All he is doing is repeating what "tesla fanboys" have said for years. Don't credit the troll that was the last person to figure it out. I laugh because all he is doing is proving why people like him have been wrong for years.
@@_PatrickO Easy to say when Tesla has the best charging network. Never had a problem with a Tesla charger. Those are facts until the rest try and catch up. When Telsa in the US opens their network to other EV's, then things will get better since the "competition" will have to get better to compete. Great to pick on the leader.....
Someone needs to send this video to Pete Buttiegeg. We need federal awareness of these types of specifics. If they are coming down on Southwest Airlines, this is the same problem in the EV space.
I loved that he has mislead people for years and his tests are simply proving himself wrong. He used to call people fanboys who said the heat pump was better or said that most ccs chargers are much lower quality chargers than superchargers. I laughed when he couldn't get any of the newer ccs chargers to work and only the older slower models worked. All I see is a man coming to terms with the fact that he was the fanboy pushing lies all these years.
Let's add to this conversation the ease of payment without requiring an account. Can you imagine having to get an account just to buy gas at a gas station? The entire charging experience needs a massive overhaul.
Though, this system is somewhat like those who use a farmer's coop as their local gas station... members have to use their coop card to activate the pump.
@@michaeljay6349 You shouldn't have to join a COOP to charge. This isn't Costco, we are simply trying to charge a car. So let's end this membership/app authorization game and put payment system on the charging stations. Pull up, present payment, charge, go... It should be that simple. Why this has to be complicated when it is something totally new and should be frustration free is baffling. When the experience is far wore than anything people deal with at a typical gas station and yet one of the biggest things people always point out when owning an EV is that there are no more gas station visits would indicate the gas station experience is already "unpleasant" and it doesn't take hardly any time at all. Yet somehow we are rolling out something that is even worse than a gas station is beyond aggravating.
Loving this deep dive into the state of charging in the US right now. And it might fly under the radar but your presentation skills are incredible Kyle. Really personable and easy to listen to. A lot of youtubers rely on heavy editing to make their videos feel quick and snappy but I so appreciate this more conversational format and it just goes to show your insane level of knowledge that you're able to convey naturally without having to edit too much.
Yes I cannot agree more. Been listening for over 2 years and a lot of the time the videos are on in the background while I work. Very easy to listen to about various topics. There are some other UA-camrs I listen to that I have to shut off cause they become annoying. Kyle isn't one of them.
Sad to hear that the CCS charging network is so unreliable in the US. It kinda sounds like the way things were here in Norway a few years ago, but with cold weather the past few weeks the only "issues" we've had here have been busy charging stations. The past year we have had many CCS charging station built with 10-20 stalls. With multiple providers at one location you may see as much as 30 stalls. When stations get this big, having a few out of order isn't much of an issue. But at charging stations with 2 or 4 stalls, one or more being out of order really is a problem. Hopefully your chargers become more reliable and the stations get more stalls in the future! Hope you and Alyssa have a nice new years celebration and hopefully I'll see you soon back in Norway buddy!
Kyle, this is the most informative video on the “State of Charging” you could have done. I don’t know how you can go on and on talking with such cohesive flow in your words without the use of a scripted teleprompter. You definitely have a gift for verbal communication.
The variety of issues were seeing is truly incredible. It so important for those of us in the know to continue to use the infrastructure and share all our experiences - this is the only way that the CPOs will be pushed to be better and unfortunately, this may be the only way that CPOs even find out about the issues.
My question is, where's Giovanni? Electrify America CEO Giovanni Palazzo is completely missing. I'm convinced that Out of Spec + Branden Flasch could spend $2 Billion far more effectively than Giovanni.
@@anthonyc8499 You know as well as I that Palazzo is keeping the seat warm until VW finds a taker for this asset. I look for consolidation in this space within 18 months.
Great video! Reminds me of the saying that the first step to solving any problem is recognizing that there is one. Our public network sucks. We need to step it up - fast!
As a former Taycan owner, road-tripping in my new Model X over the holidays was an absolute pleasure. 100% reliability, great power output (only stopped at V3 chargers), more location options, no stupid apps or card readers to deal with. I REALLY wanted to upgrade to the new Taycan Sport Turismo, however I travel regularly, and the EA network is a no-go. I tried it the hard way, and it is not worth it.
Your comment only confirms that at this point EVs are for rich people. For most people a Porsche was never an option. Pricewise, neither is a Tesla for hoi-polloi.
@@enoughofthis :With all due respect, a people's car like Corolla Hybrid is $23K. Incredible as it is, $20,000 difference still mater for some...Pure EVs are pricewise in "sports/luxury" category, as you actually mentioned.
Our charging experience on EA over the holidays wasn’t that bad - every charger I tried worked, there was a line at one station during a busy time, and the app froze on me once. This is the mid-atlantic region. Overall B- experience.
Awesome information, I think you need to go before congress or transportation secretary Buttigieg to voice these concerns. It's early enough that they can implement safe guards etc. For this EV CHARGING and keeping updated and viable for the future. You Kyle should be the voice as your the knowledgeable person for us all.
Hello, I made a trip from Michigan to Florida during the horrible storm last week. Left Thursday around 5pm just as snow started. We were unable to go the speed limit until Bowling Green due to snow and icy roads. Except for the -7degF temperatures and slow cold weather charging I had NO issues with EA chargers. hopefully it'll be better with warmer weather this weekend driving back. Oh FYI the Kia EV6 is a beast on slick roads! And I did use the battery preconditioning. Thanks for all the informative videos!
Hi Kyle, I am new to EV,'s I just bought my car a couple of weeks ago. Learning to charge at public stations took me a few days to get the hang of it but I was able to use the two major ones in my area in Northern LA county. Chargepoint and EVGo. I understand your point of these comapnies being able to get equipment to last and take a beating, but it also falls on us. In my experience in these last two weeks visiting public stations, I've seen individuals unhook and just drop the cables, or be to lazy to return them and toss them to the side and hit the floor. One even managed to run the cable over that someone else tossed to the side moments earlier. I get the company's should be held accountable but it falls on us too. We shouldn't be lazy and physically damage things and then complain that they are not working. Many only point out what these companies are doing wrong, but we also need to point out that many people don't care for these equipments until we need to use them. I find that wrong and we need to be more careful when using these stations.Thank you for all the content you produce and your travel videos convinced me to buy my first EV. Stay safe and continue the great work.
You said "You're only as good as the stuff you can buy". I agree and I think EA needs to start buying SLA agreements with their charger vendors. e.g. there is significant financial penalty for downtime.
Thank you for your fantastic reviews like this. You are doing more to improve the state of charging in the US than anyone else, including the Chargepoint Operators. You are the hero we need!
Your PlugShare recommendation is what I do. If a unit is derated and I don't get the rate that I should, I log that as a Neutral rather than a Plus. They should NOT get credit for giving me a lousy charging experience.
OMG Kyle you are some man for one man. The amount of detail that you go into is unbelievably helpful to the EV community. And I'm based in Europe. I strongly suspect the big oil is behind the bad charging public network in North America. Anyway well done you.
Kyle we have a new charging provider that is really really novel, it is called Chevron on the run and it is mainly in Canada BC and Alberta is the roll out. What is SOOO different is that each charging station the owner operators are involved on site with customer service, showing how to charge, how to get the app what to do etc wow something that I think should be the standard (and really surprising here in Canada) especially on heavy holiday times as you motioned. The other polar opposite is Shell Recharge and a Canadian Petro supplier Pero-Canada, several stations are down as the owner operators have no incentive to reset breakers etc leaving the chargers down for weeks on end.
It's time for a "Charging Summit" A meeting of all charging stakeholders including networks (EV GO, EA, Chargepoint, TESLA) and the auto manufacturers. Kyle to moderate a look into the future of charging and EV Life. I'd love to hear vision, constraints and future outcomes. Love to have Government included to see their vision as well. Critical point in EV design.
SImple solution. Swallow your pride, take Tesla up on the original offer of shared information re the Tesla charging system. Make a deal and implement it. Then there is that one little matter of maintenance of the equipment. If you can't maintain it after you build it, you shouldn't be in the business.
The leadership in the Democrat party, continue to disparage, exclude and penalize Tesla. Until democrats come back around and embrace Tesla again, there will not be a Tesla and Government collaboration. To date, Tesla has not been invited to any Biden sposered EV summits the Biden adminsitartion wont even mention the name Tesla. "Government" is the problem. Lets not include them
Everybody that works for EA or EVGO should be required to drive a BEV. Make it a company car. Give them free charging. Whatever it takes. It's called eating your own dogfood.
Going on 50 now, and remember all the stumbling blocks with new tech throughout my life, including VCR's, cable TV, Atari and other gaming systems, portable cassette players, cd players, PC's, multiple operating systems, the internet, email, and the list goes on. We're living in that now with the non Tesla charging networks. I enjoy my Ioniq 5 and have level 2 at home and my current situation doesn't require epic commutes so I'm less impacted by others. It's certainly frustrating but I'm still happy to be part of the journey and a pioneer.
Agreed I'm loving my etron but I charge at home (level 2) and the few road trips I've had, I haven't had any issues with the DC fast chargers I've used (although Ocean city only had a 50KW station)
I guess you want to be positive. I look back how they promise the moon and deliver heartache and frustration. We all think maybe tomorrow it will work right but no, it is spying on us through back doors. I wonder how TVs would work and become succesful if they had such problems even radios.
Thanks Kyle for all your hard work and keeping these charging companies accountable! Especially EA because most all automakers are selling it as incentive for people to purchase their vehicles. Absolutely unacceptable for EA to getaway with this. BMW, Porsche, Lucid, Mercedes, etc. all need to put pressure on EA to get their s*** together.
Yeah, I’ve said in the past that what the car manufactures are giving away as “free charging” is not only a worthless value, it only makes the situation worse by incentivizing new EV owners to use local fast chargers in place of home chargers (which also more quickly degrades the battery).
@@fitybux4664 Fully understood. I’ve faced that myself. My comment is about the incentive that car manufacturers are offering which is exasperating the problems of fast charging.
We had a good experience using Chargepoint and EA on a road trip from Atlanta, GA to Hilton Head, SC during Thanksgiving. One thing I'd recommend is using either virtual or physical cards to start charging (ie. Chargepoint card not a credit card). Sometimes the apps have trouble communicating with the chargers.
