[jpuffmasterpuffpuffpuff69]

Originally Posted by smatanovic

This presupposes that one can park and charge at home. That is not the case for many people who live in a city.

If I lived in a dense city where I couldn't have a garage, I'd not get an EV quite yet, or I'd even not have a car.

I lived for a bit in Hawaii with a Model Y and no charging at home. It was a fun game to play for a few months, but I'd not do that long term.

Originally Posted by cruzer666

EV's are not for everyone, if you can't charge at home you probably shouldn't get an EV, unless you want to hate EV's shortly after buying one. "But I have a charger at work" strategy is a bad one.

This.

[smatanovic]

Originally Posted by cruzer666

EV's are not for everyone, if you can't charge at home you probably shouldn't get an EV, unless you want to hate EV's shortly after buying one. "But I have a charger at work" strategy is a bad one.

I rely exclusively on the public charging infrastructure: I don't have a charger at home or work. NEVER going back to an ICE car. To each their own, I guess.

[WABIM66]

Need those Build Back Better, IRA, DOT or whatever to get off their infrastructure promising arshes since whoever reneged on the tax incentive. Not certain how much longer EA is legally or financially bound the VW settlement but most likely not in perpetuity. What's to stop them from packing up their schtuff once that date comes then what? Sucks having the short ones pulled eh?..ouch!

[therealm3]

I have wondered for awhile now if the fact that EA was forced into existence, rather than something that someone wanted to build is why they are so bad. What incentive do they have to be better or have a good product? They are just checking the boxes with as little effort as possible based on what they are forced to do from the settlement.

We have had mixed results with our other ev's on EA. Some places it works great and is seamless. And others it's a nightmare. 45 min in 107 degree heat trying to get a single charger to work at a station of 8 sucks.

[mlanes01]

Originally Posted by smatanovic

I rely exclusively on the public charging infrastructure: I don't have a charger at home or work. NEVER going back to an ICE car. To each their own, I guess.

You must really like overpaying for electricity

[WABIM66]

Originally Posted by deutsch100

This is 100% our experience at EVERY E.A. charger we have tried. The time spent just trying to get one to work, is about the same time to fully fill 3 gas tanks! E.A. is disgusting!

ChargePoint is just as bad. I'd say 75% or more of their handles, the clip is snapped off, so even if the actual charge unit works, you cannot plug in. One local station has had ALL 3 ChargePoint handles broken since June 2022. It is now Nov. 10th. All 3 still broken!

Honestly, can you imagine if fuel stations had this many broken and malfunctioning pumps?

Agree, for giggles I did a drive by at a few Charge Points pair of chargers, many advertised for free but at 6.5 kW or even 3.3 kW and one can't complain about cost even at $0.80 for 2 hours, decent for an emergency boost, but who has that time to get 10 miles? And the locations are almost worse than Walmart lots, especially with ICE blockers who have no respect.

When we get the Genius and CA handoff, will suggest BMW clear out a few pre-owned and build a island or two of charger banks on their lots as a gesture of thanks.

[voxel]

Originally Posted by smatanovic

I feel like the quality of the EA network VERY is region-specific. Most of the complaints Ive read online seem to come from the west coast. Out East, the network is pretty robust.

I've been driving between Philadelphia and Boston fairly often recently, and charged at nearly every EA station between those cities due to traffic-dependent routing. The only stop where Ive had problems is the Walmart in Manchester, CT, where Ive consistently found half the chargers to be offline. Other than that, it's been smooth sailing.

Locally (Philadelphia), I've used the the Quartermaster Plaza, Cherry Hill NJ Target, and KoP Mall stations the most, and never had an issue. I am eagerly awaiting the Delaware Ave station (it's built but not yet online), as it's closest to my home and will be very convenient when charging for a longer trip (I cannot charge at home).

EA is very spotty in Florida. Some machines here will overheat and shutdown in the afternoon in summer. I’ve owned numerous CCS EVs and basically avoid EA if possible.

Thankfully we have utility companies setup and build chargers along the turnpike and I-95.

