Are EV 'Charger Hogs' Ruining the EV Experience? (cnn.com) 476
A CNN reporter spent more than two hours waiting for EV chargers — thanks to "ill-mannered charger hogs who don't respect EV etiquette."
[T]o protect batteries from damage, charging speeds slow way down once batteries get beyond 80% full. In fact, it can take as long, or even longer, to go from 80% charged to completely full than to reach 80%. Meanwhile, lines of electric vehicles wait behind almost-full cars. I was waiting behind people with batteries that were 92%, 94% and even 97% full, as I could see on the charger screens. Still, they stayed there. I made my own situation worse by giving up on one location and going to another with more chargers, but there were even more EVs waiting there.
Given that a lack of public charging is turning many consumers off to EVs, according to multiple surveys, this is a major issue. Both Electrify America and EVgo said they are rapidly expanding their networks to, as EVgo's Rafalson put it, "skate ahead of the puck," trying to make sure there are enough chargers to meet future demand... "I think what you're seeing is demand for public fast charging is really skyrocketing," said Sara Rafalson, executive vice president for policy at EV charging company EVgo, "and I would say we've been really at an inflection point in the last year, year and a half, with demand...."
Electrify America, one of America's biggest charging companies, is experimenting with a solution to the problem of charger hogs who can make it slow and unpleasant to travel in an EV. At 10 of the busiest EV fast charging stations in California, Electrify America has enacted a strict limit. Once a car's batteries are 85% charged, charging will automatically stop and the driver will be told to unplug and leave or face additional 40-cent-per-minute "idle time" fees for taking the space. It's similar to something Tesla vehicles do automatically. When a Tesla car, truck or SUV plugs into a particularly heavily-used Supercharger station, the vehicle itself may automatically limit charging to just 80% "to reduce congestion," according to Tesla's on-line Supercharger Support web page.
In that case, though, the user can still override the limit using the vehicle's touchscreen. There will be no getting around Electrify America's limit.
Electrify America's president points out an EV driver could need a full charge (if they're travelling somewhere with fewer charges) — or if they're driving an EV with a relatively short range. So the article notes that some EV charging companies "have experimented with plans that charge different amounts of money at different times to give drivers incentives to fill their batteries at less busy hours...
"For the time being, let's just hope that EV drivers who don't really need to fill all the way up will learn to be more considerate."
Given that a lack of public charging is turning many consumers off to EVs, according to multiple surveys, this is a major issue. Both Electrify America and EVgo said they are rapidly expanding their networks to, as EVgo's Rafalson put it, "skate ahead of the puck," trying to make sure there are enough chargers to meet future demand... "I think what you're seeing is demand for public fast charging is really skyrocketing," said Sara Rafalson, executive vice president for policy at EV charging company EVgo, "and I would say we've been really at an inflection point in the last year, year and a half, with demand...."
Electrify America, one of America's biggest charging companies, is experimenting with a solution to the problem of charger hogs who can make it slow and unpleasant to travel in an EV. At 10 of the busiest EV fast charging stations in California, Electrify America has enacted a strict limit. Once a car's batteries are 85% charged, charging will automatically stop and the driver will be told to unplug and leave or face additional 40-cent-per-minute "idle time" fees for taking the space. It's similar to something Tesla vehicles do automatically. When a Tesla car, truck or SUV plugs into a particularly heavily-used Supercharger station, the vehicle itself may automatically limit charging to just 80% "to reduce congestion," according to Tesla's on-line Supercharger Support web page.
In that case, though, the user can still override the limit using the vehicle's touchscreen. There will be no getting around Electrify America's limit.
Electrify America's president points out an EV driver could need a full charge (if they're travelling somewhere with fewer charges) — or if they're driving an EV with a relatively short range. So the article notes that some EV charging companies "have experimented with plans that charge different amounts of money at different times to give drivers incentives to fill their batteries at less busy hours...
"For the time being, let's just hope that EV drivers who don't really need to fill all the way up will learn to be more considerate."
Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:4, Interesting)
But don't try to use all that range because a bunch of people will piss and moan at you that you're taking too long to charge your vehicle. Oddly enough, not an issue with ICE and hybrids.
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The real issue comes from if you are going to go on a longer trip into and through areas where charging stations are not available or convenient. That is where people may feel they need to charge to full, because they won't necessarily be able to recharge when they get to where they will be staying overnight.
For normal daily commute stuff, get a vehicle that can go roundtrip from home to destination and then home again so you can charge overnight. Now, try going 400 miles...and your extended range vehic
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, try going 400 miles...and your extended range vehicle might be able to get you there one way, but you will want to be "full" before you go back home.
Why? I don't even think anywhere in backwards America has a distance of 400miles between charging stations. I just did a quick google and saw the longest distance between superchargers on American highways was 150miles. Was. Past tense. The report is 5 years old now. Seems you'll be fine if you're at your destination with a half full battery too.
Range anxiety is for people who don't know how to use their car.
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Range anxiety is for people who don't know how to use their car."