Kyle, I’ve appreciated your videos; I’ve learned a lot about EVs and charging in preparation for owning one. I became a first-time EV owner (Ioniq 5 AWD) this week, buying my car in central Florida and driving it back to North Carolina over New Year’s weekend. Talk about trial by fire! The two EAs I’ve charged at were busy. At one, half the chargers were down and drivers were pointing folks like me to working chargers and sharing how close they were to finishing. At the other site, all the chargers were working - but a VanHool big-ass bus was charging on a 350 kW charger so we all had slower charge speeds. I drove this morning to a third site in Georgia, and all the chargers were online and looked to be working. It is cool to have seen such a cool variety of EVs at the chargers - ID.4, EV 6, a Subaru Solterra (!), a Jaguar… not to mention a damn VanHool big ass bus. Ironically the best charger was the Level 2 free charger at my hotel overnight. No authentication, no charge; old ass equipment with a few LED lights; and it worked like a charm overnight. I am looking forward to testing out the One.And.Only Circle K DC charger today!
Good video on the current state of the EV charging infrastructure this past week Kyle; also a good idea to try and collect and collate info with Rate Your Charge too. Thanks for the overall picture but please keep up the pressure on these EV charging infrastructure companies... it just can't be a pain point to have to consider if you are going to be able to charge your car for this to take off.
Just down the road from me, we have a 19 station 72kW Tesla Supercharger. 72 kW!! It’s at Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento CA, just off Interstate 80. I got my M3SR+ in March 2021, and this was the first Supercharger I ever used. There are always cars plugged in there, and while I charge at home, as far as I know it is up and running all the time. I’m sure it must be one of the earliest Superchargers - right on the way from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe and Reno. It’s kinda nice to have a bit of living history just down the road. 😂 Great job, Kyle. Very important issue (that poor polestar guy so frustrated just wanting to dump his EV is no good). So far my wife has had no issue charging her VW ID.4 in trips around the Western US including some pretty remote areas, like Kolb UT. But that needs to be a universal experience for all.
Hi Kyle, great service you are doing to raise the flag...hopefully the networks are paying attention. You may recall we spent some time talking at Fully Charged in SD, and at the EV conversion event at Red Rocks. This year, I have put over 11K miles on my 2018 Bolt on road trips, using DCFC about 100 times. Primarily, EA was the go-to for these trips, as you say the corridor access being a big part, but predictable pricing and 4+ stalls make the other networks less favorable options. I did want to remind you, GM and EVGo are partnering with Pilot/FlyingJ on installing about 2000 stalls at Pilot/FlyingJ Travel Centers in the coming year or two. My guess is, this will be at roughly 500 of their 700 or so sites nationwide, and the program is one of the first initiatives for the EVGo Extend organization where site owners will own the equipment, but EVGo will operate and maintain. This is similar to the EA Commercial division which AZ Public Service and NY state are partnering with EA. So, this could be good news for corridor travel and put some pressure on EA. As for my experience with EA, it has mostly been good. Sure, a few stalls were down and a few times apparently in-service units failed to initialize. But overall, I was always able to charge and would rate my success on a per stall basis as probably north of 90%. There is one problem I have had several times, in Rocky Mount and Durham, NC as well as St. George, UT and Frisco, CO having to do with app failures, specifically location services. At these sites, the EA app on my iPhone didn’t recognize I was at the EA site, RFID in Apple Wallet was impacted as well. Yet, EVs that used Plug & Charge had no issues. In all of these cases, a call to support was needed to initiate a charge, once I was on hold for 45 minutes for what ended up being a 20-minute session. So my observation is that if EA were to adopt AutoCharge+, in addition to Plug & Charge, success rates could be improved and support calls reduced. AutoCharge+ is similar to how Tesla works, and has been a capability in the CCS protocol since inception. Every EV would be capable of using AutoCharge, even if they don’t support P&C. P&C is ultimately the way to go, but there are many CCS EVs that don’t (yet) support P&C but could use AutoCharge. I know you and Brandon have touched on some of this in your podcasts, but maybe I can shed a little detail from research I have done about the data protocols, including how they may even apply to NACS plugs. I will send an email to give you a high-level idea of what I am referring to. It could make for an interesting discussion and I would love to hear Brandon’s take given his industry affiliation.
I have so much respect for Kyle and what he is doing and have been following this channel for a long time. What puzzles me is the difference between the US and Europe (or at least Denmark). There are plenty of chargers here, only the rural areas are still missing charging infrastructure. We didn’t see any noticeable waiting time at the chargers during Christmas and they usually all work or perhaps one Charger down for some unknown reason.
Interestingly here in Europe the superchargers that have opened to all makes using CCS are not or very rarely having the issues other networks here have. We have one network in the UK that is much better than other providers who maintain their chargers really well and even have each charger visited, cleaned and check the plugs aren't damaged and working every week. I believe the issues with everyone else is mainly down to lack of site visits and maintenance.
Is that IONITY by any chance? I only use IONITY, ar 2 specific locations, when public charging and even they aren't great. Regularly offering half the bays with free charging... but it's limited to 33kW. And when all bays are in use the speed drops dramatically even thought they are supposed to be independent, non power sharing, units. Still, they're better than everything else.
Kyle , I live in upstate NY , just took delivery of Ford Lightning 98 kWh . Put 3000 miles over 40 days , on just using 110 outlet at home and using the DC chargers in between . The Shell Recharge network started having issues on 12/23 , multiple units would not engage , c/c would not work , and app froze up. I called Greenlots /Shell Recharge over 10 times in 4 days , the entire network crashed and was closed for 3 days. I asked customer service to put me thru to Andrea’s Lips and they said she didn’t work for Shell or Greenlots. I explained Andreas was a he not a she and was the head of the company. I would think it would be a good idea for the boss to at least be known and accessible to his team. And you are right , these set ups have 1200 amp new entrance , three 150kw and one 350 kw units , huge expense , and a total FAIL :( I let so many nice folks in several Rivians ,Audi E trons, Lightnings , all stranded looking for any juice they could get ,so they could limp to their destinations. At the same time Electrify America was down , and 80% of the EV Ho chargers had issues. I hope someone didn’t hack the networks at peak times to get the existing EV owners frustrated to swap back to ice , or Shell makes more $$ on gasoline Vs electrons and was trying to sway back. Keep up the great videos
Great video Kyle! I went by the Tesla SC location in Mojave, CA on Memorial Day weekend and they had a Tesla employee there checking chargers to make sure they were online. I plugged into the only empty charger and it was not working. He walked up to me and said he is on the phone with a Tech and they are working on getting it back online.. This is a 1st class support that Tesla deploys that should be followed by all charging companies. I have since switched to a non tesla ev and have not done any long distance trips, but have stopped by local EA charging locations and some are super busy with Ioniq 5, Kia EV6 and ID-4's charging to 100% because its free... Clogging up the chargers the EV's need for traveling. Hopefully it gets better over the next couple of years...
That EV6 probably wasn't a local charging to 100% for free because they only get 1000 kWh free. That's how it should be. I agree with you about most Ioniq 5 and ID4 drivers who abuse (misuse technically) their unlimited free charging. No one should ever give out unlimited charging cause people will just misuse it. It's better to just give a set amount of complimentary charging not an "unlimited" amount.
Really appreciate all the work you're doing to let the network charging systems (looking at you EA) know that they really need to get their stuff together and do better. Thank you Kyle!!
Kyle, all other manufacturers other than Tesla should pay you for service you provide. I think the attention and noise you create will help charging networks get better eventually that will become car sales for these manufacturers. 👌👏
Luckily no issues here; Cheyenne to Salt lake went perfectly. Electricity America stations in Rawlins and Evanston, Wyoming worked great using my Model Y CCS adapter. Supercharger in rock springs, Wyoming was empty and worked great.
Just picked up my first EV a tesla Model Y, stopped by nearest Supercharger station backed up, plugged in and it all worked. No stress, 16 chargers, watched youtube while charging. Great experience breaking my charging cherry.
I have suffered the issue of cue priority , and it’s horrible you can be charging and suddenly you can be disconnected within 5 mins be someone has prebooked. But they don’t turn up . I’m a firm believer if your there you should be able to charge as much as you want , and those that are next should be geo fenced to prevent queue jumping as well as prevent those who don’t turn up from locking the unit . I realise people do it because they may be x amount of minutes you left of there journey but if 5 people are in from the of you then they should take priority.
There's a pretty simple solution to this: the phone used to pre-book via the app should be the one that the app tracks to check your position. If you don't get anywhere near the location of the charger by the booked time then it allows people already charging to continue until you get closer.
Before we bought an EV, we watch you, Kyle on a few trips. You struggle using CCS convinced us to go Tesla. 1. You couldn’t hole you phone and film while plugging in. (Good luck if you’re somewhat feeble) 2 charging would fail for you regularly on CCS. 3. You are a cheerful person. We saw that your cheer turned to frustration while charging on CCS. 4. We have young children and like to road-trip and seeing you get frustrated without kids in the car, sealed the deal. So what other car manufacturer will start using NACS Aptera and Tesla to use the NACS for better charging experiences.
I did a road trip in my Tesla Model 3 on Christmas Eve along I76 in PA. Stopped in Somerset services both ways, there were 3 or 4 chargers not working but after moving was still able to get a spot without waiting. Did try the one in Somerset itself, that had at least 2 down, one blocked by snow that had been plowed in the corner and the others were full. I did have a separate issue of my right rear door window glass shattering while driving. Nothing hit it, just broke in the 1f weather. Seems a few others had this issue from googling. Wasn’t pleased with that as I had my dogs in the back and we had to continue a couple more hours with no window. No local shops were open to cover it due to the holidays. Thankfully dogs were buckled in so couldn’t escape.
I once ran across an EA technician diagnosing a problem with a site. I mentioned that in the app one charger was listed as 50kW. He agreed that it should never say that but that all he could do is open a ticket. This anecdotally says that on site technicians do not have access to configure what is shown in the app.
.......we told you it was going to happen when the government is trying to force so many into EV's. The infrastructure is not there and the tech is not ready
Kyle, can we get you in front of Congress to let those fools know the “situation” and put some ironclad verification elements and simple accountability associated with the funding?
