First Name | Susan |
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Last Name | Van Liere |
Email Address | Susan@susanvl.com |
Affiliation | Compass Realtor |
Subject | The public charging experience is getting worse, not better! |
Comment | I am not an industry insider - I'm just a consumer, but I'm a Realtor and huge proponent of Electrification and green energy. I've promoted green and energy efficient practices throughout my 20+ year career. Naturally, I was thrilled to get my 1st EV 3 years ago. The car, a Volvo, been my pride and joy, and also a centerpiece of my marketing. Driving it is one of the best ways I can improve our air quality and be part of the solution to our air quality issues. I've encouraged colleages and friends to buy EVs, one main issue has become a bigger and bigger problem, and that's the public charging experience. I have gone from being a total EV advocate to recommending them with a big caveat - I now warn people that EV's (at least non tesla EVs) can be very problematic on road trips. My overriding concern is that this issue is really compelling potential EV converts to stay in there gas powered vehicles. Over the past 3 years, even as more high speed chargers become available, the actual charging experience has deteriorated - so called "high speed chargers" do not charge at full capacity, and many are down and not working. A trip I took to from SF to Palm Springs 2.5 years ago took about 8.5 hours. The charging stations were efficient and worked as needed. The same trip took over 3 hours longer the following year, all due to charging issues (the process at Harris Ranch, for example, was way slower and more problematic for non tesla owners). I don't take road trips that frequently, and I am more and more wary about taking any trips in an EV, even though more and more money is being poured into public EV chargers. That's a terrible progression of events. A very telling example is the my most recent "road trip," a simple trip from SF to the Lake Tahoe area, which should have been smooth and simple, requiring only one charge midway. I pulled into an updated, seemingly well-maintained charging area with multiple high speed charging stations - 2 of them were in use but a few others were available. The first charger I use would not work. I had problems using my charge card, even though I'm registered with EA. After multiple tries to get it working with no success, I moved to a second charger. It didn't work either - I called EA's customer service, and before I knew what she was doing, she had rebooted my charger, a process that took about 10 minutes to complete. Once it was finally charging, NOT at the full high speed capacity, but at reasonable kw charge, I left the car to get a coffee next door. When I checked the app on my phone a few minutes later, the charge had dropped to well below 50kw, increasing the charging time very significantly. As a result, I left for my seminar with a much lower charge than I needed/ expected to have. I arrived LATE to my conference with below a 10% charge - it was a really scary experience to drive in the mountains with such a low charge. In my mind, there is no reason/excuse for this simple charging stop to take so long and be so inefficient. What guarantees do we have that Electrify America will address these issues and improve this experience? How can they be monitored and held accountable for the performance of their charging stations before we pour more money into their facilities? The future of EV use is on the line and currently, Electrify America is part of the problem, not the solution. |
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Date and Time Comment Was Submitted | 2024-01-25 10:24:16 |
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