Lou B

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/04/busin...ing/index.html

Crito

There are no such problems when using Tesla's Supercharger network and everyone who actually owns a non-Tesla EV is dying for access... because Electrify America sux.

This garbage piece of "news" is pure propaganda. Sea levels will now rise and polar bears will drown as a result of you posting it here.

MBNUT1

Given the current constraints on public charging, I think that it is a good idea.

MB2timer

CNN — Sometimes, technology doesn’t fulfill its promise. But, other times, it isn’t the tech that let’s you down, it’s the people using it. So one electric vehiclecharging company company is experimenting with cutting off people who linger, attempting to “fill ‘er up.”

Recently, I drove a new Chevrolet Blazer EV from New York City to Bristol, Pennsylvania. I figured the drive down to Bristol with my family would take about 90 minutes and, since I didn’t start with a full battery, the return trip would take 15 to 20 minutes more with a stop along the way to charge up the EV some.

I was so very wrong.

It took us four hours to get home that night. We were sitting in line for electric vehicle chargers. Blame ill-mannered charger hogs who don’t respect EV etiquette. It’s like waiting for your table in a restaurant while watching people casually chat over empty plates and half-empty wine glasses.

What’s wrong? EV fast chargers – the big tall units that look like major appliances – aren’t generally designed to completely fill an EV’s batteries. They are designed to pour electricity into a battery quickly so drivers can make a short stop and get back on the road after, say, 20 minutes or so. They’re different from the smaller and more common “slow” or “destination chargers,” in Tesla parlance, that are designed for drivers to park, plug in… and leave for hours.
Fast charging can be stressful for a car’s batteries, though. So, to 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.

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. Therewill be no getting around Electrify America’s limit. A driver who wants to charge to 100% at one of these stations will need to go someplace else.


Charger access has been a sore point among EV owners for years (note the complaining rants on Reddit and LinkedIn). But it’s becoming a more critical issue because, even though the rate of EV sales growth is tapering off, the number of EVs on the road that need charging is still increasing.

“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.”

Why so many drivers hog so few chargers

Given the sharply dropping speed curve of EV chargers it would make the most sense to unplug at 80% and just stop at another charger later to fill to 80% again. That would always take advantage of a fast charger’s highest speeds.

Electric cars are still pretty new to most owners, and their “refueling” habits are based on what they’ve been used to from driving gas cars, said Robert Barrosa, president of the EV charging company Electrify America. People go to a gas pump to “fill up,” and many will treat a charger the same way. Many new EV owners may not even be aware that there is always adrastic slow-down in charging speed past 80%.

But what if the nearest fast charger is, say, at least 15 or 20 minutes out of the way? The relative scarcity of chargers, and long distances between them, can make people want to stick around a while once they find one.

“Once you’re at a charger, it’s like ‘Oh, yeah. I’m filling all the way,’” said Barrosa.

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. An ample supply of chargers couldhelp mitigate the sort of electricity hoarding behavior that’s common at chargers now.

The problem of users taking up chargers may be exacerbated by Electrify America’s own free charging agreements with various automakers, including Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai. When charging time costs nothing, there’s no financial incentive to unplug. Like diners ordering more endless shrimp at Red Lobster, some EV drivers take full advantage, to the growing thefrustration of others waiting behind them.

There can also be other legitimate reasons a driver may want to charge to 100% at a fast charger, said Barrosa. For instance, they may be taking a long trip to someplace where they know there will be few chargers. Or they may be driving an EV with relatively little range, like a Fiat 500e or Mazda MX-30, so they need to cram in all they can. Cases like these are why Electrify America probably won’t institute an overall charging cap at charging stations near major highways, he said.

Charging companies like Electrify America have an immense amount of real-time data on charger usage, so a more nuanced approach than a simple limit at certain chargers would be possible. 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 now, at least, Electrify America executives want to keep things simple, said Barrosa, so drivers know what to expect when they arrive at a charging station.

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.

The best way to post an article, I have found, is to transcribe it, not link to it.
If you link to it, and they pull the link or page down, you still have the original text.