Thanks Kyle, this is great stuff. We made our first longer trip in our Bolt EUV over the Christmas weekend, Phoenix to Las Vegas and thankfully had no issues with the EA charger in Kingman that is really the only Fast Charging option direct between Phoenix and Vegas. Thankfully the SW just had some wind and rain and no crazy temperatures like so much of the rest of the country was experiencing. We also had free level 2 charging in the parking garage at our hotel in Vegas, so no cost to charge and run around Vegas and was able to 100% charge the morning of the trip back to Phoenix. Hard to beat $25 round trip charging cost with a 100% home charge leaving and hotel charge leaving Vegas. We did see what looked like a pre-installation of an EVGo charging station at the Pilot on US-93, but we didn't stop to take a closer look to see how far along it was.
Thank you, Kyle, for your work in bringing these DCFC issues brought to the surface. Where I live, EA is the only game in town, and they are a poorly run company!
Hi Kyle Great work on revealing the good and bad sides of EVs. Coming from an EV owner and enthusiast your commentary can only be considered fair and honest.
I used a 50 kW Shell Recharge station here in Columbus OH (the Meijer in Lewis Center) on Christmas Day. 48 kW observed on my Model 3 w/ CCS1 adapter. One of the stalls was offline in the app even though the stall was online, but the second one was just fine.
Fantastic, informative video Kyle. Been driving a Leaf for 2 1/2 years with 99% home charging. Was keeping the ICE car for long trips. With an IONIQ 5 on order for late spring, this makes me second guess going full electric (both vehicles) even here in Canada where cold temperatures are more of an issue. We need Kyle to do a road trip in Canada to review our infrastructure.
Thanks for the video. It confirms my thoughts on buying an EV, especially a CCS EV. Along with the cost, of course. Now is not the time, but maybe by the fall or 2023 things will be better. From NJ to Lancaster PA via the PA Turnpike there are Tesla Superchargers at every rest stop plus they are common after you get off the Turnpike. The only CCS chargers at the Turnpike rest stops are some J1772 that maybe sort of kinda work and some Blink 'fast' chargers that definitely don't work. There are no CCS fast chargers on Rt 222 which runs from the Turnpike to Lancaster itself. It's a big fast charger desert. I would think this area is a business opportunity for EV GO, Blink or EA though they all have told me they have no interest in expanding there or upgrading their current equipment. It's a 220 mile round trip which means I would probably have to charge somewhere. I guess I should tell my kids to become charger technicians. They will never be out a job....
Yea, this is crazy to me. I live half hour east of Lancaster, and there's just not much out this way. Around Philadelphia, most of the malls have a 350kw fast charger, that's it. There are some 150kws scattered around, but even they're sparse. But almost every rest stop has a Tesla charger. I just swapped my Tesla for a Rivian, so I'm banking on the infrastructure getting better, but it's kinda bleak around here at the moment.
I’m glad I bought a Tesla in 2017 and have done several cross country trips with no issues. A few times I saw non teslas trying to charge on CCs and they looked frustrated.
@Kyle. Love your videos! Thanks for this in depth look at the holiday week. You asked for us to share out road trip experiences, so here's ours: We took our 2022 Standard range Mach e from Fillmore CA to Grants Pass Oregon right after Christmas and had an uneven experience but pretty good on EA, though a couple issues. We drove I5 the whole way. The trip would normally take about 13 hours including stops. It took us 16 to get there and 15.5 to get back (705 mile trip). Weather was a HUGE factor coming home on New Years Eve. We had to do a whole extra charge due to lower efficiency (high cross wind for a couple hours in the southern part of the Central Valley, and So. Much. Rain.). On the way up, we had three charging issues. One of the old EA chargers in Sacramento charged at about half power which we didn't realize until we returned to our car) so we lost a half hour. Then, Ford had us stop at a TA charger (Shell Recharge network). Only one charger there, and it did not work at all. We ended up at a Charge Point station up the road at 9% (yikes!) with 3 DC fast chargers. The first two didn't work, but the third one did. The charger was having trouble getting a good seal, we think. Once we cleaned and dried the port, the third charger worked, but the whole process lost us a lot of time. One shout out to EA is for the new station in Kettleman City. 10 brand new stations with a solar awning and everything worked excellently. After that experience, we decided to plot an EA only course on the way back and did a lot better. We stopped in Yreka and Anderson. Older EA stations, but worked excellently. Then in Dunnigan, we had another slow charger, but this time we noticed, so we switched to a different unit and got a normal charge from there. We only lost 15 minutes or so. Next stops were Patterson and Harris Ranch. Both great experiences. Final stop at Raju Countryside Market required moving to a second charger, but other than that fine. The first charger, that didn't work for us, worked for a VW ID4 afterwards, so I think it was a software handshake problem for us in the Ford. A guy in a Lightning said he had the same issue. If it hadn't been for the weather, we'd have made it home in very good time I think. Food and bathroom facilities were available at every stop. So... if I had it to do over again, I'd get an extended range car (call it a newbie mistake), I'd charge on EA the whole way, and I'd go when the sun was shining. But the stations did work as advertised overall. BTW, we never had to wait for a charger. I thought that was interesting.
Hence why I bought a Bolt EUV. It is a great low cost EV commuter vehicle. I can charge at home and travel my day to day without needing DC fast charging. For now the Honda Odyssey is the go to for family trips. Probably going to buy a second Bolt EUV as my wife loves it. The van will sit primarily for trips.
Same here. We have a VOLT. BOLT EUV and a VW Atlas. Up here in Western NY we get hammered with snow, so we need a vehicle that can handle winter. If I need to road trip, we would use the VW. We're not gonna break our heads with this charging mess. Gas pumps work and they're everywhere.
I absolutely LOVE the idea that we all need to do a better job of recording our charging experiences in a much more detailed fashion. Can you imagine how we could expedite the change necessary by these charging systems and operators if there was a huge influx of specific data being captured and relayed about charging issues at specific units/locations?! As a Tesla owner, I have been very fortunate to have avoided ANY issues with this, but I will absolutely do this in the rare instances that I use a CCS charger. The work that Kyle and Branden do is amazing, and very appreciated. Thanks fellas!!!
Outstanding work, Kyle! I live in Toronto, Canada. Love it if you could have a look at our country's performance in the EV arena as well. We're pretty friendly up here so will welcome you :)
We have a 21 M3 SR+ LFP & a 22 MYP, we are fully electric. We sold our 19 Toyota Tundra and 15 Yukon Denali & haven’t looked back since. We gone on a ton of road trips in both vehicles and have never had any issues AT ALL! We live in the Florida panhandle and travel both to Tampa, Charleston SC, & to the Gulfport MS area. There is a massive need for me chargers on the MS gulf coast, however with family members there, we just trickle charge at their house. The nearest station is in D’iberville. Honestly, we don’t even look at anything but Tesla superchargers. WE LOVE OUR TESLAS! Thanks for doing so many videos Kyle! I’ve followed your videos for a while now. Tesla truly is the gold standard.
Our local supercharger here in Canada has been garbage lately with the cold. I had to try to plug in 5 times before I got it to work. I've been using a charger at a grocery store and using my ccs adapter more frequently because it's been more dependable. Electrify Canada has been the only one I have yet to get to work.
I think one of the things that helps Tesla be so reliable on their charging network is the simplicity of it. At the dispenser where you park your car it's just a cable and a connector and a cooling loop all of which is inside. So the only way it can really not work is if any of those three items are damaged. Most of the other providers there's a touch screen and point of sale a credit card reader RFID etc. And software in that machine that if it's glitching it won't let you start the charge. As long as all the hardware at the parking stall is working on a Tesla it talks to the car and that talks to the network and starts the charge so the simplicity of the Tesla's design probably reinforces the reliability of the charging experience. Whereas the other providers you add a whole bunch of extra complication if the software glitches if the screen doesn't work if the credit card reader doesn't work then you can't charge.
Here's a problem I encounter with superchargers all the time: the minor inconvenience of having to move my model y to avoid idle fees because the car finished charging faster than I could finish eating my meal! I sometimes bias towards the older 150kw superchargers to avoid this issue, especially if I'm having lunch at a sit down restaurant with my parents or wife.
I think it would be hard for Tesla to have a thing that connects in the connector automatically, but what about an automatic disconnect ability? Then the car can just drive itself out of the way of someone else that wants to charge. 😆
Tesla drivers. Central Texas to Prosper, TX then on to Pagosa Springs, CO to ski at Wolf Creek. Every Tesla Supercharger worked great. The head winds and cold temps really zapped the battery in the Y, but the 3 did great. There's no supercharger in Pagosa so we used a Chargepoint DC fast charger on our way into town, and it worked also. After a few trips up to the resort in the Y, we needed another charge at the Chargepoint charger today (Dec 29th) and both of the fast chargers were "Unavailable." Called the phone number that occasionally flashed on the screen and got a phone rep quickly. He rebooted both stations, and they came back online. He gave us a free charging session for our troubles. Got a dose of the CCS network, and really appreciate the Superchargers. Tesla needs a way to preheat the batteries without having to set the destination to a supercharger. Had to plug in to the CCS with the battery cold because it's not listed as a charging location in the nav computer. Thanks for the video Kyle, great job!
I have been charging our Jeep as a bonus at the Electric Vehicle & Roadway research facility at USU lately! Good R&D happening these days, fun times. Will have to log visits on PlugShare consistently.
I appreciate the coverage. We went from Denver to NH in an EV6 during this storm and it was absolutely miserable. Electrify America is a joke. Multiple software failures, multiple calls to support, it is a miracle we didn't get stranded. On top of the EA issues, the Kia EV6 in North America desperately needs the battery conditioning update so that it doesn't take an hour+ to charge in freezing temperatures. Even more, hotels need to clearly state the electric charging availability or have some method of reserving chargers. Let alone the number of times we saw gas cars park in front of the EV chargers overnight.
I was planning on taking the family to the Oregon coast this week. I was going to leave with just enough charge to get there. I'm really glad I checked before we left, because 3 of 4 EA chargers are out. Not enough time to charge at home and go for the day, so day at the coast cancelled/postponed.
Chargepoint seems to be the main (non Tesla) network in Mi. I traveled 600miles mostly via freeway last friday/Saturday within Michigan and had no problems getting charged on their stations, in a Bolt. There either aren't many EA stations here or they just aren't where I travel. So big ups to chargepoint for sturdy tech. Could use cover though. That snow sucked, I'm not looking forward to early spring freezing rain.