Yea, no. Those of us with actual driving experience on things other than asphalt know that you waste tons of power off-road. Your 400 miles on-road translates into roughly 150 off-road, and far, far worse if you're carrying an actual load, as I often do hauling a few tons of rock out of the desert.
Range anxiety is for people with a brain.
Two hours late because of headwinds (Score:3)
The issue with an EV is that every stop to charge is a 30 to 60 minute delay, even if there are no lines.
I have actually timed it - filling up my gas car takes 3 minutes.
So if you have a headwind on a trip at the limit of your vehicle's range:
And that, of course, is if you don't have to wait in line, where the discrepancies get even greater.
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Bjorn Nyland tests EVs over 1000km, a 10 hour journey. The fastest EVs take an extra half hour, including all charging. Affordable ones are around 1.5 to 2 hours slower.
It's not nothing, but also it has to be weighed against the cost to others of burning oil.
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The issue with an EV is that every stop to charge is a 30 to 60 minute delay, even if there are no lines.
Nope. 10 minutes in and out. There's no need to charge your car to 100% and in fact the whole point of TFA is that it actively isn't recommended to do so. There's no reason you need to spend more than 10 minutes at a charging point.
I have actually timed it - filling up my gas car takes 3 minutes.
Yes when you race you can do that. Unlike your one off rushing anecdote I was part of a team which conducted a large study of our population of gas stations. We used automation software to analyse weeks of security camera footage of over 300 service stations on highways in Americ
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:5, Informative)
From what I'm seeing there would not be much difficulty getting across Montana; there are charging stations all along I-94 no more than 100 miles apart.
You might be in trouble if you want to drive directly from say, Williston ND to Havre, MT along US-2, which is just a hair over 300 miles with no charging stops along the way. To make that trip you'd have to make a significant detour or have a NEMA 14-50 adapter to use RV power outlets at campgrounds along the way.
But considering how many people might actually want to drive from Williston to Havre I'm comfortable saying that's an edge case. You'd only need a station in Glasgow, MT to make that work.
=Smidge=
Re: Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range.. (Score:4, Interesting)
current laws [Re:Electric vehicles totes have ...] (Score:4, Insightful)
facts are facts. EVs cannot replace IC any time soon,
EVs can't replace all IC vehicles soon, but in fact EVs can replace many (and, arguable, most) IC cars.
This is a typical slashdot argument: if a technology can't meet every use case for every user, it's worthless.
and the current laws will kill people. And you clearly know it, and approve.
There are no "current laws" relating to EVs that "will kill people".
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:5, Informative)
No. A good friend of mine who owns a Tesla made a trip from Belgium to Romania, she charged from under 20% to 80% at all points, she said it took 71 minutes at most (50 kW charger) and 23 minutes minimum (150 kW charger) to charge her car back to 80%. She needed 4 charges in total.
You can save a lot of time by using 20%-80% charging.
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the UK, it is generally recommended that you take a 20-30 minute rest break for every 3 hours of driving. That is 210 miles if you drive at the maximum motorway speed limit. If there are sufficient fast chargers available at every service station, usually they are spaced about 20 miles apart, then this is totally workable.
But every parking space at the service station needs to have a charger, not just 6 of them as at present.
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Depends on how you use your car. For most people, they spend less time in charging stations (public fast chargers) than they would in a gas stations over any given year.
This is because most of the charging can be done at home/work using level 2 charging. A lot of people almost never use public chargers.
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if you drop your battery to 5% or less, you will get fastest charge time
While true, there is one issue with doing this, traffic. People want to maintain a high level charge to lessen the risk of getting stranded in heavy traffic.
This is one defect to EVs compared to electric vehicles of over 100 years ago. They should be designed to allow for easy battery swapping and there should be 1 standard battery for all models. Pull up to a "gas station", battery swapped out in say 5 minutes and you go on. That was rather common back then.
The tech is better now, so I think a redesign
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:4, Informative)
People want to maintain a high level charge to lessen the risk of getting stranded in heavy traffic.
No. Clueless people with range anxiety want to do that. You can sit in traffic an entire day with the AC, music and headlights running and it'll consume far less than 10% of the battery, unlike say my petrol car which over a period of 8 hours will drain 1/4 of the tank.
Pull up to a "gas station", battery swapped out in say 5 minutes and you go on.
In 5 minutes on a fast charger you can easy fill more than 1/4 of an EV battery. That will be enough to get you an additional 100 miles, or several days sitting in traffic with the AC, music and headlights running.
When I go on road trips I spend the same amount of time at a petrol station as I used to (about 10-15minutes depending on how hot the coffee is - because I'm not a feral pig that eats and drinks in the car, and it's nice to take a couple of minutes break). Those 10+ minutes easily get me several hours of additional driving (or several days stuck in traffic as if that is a metric that anyone cares about).
heavy traffic = slow traffic = further range (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in 2018 a Model 3 with a range of 310 miles was able to get 606 miles out of a single charge by driving slower: Tesla Model 3 drives 606 miles on a single charge in hypermiling record [theverge.com]
In the past my Model 3 has prompted me to drive slower to reach the next Supercharger, photo of that here [atariage.com] from a trip in 2019. Supercharger coverage is more widespread in mid-America now, so I've not seen that message in a few years.