Tesla Superchargers here are slammed but they are pretty reliable.

[mlanes01]

You can tell that EA is sorta clueless on their strategy. Why would you put 4 chargers in the most random places. Also when they do the weird staggered parallel stations such that everyone has to park in weird orientations often in the wrong spot to accommodate their charging port instead of just pulling in or backing in. I can't wait for Tesla to get ccs chargers. On a road trip there would be so much time saved being able to just pull into a rest stop and charge for ten mins then jump back on the thruway. Also crazy that Kia and vw are giving 3 years free ea on 30k cars...but BMW gave us 2

[smatanovic]

Originally Posted by mlanes01

You must really like overpaying for electricity

I haven’t paid much of anything given the EA promotion that came with the car. I don’t really have an option; my house was built in the 1780’s and is 9 ft wide. It’s barely wide enough for people, let alone a car.

[Nonsuch]

There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions."

Originally Posted by mlanes01

…Also crazy that Kia and vw are giving 3 years free ea on 30k cars...but BMW gave us 2

[mlanes01]

Originally Posted by smatanovic

I haven’t paid much of anything given the EA promotion that came with the car. I don’t really have an option; my house was built in the 1780’s and is 9 ft wide. It’s barely wide enough for people, let alone a car.

The best part of electric cars is charging in your garage and never going to a public charger when you can avoid it. I found that roughly the cost of two tanks of gas was covering my whole months worth of electricity doing about 2k miles/month.
You really only want to rely on EA for road trips not daily driving. Free charging is nice but if everyone over uses the network it's always busy and broken when you need it.
That being said you should just do an outdoor setup or run the cable under your garage door to the car. Even if you have an older panel 30 amps is all you need to charge pretty efficiently over night. Especially if you live somewhere cold you can start your precondition plugged in and not loose any range and step into a nice toasty cabin.

Also the charge point is deploying nice fast chargers in a lot of routes. I saw in Maine they have 350kw units in Kennebunk and at least 50kw in a lot of plazas and roadside stops. Evgo seems to have a ton of locations too but their stuff is kinda old infrastructure and anywhere that is ppm you want to avoid bc the cost is so high

[smatanovic]

Originally Posted by mlanes01

That being said you should just do an outdoor setup or run the cable under your garage door to the car. Even if you have an older panel 30 amps is all you need to charge pretty efficiently over night. Especially if you live somewhere cold you can start your precondition plugged in and not loose any range and step into a nice toasty cabin.

You missed the part where I said my house is 9 ft wide and I don't have a garage.

[kbsilver]

Just did a 1500 mile round trip using EA chargers. You do need to check their app as with their upgrade process entire stations are taken off-line for a month or more. The BMW nav will happily route you to a closed station. For the most part I had no issues charging and only had to wait for a charger once. I did see a pattern that many of the older 350KW chargers are the ones that are broken. The 150's seem to be more reliable and I end up consistently getting higher charge rates from them than any of the 350's.

In one location (Allentown PA), the two 150's were in use and the two 350's did not work. One had a message on the screen it was out of service and the other just did nothing when connected to the car. I called and they said the one was broken with a hardware issue, and they rebooted the other. AMI Megatrends BIOS MB running Windows, after the reboot it worked fine. Good thing as there were 4 other cars waiting at that point.

I noticed that on a newer "rebuilt" station the chargers are located in the middle of an isle with a longer cord. In this manner you only need to worry about which side your charger port is on as the cord will reach front or back. This eliminates a lot of the backing in. Unlike the past, on this trip the virtual EA card in my iPhone wallet worked every time.

[mbchris]

Originally Posted by kbsilver

I called and they said the one was broken with a hardware issue, and they rebooted the other. AMI Megatrends BIOS MB running Windows, after the reboot it worked fine. Good thing as there were 4 other cars waiting at that point.

Isn't this bad? There shouldn't have to be a long wait for 4 cars.

If I'm understanding this correctly, you say it's good since you were lucky. But by law of large numbers, it's likely that some other time you'll be unlucky given the odds.