The fastest charger used during the single digit Christmas week was a volta 50kw. Charged at 51kwh . Ev go 350 was 44kwh and 43kwh on a 150kwh electrify America
Great update Kyle. I had a bad experience on the way back from the Dallas Rivian service center. I had issue charging in Fort Worth at EA so I saw an EVGo on I-20 in a small town on my way and stopped there. There was a family in an VW ID4 trying to charge on the only 'rapid' charger on the unit and the lady said I don't know how to do this, and I just blurted out 'that is a shame, since it is your car.' I was already out of patience with the EA issue and needed to get moving. So I gave it one attempt to help them explaining they needed the card or the APP for it to work. Then just left as I needed to cover over 300 miles to get home. I just don't know how someone would get on a trip without knowing where chargers were and what they needed to make them all work.
A partial solution to the charging problems would be to have charging stations at the dealerships. They could maintain them better, have a tech or techs on-site and it would certainly show customers that the dealers and car manufacturers stand behind their commitment to EV’s. And it would ensure customers would be seeing the new cars on the lot consistently. Get eyeballs on-site.
I had a different experience in Buffalo, NY superchargers on Dec 25 afternoon, the home of superchargers. There are 2 SC in Buffalo area, both inaccessible with 3+ ft of snow & no snow cleaning equipment around to open up the access roads. I got stranded due to no access to chargers & had to stay overnight there on my drive back home to Toronto. The next evening, Dec26 , still road to the Buffalo SC was not cleaned as per another person I met on the Cheektowaga SC. There were 8 stalls there, only 2 of those operating, 1 still out of access as there was 4+ft of snow in front of that. One of the other person who came to charge actually dug out the one before the last stall & found that not operational. This area is a common stop for people driving in from Toronto or driving out to Toronto. There was no tech on site, my tweet to Tesla & Tesla Chargers had no response until now. So I would say I was disappointed. I had to stay over 2 nights in Buffalo just due to the SC fiasco where only 2 of the 16 stalls in 2 SCs actually worked.
That EVgo station was serviced a week ago, I know, I went there to activate charge+ and still el nopo LOL. Chargepoint is weird, in FL turnpike they operate chargers in conjunction with FPL and if you do not have the FPL charging app, good luck trying to pay with the touchscreen
Hey Kyle, thanks for all your effort helping to get charging to a better place than it is right now. I hope it lights a fire under those who need to address the issues. Great videos. Keep up the good work. I enjoy your dad too. He's a good example of those of us experiencing the same things as we do.
This is always what I discuss when someone talks about getting an EV other than Tesla. If you want to road trip at all then it's much more difficult in everything outside of a Tesla right now. Even in California I rarely have to wait because there is another charger just down the road. Queueing would be nice as well. I think that if the chargers were built more like Costco gas stations where you pull up and charge and there are multiple lines, and you hope you are in the quicker one instead of just a row at the back of a parking lot like so many are. You could literally transform a gas station at a Safeway or another grocery store to this format. Look at Buccee's and other places like that, just mimic it for EV usage as well. Long enough cables to hit both sides of the car. That also fixes the trailer pull through because they could have 1 or 2 for that.
I would counter that with the level of tech available we could build a better queuing system based on the cars electronics and geo positioning rather than copying a system designed for gas/diesel vehicles over a century ago.
I’m impressed how Kyle was able to execute this in one take, scarcely taking a breath or getting distracted by a passing car as so often happens! Yes, this CCS systemic charging system collapse is lamentable-but, then, so is Southwest Airlines’. When you think about how little has been invested by the public charging networks in monitoring and upkeep, these events should be no surprise. (This will be addressed…) That said, the overwhelming majority of EV charging is done at home chargers, and EV owners like me won’t let this hysteria deter us from the virtues of EV ownership.
This really discourages me to get an electric vehicle just yet. I want to get the incentive but the unreliability of the networks makes me want to wait on going electric. Because I don’t own a home and don’t have the ability to charge at home nor do I want a Tesla. Great video as always.
Rightly so. Consider some good new PHEVs if occasional/short drives in electric mode are of interest to you as it is to us with a Rubicon 4xe (off-road capable).
So you don't want to buy the best vehicle for road trips. Have a Tesla. Over 80 percent of milage is on road trips. No issue. Would not consider another EV
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I would think many times before buying an EV if I could not charge at home.
@@thomaswilson2917 Great point, I'm really hoping the best for the roll out of the Tesla Cybertruck next year, with great utility and off-road capacility along with road trip feasibility as with other Tesla models.
My parents just got stuck in Gretna Green driving North into Scotland in their Tesla after Tebay was also chockablock. They gave up and got a hotel for the night. I did DC-Boston on Thanksgiving weekend and got routed through some pretty weird superchargers, but made it home without any real issues.
Just completed a long 10 charge stop trip from Lewiston ID to Fort Collins CO on the Tesla network. One handshake issue in Butte Wyoming that was resolved in 10 seconds. No other problems to report. Really hoping ccs1 charging gets taken more seriously for my fellow ev drivers.
We’re on a 1000 mile road trip in the R1T from central Illinois to central Florida. Had good luck with electrify America in Paducah and Nashville areas. A lot of gaps between Nashville and Atlanta. Used EV Go in Calhoun, Georgia north of Atlanta keep shutting down after 7 minutes so we had to restart 5 times and talk to support 2 times. Had my best experience ever at Walk in the Woods Preserve near Tampa. Chargers worked great and got to see a Lucid, Porsche and Lincoln while charging the R1T. Slow charging now at a camp ground.
My wife and I are 75+, we have a model Y and have put 20K miles on it since February no charging problems. We are in Boulder and travel to VT, NC, northern CA and Az. Problems with phantom braking persist and diminished range at below 20 degrees. We really like the car.
@@malcolmbrown7388 Awesome, thanks for the additional detail and congrats on your Model Y. Wish you many years of fun and safe driving - and reliable long distance charging.
Now I don't drive an EV but its possible that the High Output Chargers were disabled at the request of the power company to help keep the grid stable during the harsh weather we had. Even here in Alabama they had to do mandatory rolling blackouts for the same reason. Just a thought on the Stations being down at the beginning of the video. We already know out power grid is not capable of supplying the amount of power needed for mass adoption of EVs.
At a supercharger this morning someone was parked perpendicularly, blocking off three chargers. Fortunately there were still plenty of others to choose from but I was flabbergasted.
I have a Tesla model Y. My family and I went from Southern California to Las Vegas during the holiday week, had no problem charging. On the way to the Primm chargers, there was a 5min wait but by the time we arrived, there were at least 6 spots open so we didn’t wait at all. Love Tesla.
Yep, that was me. I am away from home in Minneapolis with my 2022 model X. Staying at an Airbnb and parking on the street in sub zero weather was not fun. I turned off Sentry mode and was still losing 6% a day. Warming up the car and going 2 miles was about 10% charge. Then at 30% and minus 10deg F I drove to a Supercharger and it would work, like your video, would not latch, connect or charge. I called Tesla and they were about to come out but after trying 4 chargers I got one to work. Why the other three wouldn’t, no idea.
Appreciate your research Kyle! As a current Tesla owner with a reservation for a Rivian coming soon, I'm learning a lot from your videos about the unfortunate issues associated with nonTesla charging networks. I've owned my Tesla since 2017 and I'm blessed to say I have never had a charging issue that has left me stranded during a road trip (fingers crossed). I hope by the time I get my Rivian (unknown 2024 ETA) the charging network issues would mostly be resolved thanks in part to your dedicated reporting.
Great stuff, Kyle. Only one small gripe: you referred to charging stations several times as "charge points" which sounds like you're referring to the ChargePoint network. Could be a little confusing -- it had me wondering the first few times you did it if you were talking about ChargePoint units. As you and your dad point out, the state of the EA charging infrastructure is abysmal, though. I feel sorry for the ETron owner you mentioned who is going to sell his car... that's a real shame.
Man, this guy NEEDS an award for his coverage of the state of EV charging. Legend right here!
Yes, yes he does.
All he is doing is repeating what "tesla fanboys" have said for years. Don't credit the troll that was the last person to figure it out. I laugh because all he is doing is proving why people like him have been wrong for years.
My sentiments exactly!
@@_PatrickO Easy to say when Tesla has the best charging network. Never had a problem with a Tesla charger. Those are facts until the rest try and catch up. When Telsa in the US opens their network to other EV's, then things will get better since the "competition" will have to get better to compete. Great to pick on the leader.....
Someone needs to send this video to Pete Buttiegeg. We need federal awareness of these types of specifics. If they are coming down on Southwest Airlines, this is the same problem in the EV space.
Kyle is such an incredible asset to the EV community! He’s just as friendly and engaging in person!
I loved that he has mislead people for years and his tests are simply proving himself wrong. He used to call people fanboys who said the heat pump was better or said that most ccs chargers are much lower quality chargers than superchargers. I laughed when he couldn't get any of the newer ccs chargers to work and only the older slower models worked.
All I see is a man coming to terms with the fact that he was the fanboy pushing lies all these years.
@@_PatrickO You laugh a lot.
Let's add to this conversation the ease of payment without requiring an account. Can you imagine having to get an account just to buy gas at a gas station? The entire charging experience needs a massive overhaul.
Though, this system is somewhat like those who use a farmer's coop as their local gas station... members have to use their coop card to activate the pump.
Costco gas would be easier if I could use an app.
Maybe that's a play... make a single unified EV payment network?
@@michaeljay6349 You shouldn't have to join a COOP to charge. This isn't Costco, we are simply trying to charge a car. So let's end this membership/app authorization game and put payment system on the charging stations. Pull up, present payment, charge, go... It should be that simple. Why this has to be complicated when it is something totally new and should be frustration free is baffling. When the experience is far wore than anything people deal with at a typical gas station and yet one of the biggest things people always point out when owning an EV is that there are no more gas station visits would indicate the gas station experience is already "unpleasant" and it doesn't take hardly any time at all. Yet somehow we are rolling out something that is even worse than a gas station is beyond aggravating.