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Its the irony of social media. People think they are connected and interact with more people. But they aren’t considered REAL people. Not when it matters. Everyone is basically in their own personal Truman show. It’s their world, we are just living in it. Just another NPC they have to deal with. We dont even enforce social etiquette on our kids. I am constantly making my kids walk ahead of the family to hold doors for people. Even something as simple as holding a door for someone has become less
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Even something as simple as holding a door for someone has become less common.
I wonder if that's correlated with asses being less desirable to ogle.
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I mean, studies have shown that (in America, maybe elsewhere but the studies I read were in the USA) when people see you are waiting for them, they then go slower. As far as I recall anyway.
Prove me wrong, I would love to hear it!
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, they have plenty of range. So much so that you do not need often do spend the extra 40-60 minutes charging from 80% to 100% to make it to your destination, or the next charging station.
This is the unintentional "secret" to EV charging times. People instinctively want to charge to 100% because they're used to filling up a gas tank to 100%. That's not how EVs are best used though; Charging from ~10% to ~50% is usually extremely fast, to 80% fast, and above 80% most vehicles will slow charging speeds WAY down. If you don't absolutely need that range to get to your next destination, then you are wasting everyone's time including your own. Then these same people complain about how long it takes! My dude you could have left 20 minutes ago, this is entirely on you.
Then there's the people who are unaware, or uncaring, about how fast their vehicle is capable of charging and will take the fastest charging cable. DCFC are often found in 150KW and 350KW versions. I'm sorry but your Chevy Bolt will only take 55kw max, so you're only frustrating yourself and everyone behind you by parking at the 350KW cable; it will NOT charge faster there and you are preventing someone with a higher-end EV from making better use of that resource.
Agree or disagree with the "solution" of cutting people off/charging people more at 80-85%, this is only a problem because people haven't changed their habits, or are acting selfishly to the determent of everyone including themselves.
> Oddly enough, not an issue with ICE and hybrids.
Plug-in hybrids can and do occupy charging stations. It might be the most frustrating thing ever because people boast about how they don't have to charge but here they are clogging up a spot for an hour or more. Complete lack of situational awareness.
=Smidge=
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a PR nightmare, or maybe even a lawsuit waiting to happen; deliberately lying to your customers rarely works out. Once people wise up of course they're gonna keep it in the "extended" mode for all the same reasons PLUS spite for being deceived.
Better route planning software would definitely help. Give people confidence that when the route planner says they have enough charge to get where they're going, and they'll be more likely to take that advice and get going. Most people who wait for 100% either don't trust that they can make the next leg of their trip without it (which, currently, is sometimes true) or they're stuck in the habit (usually because they got free charging with the car and want to "get as much value out of it" as they can.)
=Smidge=
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deliberately lying to your customers rarely works out.
The entire advertising industry would disagree.
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Mostly what advertising is would better be characterized as bullshitting [wikipedia.org].
Bullshitters are more concerned with attitudes and behaviors than they are with actual belief. Advertisers don't expect people to actually think that a certain brand of toothpaste will give them "sex appeal". But if they're exposed to the claim enough, people will behave as it if is true, even though they know it is not.
Politicians have long exploited this effect, which is why people who will vehemently tell you all politicians are l
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Sounds like a PR nightmare, or maybe even a lawsuit waiting to happen; deliberately lying to your customers rarely works out.
Sorry Mr Sue-happy, but there's nothing lying about setting standard limits. There is no magical point defined which is considered 100% for charging a battery. You can over charge, and under charge them. The existing 100% point is already arbitrarily defined by manufacturers of *ALL* battery powered devices including cars.
Heck there's no magical point which is 0% either. And most EVs vary from 3miles to 30miles you can still drive once your dash shows 0% on the battery. Heck if you enable dynamic range esti
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Route planning software has been a feature in every car for at least the past decade. You might know it as "In-car Navigation" or "GPS Software."
And you don't have to use it. I don't use the nav system in my car at all. Never even tried.
> I've never had to take into consideration fueling stations before.
Well, that's a lie... assuming you have actually gone on a road trip through unfamiliar territory, you have absolutely, at some point, deliberately had to go look for a gas station because you didn't know
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:5, Insightful)
deliberately lying to your customers rarely works out.
Better tell the guys down in marketing...
Here's the thing, though: "100% charge" is an engineering fiction, an amount of charge less than the actual maximum energy your battery can store. Not just on EVs, but on your *phone*.
If a new phone has a 3000 maH battery it will read 100% at something like 2850 maH. This improves the battery's service life, but it's greatest benefit to the phone maker is it obscures the rather upsetting fact that you start losing battery performance pretty much from day 1. It creates the illusion that your phone battery works undiminished for maybe eighteen months or two years, and then starts to decline noticeably, which is a not-too-subtle-hint to consumers it's time to buy the next iteration of the phone.
