this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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New EV owner here. We charge at home so I don’t need to use them, but stores nearby have chargers. I tried them to see how they work. They are often broken.

One store has a Volta charger (free!). It worked great the first time; the next time I went it was broken.

Walmart has an Electrify America fast charger. The first time I went, 1 of 3 was not working. The next time I went, 1 of 3 was not working, but it was a different one.

Was I unlucky, or are these charging networks unreliable? Has it been getting better or worse over time?

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[–] sky@codesink.io 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You're not unlucky, in the U.S. any charger that isn't made by Tesla is unreliable. It's been getting worse over time, and the only real hope is that every manufacturer is switching to Tesla's charge port (now called NACS) and getting access to their Superchargers.

I had a non-Tesla EV and eventually got a Tesla because I need to road trip regularly and can't handle chargers being down.

[–] indigomirage@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What are the options for adapters to let you charge an existing Bolt EV, at a Tesla station?

To date, I've only ever needed to charge at home, but am curious.

[–] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Right now it's not good, but NACS was also just announced. Part of that announcement included adapters, which should start to become commonplace soon. They do exist, and it looks like they're $200. Some supercharger locations also have one.

At the risk of sounding like Black Mirror, some chargers will have adapters, others will expect you to bring your own. I plan on getting one when they become reasonably available, probably next year.

But note that there are some additional minor wrinkles, such as battery chemistry, voltage, and adapter limits that we may have to deal with until everything standardizes.

It will get better though, and I think it'll be pretty soon

[–] Zippy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It will get better but I think soon is 10 years away. We don't even have common charge ports on phones and legislation is not going to give advantage to a single specific company yet.

[–] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

10 years is a long time, almost the lifespan of most cars. By that time there will be very few exceptions. Almost every car and every charger will be NACS.

But "good enough" will happen much sooner, where most cars can use NACS (via adapter) and most stations will have adapters to J1772/CCS.

At 10 years, I expect most stations will stop having adapters, since few cars will need them.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

The average age of cars is 12.5 years in the US. 10 years isn't much for cars.

[–] kinttach@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago (4 children)

The Tesla chargers -- do they live up to their reputation for being reliable? Or are they also unreliable, but Tesla puts so many chargers at each location that you can always find a working one?

[–] drkhrse96@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Just watch any of the YouTube videos that compare road trip charging and you will see the difference. While you may have 1 or 2 Tesla chargers down sometimes, normally there are many more to choose from and the speeds are reliable. Ease of payment and different apps are also a pain. This will hopefully clear up a lot of your manufacturer has a deal with Tesla to use their superchargers soon. https://youtu.be/92w5doU68D8?feature=shared

[–] sky@codesink.io 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

They are genuinely more reliable. Having more stalls does help for when there's issues, but they have 99.96% uptime across the entire network. I've had to move stalls once in my almost 3 years of ownership.

They also have their own service people that travel to chargers to fix them, where Electrify America hires local electrical contractors that may not be experts on DC Fast Charging equipment.

Edit: ran some numbers and I've charged 109 times on Superchargers. One failed session. I live in the rural Midwest/South so it's not like I'm in EV heaven either.

[–] Redonkulation@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

As a Tesla owner of 5 years with a cross country road trip in the car, Teslas charging has never failed me. It's rare to encounter a charging stall not working, but every location has multiple chargers and they repair stalls quickly.

Almost every location I've been to has at least 8 stalls if not more. The navigation in the car also keeps track of stalls in use, electricity prices, expected wait time and if any stalls are not working.

[–] halloween_spookster@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

I installed one in my garage a bit over 5 years ago and have never had a problem with it. My parents also installed one in their garage several years before that. They did have an issue with it at first but I think they replaced it with a newer version of the charger (same version I have) and haven't had any issues since then.