@@CraigMatsuura There is a reason I don't buy my gas at Costco! ROFL
Loving this deep dive into the state of charging in the US right now. And it might fly under the radar but your presentation skills are incredible Kyle. Really personable and easy to listen to. A lot of youtubers rely on heavy editing to make their videos feel quick and snappy but I so appreciate this more conversational format and it just goes to show your insane level of knowledge that you're able to convey naturally without having to edit too much.
Yes I cannot agree more. Been listening for over 2 years and a lot of the time the videos are on in the background while I work. Very easy to listen to about various topics. There are some other UA-camrs I listen to that I have to shut off cause they become annoying. Kyle isn't one of them.
I agree. I don’t have an EV, and am not getting one anytime soon, but I really like his honest, concise videos.
@@5roundsrapid263 It may be time to get one. Jus sayin
Out of Spec Dave is really killing it. Young at heart
True champ……. Apple don’t fall far from the tree
Sad to hear that the CCS charging network is so unreliable in the US. It kinda sounds like the way things were here in Norway a few years ago, but with cold weather the past few weeks the only "issues" we've had here have been busy charging stations. The past year we have had many CCS charging station built with 10-20 stalls. With multiple providers at one location you may see as much as 30 stalls. When stations get this big, having a few out of order isn't much of an issue. But at charging stations with 2 or 4 stalls, one or more being out of order really is a problem. Hopefully your chargers become more reliable and the stations get more stalls in the future!
Hope you and Alyssa have a nice new years celebration and hopefully I'll see you soon back in Norway buddy!
Thanks, Kris! Norway really sets the example...
This is incredible, exhaustive EV journalism. Major kudos to Kyle & team!
Kyle, this is the most informative video on the “State of Charging” you could have done. I don’t know how you can go on and on talking with such cohesive flow in your words without the use of a scripted teleprompter. You definitely have a gift for verbal communication.
The variety of issues were seeing is truly incredible. It so important for those of us in the know to continue to use the infrastructure and share all our experiences - this is the only way that the CPOs will be pushed to be better and unfortunately, this may be the only way that CPOs even find out about the issues.
My question is, where's Giovanni? Electrify America CEO Giovanni Palazzo is completely missing. I'm convinced that Out of Spec + Branden Flasch could spend $2 Billion far more effectively than Giovanni.
@@anthonyc8499 You know as well as I that Palazzo is keeping the seat warm until VW finds a taker for this asset. I look for consolidation in this space within 18 months.
They know about the issues, just don't care, simple solution, buy a tesla.
Can you work on Chargepoint owned stations in CA (though it’s customer service reps do not believe Chargepoint owns any).
@@barryw9473 what indication do you have that chargepoint owns them? Almost always the site host owns them with chargepoint stations
You're doing an outstanding job on the charging issues.
Great video! Reminds me of the saying that the first step to solving any problem is recognizing that there is one. Our public network sucks. We need to step it up - fast!
As a former Taycan owner, road-tripping in my new Model X over the holidays was an absolute pleasure. 100% reliability, great power output (only stopped at V3 chargers), more location options, no stupid apps or card readers to deal with. I REALLY wanted to upgrade to the new Taycan Sport Turismo, however I travel regularly, and the EA network is a no-go. I tried it the hard way, and it is not worth it.
Welcome back.
Your comment only confirms that at this point EVs are for rich people. For most people a Porsche was never an option. Pricewise, neither is a Tesla for hoi-polloi.
@@bkucinschi average price of new sports/ luxury car is 38-45K I think. Model 3 is 42k
@@enoughofthis :With all due respect, a people's car like Corolla Hybrid is $23K. Incredible as it is, $20,000 difference still mater for some...Pure EVs are pricewise in "sports/luxury" category, as you actually mentioned.
@@bkucinschi There are plenty of other non-Porsche EVs though
Our charging experience on EA over the holidays wasn’t that bad - every charger I tried worked, there was a line at one station during a busy time, and the app froze on me once. This is the mid-atlantic region. Overall B- experience.
Awesome information, I think you need to go before congress or transportation secretary Buttigieg to voice these concerns. It's early enough that they can implement safe guards etc. For this EV CHARGING and keeping updated and viable for the future. You Kyle should be the voice as your the knowledgeable person for us all.
Hello, I made a trip from Michigan to Florida during the horrible storm last week. Left Thursday around 5pm just as snow started. We were unable to go the speed limit until Bowling Green due to snow and icy roads. Except for the -7degF temperatures and slow cold weather charging I had NO issues with EA chargers. hopefully it'll be better with warmer weather this weekend driving back. Oh FYI the Kia EV6 is a beast on slick roads! And I did use the battery preconditioning. Thanks for all the informative videos!
Which EA hardware were you using?
@@89five3five I didn't pay attention.
Hi Kyle, I am new to EV,'s I just bought my car a couple of weeks ago. Learning to charge at public stations took me a few days to get the hang of it but I was able to use the two major ones in my area in Northern LA county. Chargepoint and EVGo. I understand your point of these comapnies being able to get equipment to last and take a beating, but it also falls on us. In my experience in these last two weeks visiting public stations, I've seen individuals unhook and just drop the cables, or be to lazy to return them and toss them to the side and hit the floor. One even managed to run the cable over that someone else tossed to the side moments earlier. I get the company's should be held accountable but it falls on us too. We shouldn't be lazy and physically damage things and then complain that they are not working. Many only point out what these companies are doing wrong, but we also need to point out that many people don't care for these equipments until we need to use them. I find that wrong and we need to be more careful when using these stations.Thank you for all the content you produce and your travel videos convinced me to buy my first EV. Stay safe and continue the great work.
You said "You're only as good as the stuff you can buy". I agree and I think EA needs to start buying SLA agreements with their charger vendors. e.g. there is significant financial penalty for downtime.
They will die without that. It is business critical.
Charged my ID.4 on Christmas day in central Maryland using the Shell Recharge network, with no issues whatsoever!
Drove from Alabama to Connecticut in my Tesla during the huge cold snap. No waits, no problems charging.
Thank you for your fantastic reviews like this. You are doing more to improve the state of charging in the US than anyone else, including the Chargepoint Operators.
You are the hero we need!
Your PlugShare recommendation is what I do. If a unit is derated and I don't get the rate that I should, I log that as a Neutral rather than a Plus. They should NOT get credit for giving me a lousy charging experience.
OMG Kyle you are some man for one man. The amount of detail that you go into is unbelievably helpful to the EV community. And I'm based in Europe. I strongly suspect the big oil is behind the bad charging public network in North America. Anyway well done you.
Kyle we have a new charging provider that is really really novel, it is called Chevron on the run and it is mainly in Canada BC and Alberta is the roll out. What is SOOO different is that each charging station the owner operators are involved on site with customer service, showing how to charge, how to get the app what to do etc wow something that I think should be the standard (and really surprising here in Canada) especially on heavy holiday times as you motioned. The other polar opposite is Shell Recharge and a Canadian Petro supplier Pero-Canada, several stations are down as the owner operators have no incentive to reset breakers etc leaving the chargers down for weeks on end.
It's time for a "Charging Summit" A meeting of all charging stakeholders including networks (EV GO, EA, Chargepoint, TESLA) and the auto manufacturers. Kyle to moderate a look into the future of charging and EV Life. I'd love to hear vision, constraints and future outcomes. Love to have Government included to see their vision as well. Critical point in EV design.
SImple solution. Swallow your pride, take Tesla up on the original offer of shared information re the Tesla charging system. Make a deal and implement it. Then there is that one little matter of maintenance of the equipment. If you can't maintain it after you build it, you shouldn't be in the business.
The leadership in the Democrat party, continue to disparage, exclude and penalize Tesla. Until democrats come back around and embrace Tesla again, there will not be a Tesla and Government collaboration. To date, Tesla has not been invited to any Biden sposered EV summits the Biden adminsitartion wont even mention the name Tesla. "Government" is the problem. Lets not include them
@@johntuccy3176 Thanks John... so tragic the political situation. I really appreciate your reply!
Everybody that works for EA or EVGO should be required to drive a BEV. Make it a company car. Give them free charging. Whatever it takes. It's called eating your own dogfood.
Going on 50 now, and remember all the stumbling blocks with new tech throughout my life, including VCR's, cable TV, Atari and other gaming systems, portable cassette players, cd players, PC's, multiple operating systems, the internet, email, and the list goes on. We're living in that now with the non Tesla charging networks. I enjoy my Ioniq 5 and have level 2 at home and my current situation doesn't require epic commutes so I'm less impacted by others. It's certainly frustrating but I'm still happy to be part of the journey and a pioneer.
Agreed I'm loving my etron but I charge at home (level 2) and the few road trips I've had, I haven't had any issues with the DC fast chargers I've used (although Ocean city only had a 50KW station)
If EV ownership is the highlight of your life, it sounds pretty pathetic, lol...
@@jamesbecker3420 What is pathetic is making fun of others how they live their life. Pathetic much?
I guess you want to be positive. I look back how they promise the moon and deliver heartache and frustration. We all think maybe tomorrow it will work right but no, it is spying on us through back doors. I wonder how TVs would work and become succesful if they had such problems even radios.
Thanks Kyle for all your hard work and keeping these charging companies accountable! Especially EA because most all automakers are selling it as incentive for people to purchase their vehicles. Absolutely unacceptable for EA to getaway with this. BMW, Porsche, Lucid, Mercedes, etc. all need to put pressure on EA to get their s*** together.
Yeah, I’ve said in the past that what the car manufactures are giving away as “free charging” is not only a worthless value, it only makes the situation worse by incentivizing new EV owners to use local fast chargers in place of home chargers (which also more quickly degrades the battery).
@@toddyoung277 it's also possible that some new EV owners don't have the ability to home charge. For instance, apartment dwellers or house renters.
@@fitybux4664 Fully understood. I’ve faced that myself. My comment is about the incentive that car manufacturers are offering which is exasperating the problems of fast charging.
Keep up the good work Kyle, it looks like name-and-shame is the only way to get the problems moving forward
We had a good experience using Chargepoint and EA on a road trip from Atlanta, GA to Hilton Head, SC during Thanksgiving. One thing I'd recommend is using either virtual or physical cards to start charging (ie. Chargepoint card not a credit card). Sometimes the apps have trouble communicating with the chargers.
Kyle, I’ve appreciated your videos; I’ve learned a lot about EVs and charging in preparation for owning one. I became a first-time EV owner (Ioniq 5 AWD) this week, buying my car in central Florida and driving it back to North Carolina over New Year’s weekend. Talk about trial by fire!