Since 100% is a fiction, what we're arguing about is where the best place to call "100%" is. Arguably setting it lower and allowing an "overcharge" option gives the consumer a better understanding of what's going on. His battery *can* store more energy, but he probably doesn't want to do it without good reason. Kind of like red lining an internal combustion engine: it's not going to instantly destroy the engine, but everyone knows it's not good for the engine's longevity.
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This all could be solved by updating the user interface; change it so that 80% actual charge on the battery shows the driver 100%, with a interface option to toggle ‘range extension slow charge’ that gives 120% for the next charge then defaults back.
The charging interface for most cars already explain this in detail. In fact if you take delivery of any EV by default it will have an 80 charging limit applied since this improves battery longevity, with a button to extend it to 100%.
You have to be incredibly stupid to own an EV and not realise this at this point. That said, half of all people do have a below average IQ...
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My car goes to 11
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Or you massively over provision the number of chargers, ie put one at every parking space even if the underlying infrastructure cannot handle the peak power load. Once batteries reach 80% the power draw goes down massively leaving more capacity available for other users.
Having to move your car when it's 80% is a massive inconvenience, people often visit places for multiple hours. For instance you might visit a movie theatre for 2-3 hours depending on the length of the movie. You don't want to have to come o
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> Or you massively over provision the number of chargers
Today's Concept of the Day is "Induced demand." Would YOU like to know more about how increasing the availability of a resource can actually make it less available because people use it less responsibly?
> For instance you might visit a movie theatre for 2-3 hours depending on the length of the movie
This is the use case for Level 2 charging, where it's normal and expected to sit for multiple hours and nobody would be waiting in line for that.
=Smid
Re:Electric vehicles totes have plenty of range... (Score:4, Interesting)
Today's Concept of the Day is "Induced demand." Would YOU like to know more about how increasing the availability of a resource can actually make it less available because people use it less responsibly?
On the other hand, reduced availability can ALSO make people use it "less responsibly", see things like gas quotas and toilet paper during COVID.
Tell people that they're only allowed 10 gallons today, or 2 loaves of bread then, even if they don't actually need 10 gallons or 2 loaves, they're more likely to take them.
I don't think that having enough chargers such that they don't run out even when people take an hour lunch vs a 20 minute break is going to cause that much more consumption.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if you did make most of them level-2 chargers, though I prefer the "smart allocation" concept where all or most of the chargers are capable of the higher speeds, even if they might need to slow down if, for example, you had a convoy of almost-empty EVs all show up at once because the feed to the charging system isn't big enough to fast charge everything at the same time.
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Plug-in hybrids can and do occupy charging stations. It might be the most frustrating thing ever because people boast about how they don't have to charge but here they are clogging up a spot for an hour or more. Complete lack of situational awareness. =Smidge=
Awww. They have just as much right to charge as do you. Wait your turn like everyone else, you're not special.
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Every charging station I've ever seen as had a sign that says "parking for electric vehicles while charging only." A hybrid is not an electric vehicle. Tow the bastards.
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But don't try to use all that range because a bunch of people will piss and moan at you that you're taking too long to charge your vehicle. Oddly enough, not an issue with ICE and hybrids.
You do have plenty of range. You can charge at the fastest rate (typically somewhere to 30-50%) and then easily make it to the next charging point. That would actually be in your best interest. You want to get somewhere fastest, only charge in the fast charging regime of your car and make more stops, rather than waste time trickle charging the last little drop into your "tank".
For the record we also laugh at the people who pump the handle another two or three times after the hose clicks off because a petrol
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For the record we also laugh at the people who pump the handle another two or three times after the hose clicks off because a petrol tank is full. Even more so if they try and shake a little extra from the hose. People are stupid.
Both of those kinds of people are stupid for similar reasons, too. 100% charging your battery isn't good for it. And overfilling your tank can cause your charcoal canister to get liquid in it, which will damage it permanently much like overcharging (or overdischarging) a battery. Do it enough times and you ruin it. Doing it just once can mean a trip to the dealer if the system is designed poorly enough.
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I do remember the gas embargoes of the 70's, both of them though. But comparing those two episodes to what this CNN article speaks of seems like two different things to me.
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Yep, that never happens with those long haul electric trucks. Mainly because they don't exist.
already happening in uk (Score:3)
On the other hand I have experienced queuing for chargers and often think, they should limit it to 30 or 20 min 'boosts' since you will get a fast charge, and the longest someone should have to wait till be no more than 20-30 mins, the person charging can make their journey continue and stop for another small boost at the next charger.
The way tesla does it is nice I have experienced this a few times, in fact tesla charging system and network is years ahead of the competition, I wouldn't buy another electric car that wasn't tesla because of this.
But in general having driven electric cars now for 3 years. they are a pain in the arse, i would consider very very carefully if you can be bothered with public chargers. they are at least a decade behind where they should be
Even with a gasoline filling station (Score:2)
there is the question of how long a stay inside the convenience store merits moving your car from the pump.
