Hi everyone,
I’m a long time EV driver (first one being a Twizzy back in 2013) and I was wondering: have you ever waited to charge on DC fast charger on the highway for example?
One of my ev-skeptic colleagues told me I saw multiple lines of multiple EVs waiting to charge on the highway this summer. I never witnessed it or being through this myself and I’m more incline to think that this is grossly exaggerated but you never really know… so have you had such experience?
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Only at what I later learned was the nearest charging station to the airport and got a ton of use from folks returning cars.
Here in Estonia, you sometimes wait for a ChaDemo cable to become available.
The operators of charger networks forbid hitting the red button (emergency disconnect) under any conditions unless it’s an emergency.
There’s a silent agreement among drivers that lack of charging opportunities is an emergency. :D If the other guy is not present and their battery has reached 80% or more (charging has slowed to a trickle and they have enough range to drive), it’s considered OK to hit the red button and hijack the cable.
But alas, some cars (guess which, the ones without door handles, specially designed for suicidal drivers) sometimes won’t release the cable.
You also frequently call customer support to restart chargers and watch Linux boot messages scroll by, and complain until blue in the face about specific chargers that stop working for some specific cars in cold weather.
In short, it’s pretty close to a mess. :o
I don’t do trips longer than my battery capacity because the DC charge rate on my car is abysmal (50kw). I therefore don’t use DCFC and as such haven’t experienced a line.
I fully expect that holiday traffic surges would result in lineups in my geographic area. There’s lineups at gas stations.
I have, yes. Both of the charging stations between work and home frequently fill up. Lines usually aren’t more than 1 or 2 cars waiting though and with 4 stations at each location the wait usually isn’t terrible.
I’ve had an EV since March 2024. I’ve once found a charger that didn’t work, but wasn’t listed as such. All the DCFC I’ve been to have had empty chargers, or perhaps many / several empty chargers. Maybe I just have good timing. And mostly charge at home.
I have waited with my older Leaf, but that’s only because it needs the Chademo plug and there’s usually only one per charging location.
I recently had my first road trip between major cities with my other EV with a CCS port. Twice I pulled up to an EA charger that was full, but there was another charger within range. I found that experience to be frustrating, but I could have looked at the app to see if chargers were available before I got there.
I guess I was frustrated because I paid for an EA plan to save a bit on charging but then ended up paying a premium at Tesla chargers because the EA chargers were full.
No, but I live about 45 minutes outside the city, plus I charge at home. The only reason for me to ever use a DC fast charger would be if I was taking a road trip, but if that’s the case then I can intentionally plan to charge at a location with a lot of chargers and no line.