The two EAs I’ve charged at were busy. At one, half the chargers were down and drivers were pointing folks like me to working chargers and sharing how close they were to finishing. At the other site, all the chargers were working - but a VanHool big-ass bus was charging on a 350 kW charger so we all had slower charge speeds. I drove this morning to a third site in Georgia, and all the chargers were online and looked to be working.
It is cool to have seen such a cool variety of EVs at the chargers - ID.4, EV 6, a Subaru Solterra (!), a Jaguar… not to mention a damn VanHool big ass bus.
Ironically the best charger was the Level 2 free charger at my hotel overnight. No authentication, no charge; old ass equipment with a few LED lights; and it worked like a charm overnight.
I am looking forward to testing out the One.And.Only Circle K DC charger today!
Good video on the current state of the EV charging infrastructure this past week Kyle; also a good idea to try and collect and collate info with Rate Your Charge too. Thanks for the overall picture but please keep up the pressure on these EV charging infrastructure companies... it just can't be a pain point to have to consider if you are going to be able to charge your car for this to take off.
Just down the road from me, we have a 19 station 72kW Tesla Supercharger. 72 kW!! It’s at Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento CA, just off Interstate 80. I got my M3SR+ in March 2021, and this was the first Supercharger I ever used. There are always cars plugged in there, and while I charge at home, as far as I know it is up and running all the time.
I’m sure it must be one of the earliest Superchargers - right on the way from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe and Reno. It’s kinda nice to have a bit of living history just down the road. 😂
Great job, Kyle. Very important issue (that poor polestar guy so frustrated just wanting to dump his EV is no good).
So far my wife has had no issue charging her VW ID.4 in trips around the Western US including some pretty remote areas, like Kolb UT. But that needs to be a universal experience for all.
Hi Kyle, great service you are doing to raise the flag...hopefully the networks are paying attention.
You may recall we spent some time talking at Fully Charged in SD, and at the EV conversion event at Red Rocks. This year, I have put over 11K miles on my 2018 Bolt on road trips, using DCFC about 100 times. Primarily, EA was the go-to for these trips, as you say the corridor access being a big part, but predictable pricing and 4+ stalls make the other networks less favorable options.
I did want to remind you, GM and EVGo are partnering with Pilot/FlyingJ on installing about 2000 stalls at Pilot/FlyingJ Travel Centers in the coming year or two. My guess is, this will be at roughly 500 of their 700 or so sites nationwide, and the program is one of the first initiatives for the EVGo Extend organization where site owners will own the equipment, but EVGo will operate and maintain. This is similar to the EA Commercial division which AZ Public Service and NY state are partnering with EA. So, this could be good news for corridor travel and put some pressure on EA.
As for my experience with EA, it has mostly been good. Sure, a few stalls were down and a few times apparently in-service units failed to initialize. But overall, I was always able to charge and would rate my success on a per stall basis as probably north of 90%. There is one problem I have had several times, in Rocky Mount and Durham, NC as well as St. George, UT and Frisco, CO having to do with app failures, specifically location services. At these sites, the EA app on my iPhone didn’t recognize I was at the EA site, RFID in Apple Wallet was impacted as well. Yet, EVs that used Plug & Charge had no issues. In all of these cases, a call to support was needed to initiate a charge, once I was on hold for 45 minutes for what ended up being a 20-minute session.
So my observation is that if EA were to adopt AutoCharge+, in addition to Plug & Charge, success rates could be improved and support calls reduced. AutoCharge+ is similar to how Tesla works, and has been a capability in the CCS protocol since inception. Every EV would be capable of using AutoCharge, even if they don’t support P&C. P&C is ultimately the way to go, but there are many CCS EVs that don’t (yet) support P&C but could use AutoCharge.
I know you and Brandon have touched on some of this in your podcasts, but maybe I can shed a little detail from research I have done about the data protocols, including how they may even apply to NACS plugs. I will send an email to give you a high-level idea of what I am referring to. It could make for an interesting discussion and I would love to hear Brandon’s take given his industry affiliation.
I have so much respect for Kyle and what he is doing and have been following this channel for a long time. What puzzles me is the difference between the US and Europe (or at least Denmark). There are plenty of chargers here, only the rural areas are still missing charging infrastructure. We didn’t see any noticeable waiting time at the chargers during Christmas and they usually all work or perhaps one Charger down for some unknown reason.
Interestingly here in Europe the superchargers that have opened to all makes using CCS are not or very rarely having the issues other networks here have. We have one network in the UK that is much better than other providers who maintain their chargers really well and even have each charger visited, cleaned and check the plugs aren't damaged and working every week. I believe the issues with everyone else is mainly down to lack of site visits and maintenance.
Is that IONITY by any chance? I only use IONITY, ar 2 specific locations, when public charging and even they aren't great. Regularly offering half the bays with free charging... but it's limited to 33kW. And when all bays are in use the speed drops dramatically even thought they are supposed to be independent, non power sharing, units. Still, they're better than everything else.
Kyle , I live in upstate NY , just took delivery of Ford Lightning 98 kWh . Put 3000 miles over 40 days , on just using 110 outlet at home and using the DC chargers in between . The Shell Recharge network started having issues on 12/23 , multiple units would not engage , c/c would not work , and app froze up. I called Greenlots /Shell Recharge over 10 times in 4 days , the entire network crashed and was closed for 3 days. I asked customer service to put me thru to Andrea’s Lips and they said she didn’t work for Shell or Greenlots. I explained Andreas was a he not a she and was the head of the company.
I would think it would be a good idea for the boss to at least be known and accessible to his team.
And you are right , these set ups have 1200 amp new entrance , three 150kw and one 350 kw units , huge expense , and a total FAIL :(
I let so many nice folks in several Rivians ,Audi E trons, Lightnings , all stranded looking for any juice they could get ,so they could limp to their destinations.
At the same time Electrify America was down , and 80% of the EV Ho chargers had issues.
I hope someone didn’t hack the networks at peak times to get the existing EV owners frustrated to swap back to ice , or Shell makes more $$ on gasoline Vs electrons and was trying to sway back.
Keep up the great videos
Great video Kyle! I went by the Tesla SC location in Mojave, CA on Memorial Day weekend and they had a Tesla employee there checking chargers to make sure they were online. I plugged into the only empty charger and it was not working. He walked up to me and said he is on the phone with a Tech and they are working on getting it back online.. This is a 1st class support that Tesla deploys that should be followed by all charging companies. I have since switched to a non tesla ev and have not done any long distance trips, but have stopped by local EA charging locations and some are super busy with Ioniq 5, Kia EV6 and ID-4's charging to 100% because its free... Clogging up the chargers the EV's need for traveling. Hopefully it gets better over the next couple of years...
I’m keeping my Tesla… that’s for sure. (And will buy another.)
As a Tesla EV owner, I just wish their service centers were operating as well as their charging network!
That EV6 probably wasn't a local charging to 100% for free because they only get 1000 kWh free. That's how it should be. I agree with you about most Ioniq 5 and ID4 drivers who abuse (misuse technically) their unlimited free charging. No one should ever give out unlimited charging cause people will just misuse it.
It's better to just give a set amount of complimentary charging not an "unlimited" amount.
In the UK the Tesla changing stations in some areas had 15 to 20 cars waiting for a charge during the Christmas break (after 25th).
Really appreciate all the work you're doing to let the network charging systems (looking at you EA) know that they really need to get their stuff together and do better. Thank you Kyle!!
Kyle, all other manufacturers other than Tesla should pay you for service you provide. I think the attention and noise you create will help charging networks get better eventually that will become car sales for these manufacturers. 👌👏
Luckily no issues here; Cheyenne to Salt lake went perfectly. Electricity America stations in Rawlins and Evanston, Wyoming worked great using my Model Y CCS adapter. Supercharger in rock springs, Wyoming was empty and worked great.
I didn't know those were open. So you can go west from Cheyenne now? That's great
Just picked up my first EV a tesla Model Y, stopped by nearest Supercharger station backed up, plugged in and it all worked. No stress, 16 chargers, watched youtube while charging. Great experience breaking my charging cherry.
I have suffered the issue of cue priority , and it’s horrible you can be charging and suddenly you can be disconnected within 5 mins be someone has prebooked. But they don’t turn up . I’m a firm believer if your there you should be able to charge as much as you want , and those that are next should be geo fenced to prevent queue jumping as well as prevent those who don’t turn up from locking the unit . I realise people do it because they may be x amount of minutes you left of there journey but if 5 people are in from the of you then they should take priority.
What network offers queuing? Are you in the US?
There's a pretty simple solution to this: the phone used to pre-book via the app should be the one that the app tracks to check your position. If you don't get anywhere near the location of the charger by the booked time then it allows people already charging to continue until you get closer.
Before we bought an EV, we watch you, Kyle on a few trips. You struggle using CCS convinced us to go Tesla.
1. You couldn’t hole you phone and film while plugging in. (Good luck if you’re somewhat feeble)
2 charging would fail for you regularly on CCS.
3. You are a cheerful person. We saw that your cheer turned to frustration while charging on CCS.
4. We have young children and like to road-trip and seeing you get frustrated without kids in the car, sealed the deal.
So what other car manufacturer will start using NACS Aptera and Tesla to use the NACS for better charging experiences.
Great info Kyle! Continue the great work you are doing on our behalf, the EV driver.
I did a road trip in my Tesla Model 3 on Christmas Eve along I76 in PA. Stopped in Somerset services both ways, there were 3 or 4 chargers not working but after moving was still able to get a spot without waiting. Did try the one in Somerset itself, that had at least 2 down, one blocked by snow that had been plowed in the corner and the others were full. I did have a separate issue of my right rear door window glass shattering while driving. Nothing hit it, just broke in the 1f weather. Seems a few others had this issue from googling. Wasn’t pleased with that as I had my dogs in the back and we had to continue a couple more hours with no window. No local shops were open to cover it due to the holidays. Thankfully dogs were buckled in so couldn’t escape.
I'll keep road tripping with ICE. Thank you very much. BEV is awesome for City/Suburban work and cheap home charging.
I used to be super enthusiastic when someone asked about our car. Now I say it's the ultimate second car. We pile on the miles, but we charge at home.