This sounds like a topic Larry David could have explored, either in writing an episode on Seinfeld or staring in Curb Your Enthusiasm.
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It means when you go to a shop or lunch or something and you plug in, you have to be conscious and come back and move your car before you get a fine. Making it inconvenient to actually use.
One of the reasons why I'm not interested in driving electric.
It's like prepaid parking and why I used to park somewhere for free and walked the remaining distance. I don't want to have to stressfully keep checking the time constantly to make sure I return to the car in time before I get a fine.
I'm glad we have decent public transport here.
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So they're coercing you into being considerate of others? Oh the tyranny!
What'll they think of next? Fines for my parking meter time running out? oh wait, that's already a thing isn't it?
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So they're coercing you into being considerate of others? Oh the tyranny!
It's still a hassle that ICE vehicles don't impose on their drivers, and honestly can be fixed merely by installing more chargers. You can even "oversell" the total charging capacity. IE you could have 10 chargers each capable of 250 kW, but only be able to push 1MW in total.
If we have enough chargers, maybe rather than use the fast charger, they pull into a "normal" charger for lunch. Because it's slower, they don't have to worry about fines or such and will still have a decently charged car by the time
Get a horse! (Score:5, Funny)
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...or a bicycle perhaps? Possibly an e-bike if you insist. Or a skateboard? Possibly an electric skateboard if you insist, although those have many downsides, like cost, reliability, speed/risk/helmet-requirements, and weight. I suppose e-bikes have similar downsides to regular bicycles.
FWIW, I have no e-anything experience yet, (though I can't wait for my first opportunity to test-ride).
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Re: Get a horse! (Score:2)
They are nayayayay impossible to find!
No⦠(Score:2)
The slow expansion, and unreliability of charging networks is ruining the EV experience. Itâ(TM)s true that thereâ(TM)s always queues as EV chargers, but thatâ(TM)s because thereâ(TM)s not enough EV chargers, not because people are using the EV chargers for charging EVs.
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which gets into does it mean you need so many ev chargers and so much infrastructure to support them; that the entire technology does not really make sense?
The actual problem is we are trying to make EVs a drop in replacement for the gasoline fired automobiles we are familiar with. They are not same animal.
The only actual answer here are
1) Decide we are going to make an enormous investment in the infrastructure required to really make EVs work. Not just in dollars, but also in terms of things like architec
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I would agree with and we could have option 3 if we had a carbon tax but right now and how it has been for all time is the externalized costs of combustion engines are socialized so we all pay them, drivers or not, BEV or not.
If ICE drivers were willing to accept that increased costs on their use then things would market-sort themselves out as the increased environmental costs would be accounted for (use that money to install more EV infrastructure). This is why carbon taxes have been the econimists soluti
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> which gets into does it mean you need so many ev chargers and so much infrastructure to support them; that the entire technology does not really make sense?
It's funny because a hundred years ago you could make exactly the same argument against internal combustion engine vehicles. The dedicated and specialized infrastructure has been in place your entire life, and likely the entire life of your parents, such that you don't even realize how expansive and complicated it is. Millions of trucks and railroad
Charge at home (Score:2, Insightful)
He could just charge at home right?
Public charging is a bubble (Score:4, Insightful)
With rising battery capacities and increasing availability of chargers at home or at work, public charging will become an expensive exception used mostly on the rare occasion that people travel longer distances than usual. Public chargers will not be 1:1 replacements for filling up at a gas station.
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Its going to have to. I get that in your little 1%er bubble that it never occurs to you that 75% of the population does not in fact have a parking garage. But the fact is most dont even have a covered car port. They have street parking or a open lot to which they search for a parking spot. Hell, a lot of 2 bedroom ranch homes built in the 70s only had a driveway with a side door that opened to the kitchen. This means that to get beyond 25% adoption you will be forced to make charging as convenient as filli
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Parking garages and lots will have chargers, maybe even some road-side parking will have them. You can call these public chargers, obviously, but the point is that they charge vehicles where they're parked anyway. You won't drive your car to a charger to charge and drive away when it's charged (to 80% or whatever). These chargers can be cheap metered sockets because they don't need to fast-charge anything. The car is going to be there for another couple of hours regardless, and it doesn't matter if it's ful
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im not sure you understand how big some of these lots are. My wife works for a university hospital. Its a huge campus. When crowdstrike happened they had 20,000 workstations to fix. They employ some 40,000 people between the university, the clinical staff, the administrative staff, maintenance, groundskeepers etc. They employ so many people that they have huge fields of parking lots near the football stadium. These lots are so big they put parking lots at major themeparks to shame. There are shuttle busses
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50,000 vehichles requires an absolutely enormous amount of energy to mine, transport, refine, transport again, deliver and then pump into your car. There is a decades old and trillion-dollar supplly chain all to bring that liquid gasoline to when it gets pumped into those 50k cars. Many times it's literally oil pumped on the other hemisphere that you end up with in a middle American gas station.
