Electric cars are doomed if fast charger reliability doesn’t get better

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/07...nt-get-better/

Electric cars are doomed if fast charger reliability doesn’t get better

If every driver has a horror story about charging, adoption is going to stall.

Jonathan M. Gitlin - 7/13/2022, 6:20 PM

In many regards, electric vehicles are clearly better than the internal combustion engine-powered relatives they will eventually replace. They're quieter, they rattle and vibrate less, they accelerate faster, and they're much more efficient because they can recover energy under braking. And their batteries should last for the life of the car as well as a gasoline engine does. But I'm increasingly convinced that EV adoption is going to run into real problems if we can't get a handle on charger reliability.

Even the biggest EV enthusiasts can't ignore the fact that it takes a lot longer to recharge a battery than fill a tank with liquid hydrocarbons—even when that battery is connected to a very high-voltage DC fast charger. For about two-thirds of American car buyers—those who have somewhere at home to charge overnight—this isn't a problem most of the time. On average, people only drive 29 miles a day, so even short-range EVs should actually meet the needs of most drivers.

That's the purely rational take, anyway.

But it's impossible to divorce oneself from the cultural context of the car, now tightly bound to the American sense of identity following decades of post-war construction that reshaped our built environment to prioritize the individual driver against all others. A car means freedom—being able to travel from coast to coast on a whim—and stopping to charge every 150–250 miles becomes an impediment to that freedom. And the fact remains that in 2022, if you want to travel far enough that you need to plug in during your trip, you're in for a headache.

Just plan first, right?

At this point, some of the more EV-comfortable readers might be thinking, "Nah, you just need to plan properly." Certainly, proper planning is essential, and often the most direct route is not possible due to charging station locations. Thankfully, there are some helpful apps like PlugShare and A Better Route Planner that make planning relatively simple—at least compared to the old days of paper road atlases—and most EVs' onboard navigation systems are aware of chargers. Many will also take your efficiency into account to route you most efficiently to your destination via charging stops.

Finding a charger isn't actually the problem, though, even if it adds another 50 miles to your road trip. According to the Department of Energy's Alternative Fueling Station Locator, there are 1,433 Tesla Supercharger locations and another 4,564 public DC fast charger locations that use the CCS plug, which will charge basically every EV on sale other than a Tesla or a Nissan Leaf.

Between networks like Electrify America and plans from the White House, as a nation, we're spending billions on expanding EV charging infrastructure.

No, the problem is whether or not any of the chargers will be working when you arrive. (Unless you're driving a Tesla, since Superchargers are painless to use and appear to be extremely reliable.)

Man plans, universe laughs

And at this point, I owe the universe an apology. A few weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal published a piece about an EV road trip gone awry. The headline says it all: "I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping."

As a smug EV evangelist and self-proclaimed EV expert, I rolled my eyes. "They just didn't plan well enough," I thought to myself, not realizing I was merely hoisting myself on my own petard. A few weeks later, it was time to drive from DC to Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes region of New York, this time in a BMW iX. And despite plenty of planning, I still spent almost as much time stationary, arguing with charging machinery, as I did actually pulling electrons into the car's battery pack throughout the 600-mile journey.

At each charging stop, in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York, I ran into problems. A five-minute wait to see if the car and charger would establish communications was invariably the case. Waiting 10 minutes was not uncommon. Even then, there was no time to relax; more than once, an error somewhere in the loop shut everything down after just a few kWh.

Only one of six charging stops was painless, and I found similar problems whether the station was operated by Electrify America or Shell Recharge. Frustration often got the better of me and I berated the white monoliths, channeling the spirit of Basil Fawlty to summon down all manner of ills upon them and their circuitry, to my shame. (But seriously, it's all just so opaque. Why don't they just bloody work?)

Then there was the problem of whether or not all of the chargers at a given location were even functional. At one EA station with a Plugshare rating of 9.8, two of four chargers were completely inoperable and a third was reduced to just 50 kW. Four days later, nothing had changed other than its Plugshare rating, which had increased by 0.2 points to the maximum score of 10, with a note in italics about the reduced-power machine.

If you're lucky, you get to the charger when no one else is around, and maybe you're recharging your battery before the third anxious EV arrives on the scene and joins the wait. More likely, you're on the phone with tech support. Hopefully you're not shouting at the gizmos.

Both Electrify America's and Shell Recharge's technical people are looking into their data to see if they can find anything specific about any or all of the problems. The most useful piece of technical advice came from the person on the other end of the EA support phone line.

The representative told me to hold the charging handle up once it was connected to the car rather than let the weight of the cable pull it down. The CCS cable and handle are hefty old things, much larger than the more elegant Supercharger plug. I'm beginning to think it's too heavy, or maybe carmakers are not making their charge ports robust enough, because I think a lot of these communication errors come from the plug weighing down and one or more pins losing their connection.

(Other drivers trying unsuccessfully to charge their own EVs at the same time received similar advice, which suggests it's not just a problem with the BMW's socket.)

These are all anecdotes, of course, but add in the WSJ's experience and the litany of stories cataloged in this piece at Autoweek, and it's obvious there's a real problem here.

97 percent uptime is the goal. I wonder what the current industry average is?

Ford is taking a proactive approach to the problem with its Charge Angels initiative. This involves a fleet of EVs that visit chargers that are part of the Ford Pass network (which combines 13,500 chargers from multiple operators) and show up in the navigation or mobile app for a Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, or E-Transit.