QuadBenz

This is a good idea. I'm over arriving at chargers and having to wait for stupid Chevy Bolts and Hyundai Konas with terribly slow charge curves that are trying to 100% charge. GTFO

Wolfman

Thread cleaned up. Please stay on topic…

hlothery

As an alternative viewpoint, I drove to Dallas this weekend from San Antonio, and back. I stopped in Temple at Buc-ees to charge. They have over 50 Tesla chargers, non of which I can currently use. However, they have 6 MB (ChargePoint) chargers, and are actively working on infrastructure for adding more. My car is over two years old. It cost me $15.31 to charge going to Dallas, and the charging only needed 7 minutes to complete after I walked to the bathroom and back. It cost me just over $20 to charge on the way back, and again I only waited about 7 minutes after going to the bathroom. The charging was flawless, fast and convenient. The area well lit and clean. Others were charging, but there were plenty of stalls open, and I did not see anyone who left their vehicle not actively charging. I hear horror stories, but have not experienced any. It will be even better soon, when Tesla chargers open up to all. Very bright horizon, IMHO. YMMV.
Addendum, I only charged to 80%.

EQEBlue

Explain Tesla supercharger congestion fees to me

OldManAndHisCar

On a positive note, I have been using Gopher turtle shells (I hunt Gopher Turtles)...to make knives that I then kill Manatee with. Butchering the Manatee (local to me, right down the road) I use some of their bones to make spears. I will use the Manatee bone spears to kill the polar bears before they suffer from drowning.

hlothery

Way above my head, obviously. I'm a pretty straight forward guy. I do enjoy when folks honestly post about their EV experiences and how their EQS has performed, with helpful hints about their actual experiences. I really wonder what others are doing here, wasting our time and theirs? Internet, I guess......

OldManAndHisCar

We just had a TINY hurricane. Word is the Tesla charging station has three days of cars backed up. Two incidents of confrontations between customers trying to get to the front of the line.....progress for humanity.

MBNUT1

Kind of like Houston gas stations running out of gas after Hurricane Beryl. A friend of mine was headed to the airport after Beryl and said the highway was backed up for miles due to a line to get gas.
https://www.fox26houston.com/video/1482977

HBerman

Exactly!

OldManAndHisCar

we have had that situation with more serious storms. However semi trucks full of thousands of gallons of gasoline come in and the situation is handled almost region wide and five to six hours. The Tesla stations as has been proven over again will frequently take over a week to handle the vehicles that are there.


when the grid is down no truck can bring in electricity. A gas station being out of gas or even every gas station in a particular City being out of gas is absolutely different than an entire region of hundreds of square miles having the grid down which is not uncommon

ehildum

Hmmm. I could see FEMA positioning trucks with EV chargers and large batteries around disaster areas in the future once the EV penetration gets hight enough that this becomes a serious issue. (Chargers limited to 80%, of course).

MBNUT1

How is the station going to pump the gas if the grid is down?

MBNUT1

This solar powered town in Florida survived Hurricane Ian with no power loss.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/05/11269...ck-ranch-solar

OldManAndHisCar

LOL, that "City" has less people than the neighborhood I live in. I did see that story some time back. Oddly, I also tend to not lose power or water (we are at about 20' above sea level and 60mi from either coast). Our house on Pensacola Beach - not so much (taken out 100% twice in two years). No matter what the argument. I know quite a few folks now who have an EV. In each case, it is their fourth car...behind some big SUV's and trucks, in one instance next to the Hummer H1 and multiple multi-engine boats (six Verano's will get you to the fishin hole lick-idy split!)

S_W222

To those (EV haters) who constantly criticize EVs with the hypothetical "What if there's a storm and the grid goes down?": Let’s break it down....For EV owners, this concern is a non-issue. Most of us keep our cars parked at home, plugged in, and fully charged, nearly 100% of the time. So, on a typical workday, the EV uses (maybe) just 5% of its charge, leaving the owner with 90-95%.... That's more than enough to escape to safety (nearby city or so) if a storm or disaster strikes. On the other hand, how many ICE cars are sitting in garages with a full tank of gas, ready to go at a moment’s notice? Not many. Your hypothetical case actually suggest that most ICE cars would have issues pumping gas when the grid is down, while most EVs will likely be already fully charged before the disaster started.

The reality is, you can create worst-case scenarios for any technology. There’s no such thing as a perfect solution for every situation, and it makes no sense to expect one. But let’s be clear on one thing..... EV owners love their cars, and the vast "majority" wouldn’t ever consider going back (actually downgrading) to ICE cars. The loudest critics tend to be those who either couldn't afford an EV, couldn’t negotiate the price or lease they wanted for their new car and get the EV luxury option as they can be more expensive, and/or have simply never owned* one.