Hell all of that is far less efficent in putting energy into the wheels that actually move you than charging a ba
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Huh. I always saw public charging infrastructure as kind of a prerequisite to EV adoption being viable in an area because the obscene amperage requirements for fast charging just aren't realistic for most buildings.
How are people with these things charging them at home now? Running off a regular 15amp/120v circuit with an extension cord going outside from inside takes like 40-50 hours to get to 80% from what I understand, which seems like a non-starter for how most people use cars. Do they all pay their
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People drive 7500 miles per year on average. At 3.2 miles per kWh on the less efficient end of the spectrum, that's roughly 2400kWh per year or less than 7kWh a day. A typical car is parked 95% of the day (more than 22 hours), but let's be generous and say you want to charge just 14 hours per day. Then you can do that with just 500W. HVAC is easily more demanding than the electricity consumption of two or three cars, if you don't fast-charge, and why would you.
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availability of chargers at home or at work
That may be the solution in suburban America, but in many places of the world people *don't* have the ability to charge at home, including currently some of the countries with the widest EV adoption numbers.
Also "work" = public charger. You still need enough charging points to cover the cars you have and it definitely makes no sense to put in one charging point per employee as that would be incredibly wasteful.
We have 30 L2 chargers and 4 L3 chargers at our office. Any car left at an L3 charger for more tha
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Once you understand that the average power consumption of an EV (including the time it's parked) amounts to 3 USB-QC power draws (~300W), all that expensive super charger infrastructure looks kinda ridiculous.
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Rideshare drivers being encouraged to switch comes down to economics. Gasoline is expensive, and cab type use tends to be even more expensive on it because the driving pattern is hard on gasoline engines, resulting in lower mileage. So EVs are better.
USPS trucks and such an example of even worse, but there's not much beyond them.
Not my experience at all (Score:5, Informative)
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The Tesla superchargers won't let you go over 80% if it detects cars waiting and it charges a fee if you leave the car sitting inactive.
That doesn't stop them leaving their car in the parking bay.
Saw this coming a mile a way, especially over here in the UK where at home charging is an impossibility for many.
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The fee for sitting idle in the bay, and a notification on their phone that charging has ended, should encourage people to move on.
It also helps to have more charge cables available. A single charger can charge two vehicles with some extra electronics, far less than needed for a complete 2nd charger. The total charger power is split between the two, e.g. a 400kW charger could deliver 300kW to one vehicle and 100kW to another. As the first vehicle to plug in pulls less power, more becomes available to the se
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It takes a special kind of arsehole to disconnect their car from the charger and leave it in the bay. These people aren't the problem. Even in America such true alpha-arseholes are rare.
Re: Not my experience at all (Score:2)
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a) They got fully developed and then not rolled out due to practical problems with the concept.
b) No one got tax billions for it. "Phony Stark" got tax million for his EV business, there was no condition on exactly what to spend it.
Wait, now "filling up" your car ... (Score:5, Informative)
... and just driving away as soon as it's done makes people "charger hogs who can make it slow and unpleasant to travel" ?!
If the valuable commodity is "time at the pump" then charge for time in the first place, then you'll see people very happily charging at their peak power curve and not sticking around for long. Or, conversely, make it dirt cheap at times when nobody wants to charge otherwise, so you get then the people who are time-flexible.
It's the same nonsense with the (lack of) dynamic pricing for regular electricity: they complain about peak hours but wouldn't give proper discounts so people shift their consumption when there is plenty (often too much) production.
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I think Tesla does this. When I experimented with their Magic Dock after getting my compatibility update from my manufacturer, it was 51 per kWh, because it was peak time (although there was only one other car there). The schedule of fees indicated that it could be much less expensive after, say, 8:00 pm (I don't recall specifically the entire schedule of fees).
When I use EA outside of Michigan, they've typically charged by the minute rather than the kWh, which makes a certain amount of sense as long as the
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... and just driving away as soon as it's done makes people "charger hogs who can make it slow and unpleasant to travel" ?!
Only if you don't bother to read and understand what is being discussed. Otherwise you'll find that the people you describe specifically are *not* the charger hogs.
Self-entitled behavior. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is bad to hear about charging etiquette, but this kind of self-centered entitled arrogance is hardly limited to EV chargers. Take a good hard look at the sheer amount of addictive behavior around social media and self-promotion. Take a good hard look at how “modern” waves of movements are quite focused on the individual, as if to say FUCK society. It’s about how *I* feel no matter what.
Then remember how long ago we normalized that behavior. In children. Often for profit.
It’s no wonder many modern movements are eating themselves.
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The term "charging etiquette" itself is a "kind of self-centered entitled arrogance". My very first experience at a Tesla fast charger involved first attempting to charge at a broken charger (I know, the only one in the world, right?). I then switched to another which was also broken, and then to a third. When I moved the car to the third, another driver became visibly angry BECAUSE I was violating "charging etiquette" by charging next to him when I could avoid it. Never mind that I clearly tried to do s
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When I moved the car to the third, another driver became visibly angry BECAUSE I was violating "charging etiquette" by charging next to him when I could avoid it.