"What we have is a fleet of vehicles out in public, charging. We've got a couple of different vehicle data recorders on them and they're capturing data live. We're doing charge authentication for the Ford Pass app. We're doing it through plug-and-charge [also known as ISO 15118]. We're doing it through credit card, and we're doing it through the charge network's app—through all the authentication methods," said Matt Stover, Ford's director for charging and energy services.

Ford takes that data and combines it with information from all the Ford EVs already on the roads, allowing the company to give a reliability score to every charger that a Ford customer has used to recharge. If a score drops too low, Ford stops that charger from showing up in the Ford Pass network and has words with its operator to get things fixed. That's no doubt extremely useful if you drive a Ford EV but perhaps of less use to everyone who doesn't.

For its part, the New York Power Authority, which works with EA, Shell, and other networks to provide charging around the state under the Evolve NY program, told Ars that its current service agreements with those companies list a requirement for at least 95 percent uptime, but it's working to increase that to 97–98 percent over the long term. And 97 percent is the uptime requirement for chargers that will be built as part of the federal government's Interstate charging network.

I sincerely hope we achieve that because otherwise, the EV-curious are going to continue to be scared off by stories like mine. And the WSJ's. And the ones in that Autoweek article.

What happens if your Electric Car runs out of Electricity and leaves you stranded? I guess you have to call a Gas Powered tow truck to tow your EV to a Charging Station which will cost you about a hundred dollars. What a bitch, lol.

Buttplug was testifying before Congress last week and a Congressman, can't remember his name but he was a MIT graduate in Engineering. He asked Buttplug if he was aware that if tomorrow ten's of millions of EV's appeared ( magically ) on the roads, our current electric grid in this country would have to increase to 4 times the capacity it has right now and that it is very possible, that one day, you will have to choose between charging your car or your home air conditioning because you will not be able to do both.



For those of you that require a statement that this is not a fact but an opinion, consider notice given.


I personally don't think we are going to get to millions and millions of EV's immediately but then again I don't think we are going to build our electrical capacity by 4 any times soon either.


But BUTTPLUG seems pretty sure being the Mayor of a relatively small city that some say he managed miserably and having little to no experience in Transportation ( hey, they had to stick the Golden Boy somewhere ) that all this will work itself out in time.

the article doesn't mention this, but the wait times are going to be a problem. it takes about 15 minutes to 30 minutes to charge the vehicle and you'll have a queue behind that EV which will extend that to an 1 hour.

those charging stations are expensive. someone in the comment section suggested restaurants with a lot of parking space can buy lots of charging stations.

that electrical infrastructure is going to be a problem for everyone with EVs.

you're gonna get brown outs or black outs or both.


buttplug is an idiot.

My great grandpa hated to give up his horse and buggy too...feed and water was everywhere and gas stations were scarce.

My great grandpa hated to give up his horse and buggy too...feed and water was everywhere and gas stations were scarce. Originally Posted by reddog1951

Its a shame you dont see his wisdom.
After heavy rains how do you think country folk get to their back forty? 4 wheel drive aint gonna do shit. We saddle the horses and tend our stock

Might be how it works in Dixie, and whatever works, works. But, many are city folk who rarely drive more than 100 miles a day, let alone slop hogs. I don't have an EV, and probably won't due to age, but don't begrudge those for whom it makes sense. Nothing wrong with having two vehicles, one or each flavor, for different uses.

The new EV Vette promises to be awesome (yes, the mule burned, but last I read not due to the EV...and it was a mule). How many vetted drivers drive beyond the range regularly...few. How many want the enhanced performance....many. Perfect niche market, especially considering the price market. Capitalism at work.

So, some can use horses to wade into the mire on their farm, some can gas up for long distance driving, some can go entirely EV for city use, some can have both, or all three.

Their choice, and the market and infrastructure build out will respond as supply and demand dictates. I wouldn't bet on that horse though.

Not to mention the danger of electrocuting firefighters when they catch fire.
Water and electricity folks.

Not to mention the danger of electrocuting firefighters when they catch fire.
Water and electricity folks. Originally Posted by JohnnyGleet

i was a volunteer fireman for ten years

car fires were dangerous, not sure how that compares to an electric car fire, you likely couldn't use water on it, maybe some sort of foam

speaking of recharging

i recall reading something about qualcomm developing, for want of a better term, charging strips.

these strips would be built into the roadways and would a charge a battery as you drove along

not sure if that was feasible or what the status of that might be

here i found an article

https://www.greencarreports.com/news...ging-at-60-mph

but your taxes would skyrocket most likely or maybe you might be charged directly, similar to using a toll road

and what would that do to the power grid?

i was a volunteer fireman for ten years

car fires were dangerous, not sure how that compares to an electric car fire, you likely couldn't use water on it, maybe some sort of foam

speaking of recharging

i recall reading something about qualcomm developing, for want of a better term, charging strips.

these strips would be built into the roadways and would a charge a battery as you drove along

not sure if that was feasible or what the status of that might be

here i found an article

https://www.greencarreports.com/news...ging-at-60-mph

but your taxes would skyrocket most likely or maybe you might be charged directly, similar to using a toll road

and what would that do to the power grid? Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought

there was one idea using solar powered roads to charge the cars up.


I think they did a test demonstrator. I think it didn't work too well.

Good Point...not many horses catch fire. Anne Heche's gas Mini sure did. Times and technology change and ultimately the market will rule...that's the American way, right? If one feels threatened because they're heavily invested in the oil industry....well, if thought to be truly at risk...then diversification might be worth considering. Or stick with selling buggys in Amish country.