I’m not pointing fingers at anyone specific, not even the OP, but when someone constantly posts anti-EV threads—often the same tired arguments across multiple forums, only to have their posts removed by mods... then you have to wonder, what’s the point? The OP has posted this same thread even in many non-EV subforums (and I have seen them) and they got removed. Sure, people can post what they want within forum rules (and I respect that), but let’s stick to facts that matter and be subjective and not just selectively running to post any poor written article one can find on the web that is anti-ev with misleading writeup. If you’ve never owned an EV, you’re missing out in my view. And trust me, those of us who have made the switch to EV are sooooo satisfied, that we’d never consider "downgrading" back to an ICE vehicle.

S_W222

Good point.. but honestly I'm not even bothered by people sharing their anti-EV opinions. That won't change my positive experience with the car or even in forums. Everyone’s entitled to their views, and if someone doesn’t like EVs, that's fine. In fact, I’m all in for reading and understanding why others might dislike them. I’m not going to let someone else’s opinion affect my positive experience with my EV....especially if they’re just sharing their personal take without spreading misinformation.

This reminds me of folks in other car sub-forums who get upset when someone posts something that doesn’t validate their car purchase and started to cry to mod asking them to ban or delete post (almost as if we are around a bunch of kids). It’s an open forum for a reason, and if someone’s happiness is shaken by others disagreeing with their car choice, that’s their issue am not even sorry for them. Maybe they need to work on that, or seek professional help, see their doctor, if it’s really that deep.

What does concern me, though, is when people start posting misleading facts or creating hypothetical scenarios without understanding the reality. That’s not just harmless opinion; it’s potentially damaging for future adopters, especially for those who come to these forums to educate themselves. While I’m not personally affected by this as I tend to triple-check and validate info I read online, it worries me to think of others stumbling upon misinformation and taking it as truth. No one’s going to lose sleep over someone else thinking a car is ugly or boring, but spreading false-info is the only time when I'd consider chiming in (but even then it doesn't bother me). I’ll just step in and share what I (think) is right. If the other side can prove me wrong, awesome, I learned something.

HBerman

I transitioned from a 2021 AMG E63S wagon to a 2024 AMG EQEX4 last December. The SUV serves the same functionality for me as did the wagon. However, the 2024 vehicle has significantly upgraded electronics and fun factor. I certainly don't miss going to the gas station and paying $3.95 / gallon (mpg=16) vs. $.12 . KWH (at 3.2 miles/KWH). I'd add 18 gallons every 3 weeks for my mileage (or $71) vs electricity for $15.75! Almost all of my charging is done in my garage and it's become second nature to top off the battery when it gets down to 50%. I certainly don't miss the extremely expensive Service A and Service B every year on the wagon and how the wagon consumed the tires. I live in NC and I haven't had any issues with going to a charging station on my non-local trips. The EV-changing infrastructure is still being built out and will only get better. Concerning storm disruptions, NC is at the end of the gasoline pipeline and there have been more than a few occasions where I could not obtain premium gasoline for weeks at a time. My electricity has never been off for more than 18 hours since I've lived here. I'm a very happy camper.

HBerman

It always amazes me how many expensive cars are "owned" by some members of the Mercedes forums. I've only had one vehicle at a time for as long as I've been driving. I did own a 30-foot sailboat years ago, but that was before I moved to NC from NY.

S_W222

just last week from NC

MB2timer

Theoretically, individuals, who produce residential power from their homesteads, can power the grid, or lighten the load on the grid for extended periods. The problem is, residential insurers are canceling insurance on such properties. The insurance companies think the risk of fire or electrical casualties are far too risky for them to provide coverage.
By the way I am not an EV hater. I see so much propaganda from the chicken little alarmists, that is obviously dishonest. I just don’t want EVs to be mandated, and I don’t want society to fall into 2 camps over it. EV’s are not going to save the world, EV drivers don’t need to hate ice drivers or virtue signal, or virtue accuse. ICE drivers don’t need to disdain EV drivers as tree hugging climate radicals.
By the way, OldManAndHisCar missed 1 very important constituency. They are far too cute to be allowed to roam the planet showing off their cuteness. Especially the baby seals.

HBerman

My insurance with State Farm went DOWN for my 2024 AMG EQEX4 compared to my 2021 E63S wagon. There was no issue with it being an EV. I've read about horrific ICE fires recently so things can happen with those as well. Amazing that people are comfortable with highly explosive liquids in their garages without thinking much about the what if. Oh well, people were afraid of A/C power when it was first distributed too.