That's a bit different. Did he say that you were breaking etiquette, or did you just assume? Even if he said it, I'd argue that he was just using it as an excuse - he should have noticed you try the other two chargers.
Anyways, the problem with slow charging on a fast charger during limited availability is that it actually slows other people down if you're sitting there for an hour, which could fill up 3 cars enough to continue on their way easily.
Still, there are technological solutions in development.
1.
Re:Self-entitled behavior. (Score:5, Informative)
"Charging etiquette" is not about helping others to have the best experience, it's about entitlement. It's about you telling me how to behave to accommodate your self-interest. The problem is pervasive entitlement.
Ah, no. Etiquette is not new, no matter how much you think it might be. It exists, and has existed for many, many thousands of years in one form or another. Using different words, we call it social norms or socially accepted behavior. It's part of living in a civilized world. It exists not because of pervasive entitlement (which certainly exists to an extent now not seen perhaps ever before), but because living in a society of individuals requires it. Sometimes, we codify such ideas into laws, like stopping at red lights, to enforce them, but, ultimately, they exist because society as a whole works better when individuals act with a certain level of regard for their fellow man that rises above purely selfish interests.
An interesting recent example of the development of a social norm was when Athens, Greece expanded its metro system for the 2004 Olympics. Before then, there wasn't an underground, really (OK, there was one line, but not many used it). The etiquette of standing to the right and passing to the left on escalators didn't exist because, well, the metro didn't exist and there were no such escalators. When the new Metro opened, people crowded on the escalators willy-nilly. It took a couple of years for everyone to learn that standing on the right to allow people to walk on the left was better for all involved, and now, that happens as it if always was thus.
I expect that it will take a while for a similar pattern of accepted behavior to emerge around charging stations. But the idea that etiquette is somehow new, well, chortle, that's a good one.
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I saw a little kid kicking a soccer ball around in a restaurant the other day. This made me want to re-introduce spankings but with a twist. My idea is if you see a kid misbehave like that you go up to them and then smack the daylights out of the parents for not doing something about it and raising such an antisocial selfish brat. Bonus points is that it solves the problem in two generations at once.
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Why are you using someone else's charger? (Score:2)
The idea that we're all going to be borrowing someone else's charger, at random places and times, to charge EVs is BS and it's time to call it.
When you have your own charger at home, what anyone else is doing with their charger is irrelevant.
We won't have mass adoption of EVs until people are certain that every apartment or home they may possibly ever move to, has a charger.
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"We won't have mass adoption of EVs until people are certain that every apartment or home they may possibly ever move to, has a charger."
Yes we will. You are not a serious person, are you?
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We won't have mass adoption of EVs until people are certain that every apartment or home they may possibly ever move to, has a charger.
How would that work when the only parking is on-street? I know the answer but do you?
Free charging plans + not enough chargers (Score:4, Informative)
Most new EVs have 1 or 2 years of free charging included with Electrify America. Thus, people will often charge their cars at these public chargers even when they can charge at home. EA massively oversold their infrastructure in California urban and suburban areas.
They also underbuilt. There are rare EA charging stations with 8+ chargers, but most of them are 4 chargers, including by major highways at obvious "last charge for 150 miles" spots.
Thus, anybody who waits 30+ minutes to start their charge during a long trip will want to get to 100% so they can push their next charge off until getting home.
Charge a $1 extra for each % topping up (Score:2)
problem solved
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From 81% to 100% is only an extra twenty bucks. It's still cheaper than filling my ICE vehicle, so it's not really much of a disincentive. The proposed 40 per minute surcharge isn't much of a disincentive, either. In fact, these kinds of things usually serve to make the abusers even more entitled. "After all, I'm paying for it, right?" Look up the Israeli childcare experiment, for example.
Gas station (Score:2)
Last time I needed a fill-up I drove past the neighborhood filling station because all the pumps were full, and that was only true because people who were done filling at half of the pumps were standing around jaw jacking. I drove to the next town and got fuel there.
Many people will be inconsiderate in any situation.
Nothing new. (Score:2)
Nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
IN the 1970s unleaded fuel was introduced and some gas stations added a "pump or two" with that.
Typically there was a line because some a-hole was filling up their "regular gas car" at a pump that was the only one available dispensing unleaded.
In the 2000s if you have a diesel vehicle, it's not rare to pull up to a gas station and the two diesel dispensers are occupied by soccer moms who think parking on the edge and discussing their kids' sports beats using the other 4-12 gas dispensers meant for them... which you can't use.
EVs are the same problem 20 years later.
People don't care. It's me me me me me. They pull into the spot they want regardless of whether it's multi-use or whether it's even their spot.
Then once they have Bogarted that spot they can go have a bathroom break, a cigar break, McDonalds next door, go buy a book, read a book (wait, am I at 100% just yet on that charge) finish the book, return the book (only 97%?) go to the mall, come back with shopping bags, etc.
