, but I still don't know why so many are broken and stay broken, it says "So what was wrong with these particular machines? It could be one of many things—a broken part, a power issue, a defective connector." I don't need an article to answer why are chargers broken if the answer is "Could be one of many things, ...". Why are gasoline station…

Gas stations have attendants. When payment doesn’t work, a person can go tell someone and still pay. When a pump has an issue it can be switch off when it first happens. If it’s an easy fix, it can be done right there. If it’s not an easy fix they can schedule a repair.

These charging stations were built with a business model of set-it-and-forget-it. This doesn’t work. It should have been obvious this wouldn’t work, but I’m sure companies were blinded by the apparent simplicity of the business and the idea of being first to market.

This seems like a fairly easy problem to solve for charging stations that are in the parking lot of a business. Provide training and resources for people at those business, and it can work much like the gas station model.

This reminds me of the roll out of NFC payments. Companies had it, but it was always broken and they didn’t bother to fix it right away, as it wasn’t deemed critical, since everyone had another form of payment and people using NFC was rare. It was years before I felt comfortable enough to go somewhere without a physical credit card as a back up. It seems electric chargers are treated with the same, “nice to have, but not critical” attitude.

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