I guess for anyone to be inconvenienced once in 1500 miles may not be too bad. But I'm not sure many people would be fine with that, if they needed to be someone on time and didn't allow for an extra 2 hours say in chargers being unavailable. Which seems like the approach that needs to be taken for now.

[kbsilver]

When discussing EV's I explain to people a trip WILL take longer than in an ICE vehicle and you need to do much more planning. If a person cannot deal with this, then an EV is not for them.

Everyone is harping on EA, only because it's free right now. Once you have to pay there are many other networks to choose from, soon including Tesla which will reduce the delays and anxiety.

I've summed up long distance driving in an Electric Vehicle as the three B's.

• Bladder
• Back
• Battery

I need to stop to go to the bathroom or stretch the kinks out of my back way before I need to charge the battery (yes I'm a senior). If you can combine all 3 in one stop, that's your win-win, and maybe even get something to eat.

[mlanes01]

Originally Posted by kbsilver

When discussing EV's I explain to people a trip WILL take longer than in an ICE vehicle and you need to do much more planning. If a person cannot deal with this, then an EV is not for them.

Everyone is harping on EA, only because it's free right now. Once you have to pay there are many other networks to choose from, soon including Tesla which will reduce the delays and anxiety.

I've summed up long distance driving in an Electric Vehicle as the three B's.

Bladder
Back
Battery


I need to stop to go to the bathroom or stretch the kinks out of my back way before I need to charge (yes I'm a senior). If you can combine all 3 in one stop, that's your win-win, and maybe even get something to eat.

Not a senior but agree with you. It's a weird benefit of an ev driving more than 300 miles without stopping to stretch, walk or pee is bad for just about everyone

[sqexpress]

My experience: Every single fast charging network in America (EA, blink, chargenow) is a joke, except Tesla's supercharger network. (Tesla cars, on the other hand, have its own issues, which prevents wider adoption)This is mostly due to the incompetence of US politicians. The bulky CCS combo connector, coupled with poor infrastructure and management, are key problems preventing wider EV adoption. America is just NOT ready for EVs!

[voxel]

Originally Posted by sqexpress

My experience: Every single fast charging network in America (EA, blink, chargenow) is a joke, except Tesla's supercharger network. (Tesla cars, on the other hand, have its own issues, which prevents wider adoption)This is mostly due to the incompetence of US politicians. The bulky CCS combo connector, coupled with poor infrastructure and management, are key problems preventing wider EV adoption. America is just NOT ready for EVs!

Why is the problem of US politicians? We are in a free market society and a fairly low tax country so don’t expect heavy government subsidies. This is a private industry issue. Tesla has built out reliable chargers so why can’t BMW, Ford, GM, Hyundia, Kia, VW, etc?

[mbchris]

Originally Posted by voxel

Tesla has built out reliable chargers so why can’t BMW, Ford, GM, Hyundia, Kia, VW, etc?

Because they are choosing a different route. No company has unlimited resources.

Tesla needed to have the infrastructure in order to help early adopters, otherwise demand for their cars would be much smaller. The other automakers don't want to invest like Tesla into that approach. But instead are counting on government/other enterprises to fill that gap. It's not cheap building out EV charging infrastructure, and I don't think any of them could afford to do it without taking on debt like Tesla did, or would be allowed to do it by their boards. Also consider the new EV companies. Like Rivian. No manufacturer is building out their own EV infrastructure.

[unfoundnemo]

Originally Posted by mlanes01

Not a senior but agree with you. It's a weird benefit of an ev driving more than 300 miles without stopping to stretch, walk or pee is bad for just about everyone

Same here, I think I mentioned it elsewhere, but I thought DAPP and massaging seats in my X7 was the cure for driver's fatigue on long journeys. I have neither in my i4 and am just as happy on arrival.

I also realized that in a 300 mile trip in the X7, I'm not planning at all and end up stopping once for gas and twice for coffee which amounts to more than 30 min combined anyway... the only real "planning" I do for such a trip in the i4... is putting a coffee in an insulated tumbler before I leave.