Today's EV drivers are self-absorbed pricks smelling their own farts and thinking they don't stink.
https://youtu.be/Qn72iItdjOA?t... [youtu.be]
E
Pricing should be adjusted... (Score:3)
like kWh over 80% charge is charged 4x more than kWh below 80%
Range anxiety is real and 80% is not full (Score:5, Informative)
Vehicles are being advertised with their estimated ranges (Model 3 at 272, Model Y at 320). But if you're now making the claim that 80% is full then you're now looking at 217 and 256 miles instead which is a HUGE difference. So you can't advertise longer ranges then get mad at folks who are trying to achieve those ranges especially at charging stations off highways.
Range anxiety is real and the best way to deal with this is not appeals to self-sacrifice for your fellow EV drivers; the answer is to add more chargers in more locations that are more reliable. And until that happens, it's entirely reasonable for folks to want to fill up because of range anxiety and the insecurity of knowing how crowded the next charging station will be OR if the chargers will be working at all.
Why not just charge per minute (Score:4, Insightful)
This seems so simple that I don't know what I'm missing. Why don't the chargers simply charge per minute. Post a per minute rate on each charger with a higher per minute rate on higher capacity chargers.
If people want to pay a premium for 350kW charging when their vehicle is only accepting 50kW, let them. Most people will eventually figure out that it's cheaper to pick the lowest rate charger that gets them the charge they need and only charge until the rate their battery can accept starts to trail off unless they really need the extra charge. And if they want to pay the per minute charging rate for a parking space after their car is fully charged, that's pure profit for the charging company. They can afford to build more chargers if people are willing to pay to park while not consuming any electricity.
rent a car places also may push people to do it 10 (Score:2)
rent a car places also may push people to do it 100% as they may bill an insane rate if you return the car not on full.
I dunno about this (Score:2)
lack of chargers (Score:4, Interesting)
The issue is not enough chargers. This is a growth problem.
If you ever worked at a gas station then you know that the station is not always equally busy, there are dead times and times all the pumps are full. Different patterns on weekdays vs weekends. Unless you have some kind of cheap/discount gas then no one waits in line, they come back later or go to another station (maybe just across the street). Peak times at a limited number of chargers means a wait.
A Different Charging Model (Score:3)
Not having an EV but wanting one, I began investigating Tesla Superchargers. I told google maps to show me all the Tesla Superchargers. Very disappointing. They were mostly concentrated in the Dallas - Ft. Worth are, with one on my side of these cities at Rt. 281 and I-20. All were a 30 - 50 mile drive or more.
I believe it will be a VERY long time before chargers are as numerous as gas pumps. They need to be. I'm pretty certain that the sparsity of charging is one of the things that is holding back the more widespread adoption of EV's.
I really want an EV, since I can do the math that seems beyond the grasp of the yokel that is convinced that everything is more expensive with an EV. Knowing that they get about 4 miles per KwH, and a KwH in my area is about 14.5 cents, I know my fuel bills would be 1/3rd to 1/4th of my gasoline bills.
But this backup at charging, and the lack of alternatives for charging are not likely to please.
Instead of everyone driving to a charger and waiting, we need 1 of 2 things:
1) We drive to where we're going, call a service, they send a person to retrieve our car, drive to a charger, charge it while we're busy, and return it.
or
2) We drive to where we're going, call a service, and they send a truck with a really big battery to charge our batteries at the maximum our cars will accept charge. If that's 200 Kw, or 250 Kw, etc. the battery source will deliver it. When we're done being busy, we walk back out to our fully charged EV.
I like #2 best. You drive to the race track, which is typically out in the middle of nowhere because of the associated noise, watch the race, and you can see several big trucks with batteries, visiting EV after EV, while the races continue. When you're ready to leave, you're also ready to drive the 250 miles back to your home in the adjacent state, without having to visit a charger and possibly wait in line with the crowd from the track that has it backed up 20 cars deep.
Either model I believe would be light years more convenient than what we have now, and actually be superior to the ICE experience. Those folks still have to find gas stations and experience a delay. Your EV does not, and can be driven home without delay.
Re:The batteries get degraded past 80%-85% (Score:4, Insightful)
Driving your ICE car without changing it's magic goo at the correct times will also irreparably damage it. Or if it's goo springs a leak and you don't notice it, oops, gonna need new head gaskets. My wifes Ford has the transmission equivelant of a small hummingbird, I have to baby it with the top end liquids because they have a history of griding their clutches into dust if not. I have a ritual of putting in 5 quarts of Redline D6 every year so it can live another, seems a bit "humilating" to me.
We also have to do our weekly (or more) ritual of heading to the convienence store to purchase more dino-squeezings so I can continue to function in todays world. I have no option to make those on my own rendering me totally reliant on them. Back in the day this ritual would have been many more times as cars were way, way less efficent and broke way more often. Is that less humiliating?
We didn't get gasoline gifted to us when cars when we were living in caves, it took decades of work to build all that shit out and get gas cars to their state we know today. Why would anyone expect the EV infrastructure to just appear overnight?