I once ran across an EA technician diagnosing a problem with a site. I mentioned that in the app one charger was listed as 50kW. He agreed that it should never say that but that all he could do is open a ticket. This anecdotally says that on site technicians do not have access to configure what is shown in the app.
Never thought all these could happen! Thanks for all the information.
.......we told you it was going to happen when the government is trying to force so many into EV's. The infrastructure is not there and the tech is not ready
Kyle, can we get you in front of Congress to let those fools know the “situation” and put some ironclad verification elements and simple accountability associated with the funding?
Thanks Kyle, this is great stuff. We made our first longer trip in our Bolt EUV over the Christmas weekend, Phoenix to Las Vegas and thankfully had no issues with the EA charger in Kingman that is really the only Fast Charging option direct between Phoenix and Vegas. Thankfully the SW just had some wind and rain and no crazy temperatures like so much of the rest of the country was experiencing. We also had free level 2 charging in the parking garage at our hotel in Vegas, so no cost to charge and run around Vegas and was able to 100% charge the morning of the trip back to Phoenix. Hard to beat $25 round trip charging cost with a 100% home charge leaving and hotel charge leaving Vegas. We did see what looked like a pre-installation of an EVGo charging station at the Pilot on US-93, but we didn't stop to take a closer look to see how far along it was.
Thank you, Kyle, for your work in bringing these DCFC issues brought to the surface. Where I live, EA is the only game in town, and they are a poorly run company!
Thanks for the chapters! Haven't got enough time to watch it all.
Hi Kyle
Great work on revealing the good and bad sides of EVs. Coming from an EV owner and enthusiast your commentary can only be considered fair and honest.
I used a 50 kW Shell Recharge station here in Columbus OH (the Meijer in Lewis Center) on Christmas Day. 48 kW observed on my Model 3 w/ CCS1 adapter. One of the stalls was offline in the app even though the stall was online, but the second one was just fine.
Fantastic, informative video Kyle. Been driving a Leaf for 2 1/2 years with 99% home charging. Was keeping the ICE car for long trips. With an IONIQ 5 on order for late spring, this makes me second guess going full electric (both vehicles) even here in Canada where cold temperatures are more of an issue. We need Kyle to do a road trip in Canada to review our infrastructure.
Thanks for the video. It confirms my thoughts on buying an EV, especially a CCS EV. Along with the cost, of course. Now is not the time, but maybe by the fall or 2023 things will be better.
From NJ to Lancaster PA via the PA Turnpike there are Tesla Superchargers at every rest stop plus they are common after you get off the Turnpike. The only CCS chargers at the Turnpike rest stops are some J1772 that maybe sort of kinda work and some Blink 'fast' chargers that definitely don't work. There are no CCS fast chargers on Rt 222 which runs from the Turnpike to Lancaster itself. It's a big fast charger desert. I would think this area is a business opportunity for EV GO, Blink or EA though they all have told me they have no interest in expanding there or upgrading their current equipment. It's a 220 mile round trip which means I would probably have to charge somewhere.
I guess I should tell my kids to become charger technicians. They will never be out a job....
Yea, this is crazy to me. I live half hour east of Lancaster, and there's just not much out this way. Around Philadelphia, most of the malls have a 350kw fast charger, that's it. There are some 150kws scattered around, but even they're sparse. But almost every rest stop has a Tesla charger.
I just swapped my Tesla for a Rivian, so I'm banking on the infrastructure getting better, but it's kinda bleak around here at the moment.
I’m glad I bought a Tesla in 2017 and have done several cross country trips with no issues. A few times I saw non teslas trying to charge on CCs and they looked frustrated.
@Kyle. Love your videos! Thanks for this in depth look at the holiday week. You asked for us to share out road trip experiences, so here's ours: We took our 2022 Standard range Mach e from Fillmore CA to Grants Pass Oregon right after Christmas and had an uneven experience but pretty good on EA, though a couple issues. We drove I5 the whole way. The trip would normally take about 13 hours including stops. It took us 16 to get there and 15.5 to get back (705 mile trip). Weather was a HUGE factor coming home on New Years Eve. We had to do a whole extra charge due to lower efficiency (high cross wind for a couple hours in the southern part of the Central Valley, and So. Much. Rain.). On the way up, we had three charging issues. One of the old EA chargers in Sacramento charged at about half power which we didn't realize until we returned to our car) so we lost a half hour. Then, Ford had us stop at a TA charger (Shell Recharge network). Only one charger there, and it did not work at all. We ended up at a Charge Point station up the road at 9% (yikes!) with 3 DC fast chargers. The first two didn't work, but the third one did. The charger was having trouble getting a good seal, we think. Once we cleaned and dried the port, the third charger worked, but the whole process lost us a lot of time. One shout out to EA is for the new station in Kettleman City. 10 brand new stations with a solar awning and everything worked excellently.
After that experience, we decided to plot an EA only course on the way back and did a lot better. We stopped in Yreka and Anderson. Older EA stations, but worked excellently. Then in Dunnigan, we had another slow charger, but this time we noticed, so we switched to a different unit and got a normal charge from there. We only lost 15 minutes or so. Next stops were Patterson and Harris Ranch. Both great experiences. Final stop at Raju Countryside Market required moving to a second charger, but other than that fine. The first charger, that didn't work for us, worked for a VW ID4 afterwards, so I think it was a software handshake problem for us in the Ford. A guy in a Lightning said he had the same issue. If it hadn't been for the weather, we'd have made it home in very good time I think. Food and bathroom facilities were available at every stop.
So... if I had it to do over again, I'd get an extended range car (call it a newbie mistake), I'd charge on EA the whole way, and I'd go when the sun was shining. But the stations did work as advertised overall. BTW, we never had to wait for a charger. I thought that was interesting.
Hence why I bought a Bolt EUV. It is a great low cost EV commuter vehicle. I can charge at home and travel my day to day without needing DC fast charging. For now the Honda Odyssey is the go to for family trips. Probably going to buy a second Bolt EUV as my wife loves it. The van will sit primarily for trips.
Same here. We have a VOLT. BOLT EUV and a VW Atlas. Up here in Western NY we get hammered with snow, so we need a vehicle that can handle winter. If I need to road trip, we would use the VW. We're not gonna break our heads with this charging mess. Gas pumps work and they're everywhere.
I absolutely LOVE the idea that we all need to do a better job of recording our charging experiences in a much more detailed fashion. Can you imagine how we could expedite the change necessary by these charging systems and operators if there was a huge influx of specific data being captured and relayed about charging issues at specific units/locations?! As a Tesla owner, I have been very fortunate to have avoided ANY issues with this, but I will absolutely do this in the rare instances that I use a CCS charger. The work that Kyle and Branden do is amazing, and very appreciated. Thanks fellas!!!
Outstanding work, Kyle! I live in Toronto, Canada. Love it if you could have a look at our country's performance in the EV arena as well. We're pretty friendly up here so will welcome you :)
We have a 21 M3 SR+ LFP & a 22 MYP, we are fully electric. We sold our 19 Toyota Tundra and 15 Yukon Denali & haven’t looked back since. We gone on a ton of road trips in both vehicles and have never had any issues AT ALL! We live in the Florida panhandle and travel both to Tampa, Charleston SC, & to the Gulfport MS area. There is a massive need for me chargers on the MS gulf coast, however with family members there, we just trickle charge at their house. The nearest station is in D’iberville. Honestly, we don’t even look at anything but Tesla superchargers. WE LOVE OUR TESLAS! Thanks for doing so many videos Kyle! I’ve followed your videos for a while now. Tesla truly is the gold standard.
Our local supercharger here in Canada has been garbage lately with the cold. I had to try to plug in 5 times before I got it to work. I've been using a charger at a grocery store and using my ccs adapter more frequently because it's been more dependable.
Electrify Canada has been the only one I have yet to get to work.
I charged at about 10 degrees f last weekend at a superchargers. Most stalls were taken and all were working fine.
I think one of the things that helps Tesla be so reliable on their charging network is the simplicity of it. At the dispenser where you park your car it's just a cable and a connector and a cooling loop all of which is inside. So the only way it can really not work is if any of those three items are damaged. Most of the other providers there's a touch screen and point of sale a credit card reader RFID etc. And software in that machine that if it's glitching it won't let you start the charge. As long as all the hardware at the parking stall is working on a Tesla it talks to the car and that talks to the network and starts the charge so the simplicity of the Tesla's design probably reinforces the reliability of the charging experience. Whereas the other providers you add a whole bunch of extra complication if the software glitches if the screen doesn't work if the credit card reader doesn't work then you can't charge.
Here's a problem I encounter with superchargers all the time: the minor inconvenience of having to move my model y to avoid idle fees because the car finished charging faster than I could finish eating my meal! I sometimes bias towards the older 150kw superchargers to avoid this issue, especially if I'm having lunch at a sit down restaurant with my parents or wife.
I nearly ran into this on my last Vegas trip. Carls JR took so long with my lunch that I was at 99% when I got back to the car 🤣 V3 chargers rock
I think it would be hard for Tesla to have a thing that connects in the connector automatically, but what about an automatic disconnect ability? Then the car can just drive itself out of the way of someone else that wants to charge. 😆
Tesla drivers. Central Texas to Prosper, TX then on to Pagosa Springs, CO to ski at Wolf Creek. Every Tesla Supercharger worked great. The head winds and cold temps really zapped the battery in the Y, but the 3 did great. There's no supercharger in Pagosa so we used a Chargepoint DC fast charger on our way into town, and it worked also. After a few trips up to the resort in the Y, we needed another charge at the Chargepoint charger today (Dec 29th) and both of the fast chargers were "Unavailable." Called the phone number that occasionally flashed on the screen and got a phone rep quickly. He rebooted both stations, and they came back online. He gave us a free charging session for our troubles. Got a dose of the CCS network, and really appreciate the Superchargers. Tesla needs a way to preheat the batteries without having to set the destination to a supercharger. Had to plug in to the CCS with the battery cold because it's not listed as a charging location in the nav computer. Thanks for the video Kyle, great job!
I have been charging our Jeep as a bonus at the Electric Vehicle & Roadway research facility at USU lately! Good R&D happening these days, fun times. Will have to log visits on PlugShare consistently.
I appreciate the coverage. We went from Denver to NH in an EV6 during this storm and it was absolutely miserable. Electrify America is a joke. Multiple software failures, multiple calls to support, it is a miracle we didn't get stranded.
On top of the EA issues, the Kia EV6 in North America desperately needs the battery conditioning update so that it doesn't take an hour+ to charge in freezing temperatures.
Even more, hotels need to clearly state the electric charging availability or have some method of reserving chargers. Let alone the number of times we saw gas cars park in front of the EV chargers overnight.
I was planning on taking the family to the Oregon coast this week. I was going to leave with just enough charge to get there. I'm really glad I checked before we left, because 3 of 4 EA chargers are out. Not enough time to charge at home and go for the day, so day at the coast cancelled/postponed.
ouch is that the EA in warrenton?
Newport. Going to get eyes on tomorrow!
Chargepoint seems to be the main (non Tesla) network in Mi. I traveled 600miles mostly via freeway last friday/Saturday within Michigan and had no problems getting charged on their stations, in a Bolt. There either aren't many EA stations here or they just aren't where I travel. So big ups to chargepoint for sturdy tech. Could use cover though. That snow sucked, I'm not looking forward to early spring freezing rain.
The fastest charger used during the single digit Christmas week was a volta 50kw. Charged at 51kwh . Ev go 350 was 44kwh and 43kwh on a 150kwh electrify America
EA 350 charges being down in FLORIDA where there is zero snow is insane. Absolutely ridiculous it would be down.
I really hope we see some automakers adopt the NACS chargeport and gain access to the supercharger network
Or a NACS -> CCS adapter will come out. 😆
Thanks for the work, that you guys have been doing on this. Very very important.
Great update Kyle. I had a bad experience on the way back from the Dallas Rivian service center. I had issue charging in Fort Worth at EA so I saw an EVGo on I-20 in a small town on my way and stopped there. There was a family in an VW ID4 trying to charge on the only 'rapid' charger on the unit and the lady said I don't know how to do this, and I just blurted out 'that is a shame, since it is your car.' I was already out of patience with the EA issue and needed to get moving. So I gave it one attempt to help them explaining they needed the card or the APP for it to work. Then just left as I needed to cover over 300 miles to get home. I just don't know how someone would get on a trip without knowing where chargers were and what they needed to make them all work.
A partial solution to the charging problems would be to have charging stations at the dealerships. They could maintain them better, have a tech or techs on-site and it would certainly show customers that the dealers and car manufacturers stand behind their commitment to EV’s. And it would ensure customers would be seeing the new cars on the lot consistently. Get eyeballs on-site.
Hearing about those problems really concerns me about converting over to EV
I had a different experience in Buffalo, NY superchargers on Dec 25 afternoon, the home of superchargers. There are 2 SC in Buffalo area, both inaccessible with 3+ ft of snow & no snow cleaning equipment around to open up the access roads. I got stranded due to no access to chargers & had to stay overnight there on my drive back home to Toronto. The next evening, Dec26 , still road to the Buffalo SC was not cleaned as per another person I met on the Cheektowaga SC. There were 8 stalls there, only 2 of those operating, 1 still out of access as there was 4+ft of snow in front of that. One of the other person who came to charge actually dug out the one before the last stall & found that not operational. This area is a common stop for people driving in from Toronto or driving out to Toronto. There was no tech on site, my tweet to Tesla & Tesla Chargers had no response until now. So I would say I was disappointed. I had to stay over 2 nights in Buffalo just due to the SC fiasco where only 2 of the 16 stalls in 2 SCs actually worked.
Owning an EV in a co!d/snowy climate is the closest thing to trying to fly Southwest this week...
Great Job Kyle. You guys are becoming the Ralph Nader of EV charging. Keep up the great work.
That EVgo station was serviced a week ago, I know, I went there to activate charge+ and still el nopo LOL. Chargepoint is weird, in FL turnpike they operate chargers in conjunction with FPL and if you do not have the FPL charging app, good luck trying to pay with the touchscreen
Hey Kyle, thanks for all your effort helping to get charging to a better place than it is right now. I hope it lights a fire under those who need to address the issues. Great videos. Keep up the good work. I enjoy your dad too. He's a good example of those of us experiencing the same things as we do.
This is always what I discuss when someone talks about getting an EV other than Tesla. If you want to road trip at all then it's much more difficult in everything outside of a Tesla right now. Even in California I rarely have to wait because there is another charger just down the road. Queueing would be nice as well. I think that if the chargers were built more like Costco gas stations where you pull up and charge and there are multiple lines, and you hope you are in the quicker one instead of just a row at the back of a parking lot like so many are. You could literally transform a gas station at a Safeway or another grocery store to this format. Look at Buccee's and other places like that, just mimic it for EV usage as well. Long enough cables to hit both sides of the car. That also fixes the trailer pull through because they could have 1 or 2 for that.
I would counter that with the level of tech available we could build a better queuing system based on the cars electronics and geo positioning rather than copying a system designed for gas/diesel vehicles over a century ago.
I am a Tesla owner since 2019, I Never ever had any issue with Supercharging stations. 99.95% of the time I find an available spot for charge my TSLA.
I really really hope the fix’s this because I want a future
I’m impressed how Kyle was able to execute this in one take, scarcely taking a breath or getting distracted by a passing car as so often happens! Yes, this CCS systemic charging system collapse is lamentable-but, then, so is Southwest Airlines’. When you think about how little has been invested by the public charging networks in monitoring and upkeep, these events should be no surprise. (This will be addressed…) That said, the overwhelming majority of EV charging is done at home chargers, and EV owners like me won’t let this hysteria deter us from the virtues of EV ownership.
This really discourages me to get an electric vehicle just yet. I want to get the incentive but the unreliability of the networks makes me want to wait on going electric. Because I don’t own a home and don’t have the ability to charge at home nor do I want a Tesla. Great video as always.
Makes me a bit more reassured that I live in EU and it all works a little bit better here in my experience
Rightly so. Consider some good new PHEVs if occasional/short drives in electric mode are of interest to you as it is to us with a Rubicon 4xe (off-road capable).
So you don't want to buy the best vehicle for road trips.
Have a Tesla.
Over 80 percent of milage is on road trips.
No issue.
Would not consider another EV
I would think many times before buying an EV if I could not charge at home.
@@thomaswilson2917 Great point, I'm really hoping the best for the roll out of the Tesla Cybertruck next year, with great utility and off-road capacility along with road trip feasibility as with other Tesla models.
Doing a great job, I hope this will help to hold these companies accountable since they can't feign ignorance to all of these RateyourCharge users!
My parents just got stuck in Gretna Green driving North into Scotland in their Tesla after Tebay was also chockablock. They gave up and got a hotel for the night. I did DC-Boston on Thanksgiving weekend and got routed through some pretty weird superchargers, but made it home without any real issues.
Just completed a long 10 charge stop trip from Lewiston ID to Fort Collins CO on the Tesla network. One handshake issue in Butte Wyoming that was resolved in 10 seconds. No other problems to report.
Really hoping ccs1 charging gets taken more seriously for my fellow ev drivers.
Is Rate Your Charge going to take any experiences from European drivers?
I wouldn’t think he would oppose it. The more countries the better
We’re on a 1000 mile road trip in the R1T from central Illinois to central Florida. Had good luck with electrify America in Paducah and Nashville areas. A lot of gaps between Nashville and Atlanta. Used EV Go in Calhoun, Georgia north of Atlanta keep shutting down after 7 minutes so we had to restart 5 times and talk to support 2 times. Had my best experience ever at Walk in the Woods Preserve near Tampa. Chargers worked great and got to see a Lucid, Porsche and Lincoln while charging the R1T. Slow charging now at a camp ground.
Maybe get one in 5 or 10 years, we will see.
My wife and I are 75+, we have a model Y and have put 20K miles on it since February no charging problems. We are in Boulder and travel to VT, NC, northern CA and Az. Problems with phantom braking persist and diminished range at below 20 degrees. We really like the car.
You didn't specify if you charged on public chargers using an adapter or Tesla Superchargers, or a mixture. I'm guessing only Superchargers?
We used superchargers but have ccs adapter and was able to charge in Boulder at electrify America as a test.
@@malcolmbrown7388 Awesome, thanks for the additional detail and congrats on your Model Y. Wish you many years of fun and safe driving - and reliable long distance charging.
Now I don't drive an EV but its possible that the High Output Chargers were disabled at the request of the power company to help keep the grid stable during the harsh weather we had. Even here in Alabama they had to do mandatory rolling blackouts for the same reason. Just a thought on the Stations being down at the beginning of the video. We already know out power grid is not capable of supplying the amount of power needed for mass adoption of EVs.
At a supercharger this morning someone was parked perpendicularly, blocking off three chargers. Fortunately there were still plenty of others to choose from but I was flabbergasted.
I have a Tesla model Y. My family and I went from Southern California to Las Vegas during the holiday week, had no problem charging. On the way to the Primm chargers, there was a 5min wait but by the time we arrived, there were at least 6 spots open so we didn’t wait at all. Love Tesla.
Yep, that was me. I am away from home in Minneapolis with my 2022 model X. Staying at an Airbnb and parking on the street in sub zero weather was not fun. I turned off Sentry mode and was still losing 6% a day. Warming up the car and going 2 miles was about 10% charge. Then at 30% and minus 10deg F I drove to a Supercharger and it would work, like your video, would not latch, connect or charge. I called Tesla and they were about to come out but after trying 4 chargers I got one to work. Why the other three wouldn’t, no idea.
Appreciate your research Kyle! As a current Tesla owner with a reservation for a Rivian coming soon, I'm learning a lot from your videos about the unfortunate issues associated with nonTesla charging networks. I've owned my Tesla since 2017 and I'm blessed to say I have never had a charging issue that has left me stranded during a road trip (fingers crossed). I hope by the time I get my Rivian (unknown 2024 ETA) the charging network issues would mostly be resolved thanks in part to your dedicated reporting.
Great stuff, Kyle. Only one small gripe: you referred to charging stations several times as "charge points" which sounds like you're referring to the ChargePoint network. Could be a little confusing -- it had me wondering the first few times you did it if you were talking about ChargePoint units.
As you and your dad point out, the state of the EA charging infrastructure is abysmal, though. I feel sorry for the ETron owner you mentioned who is going to sell his car... that's a real shame.