I'm surprised the various charging maps aren't simply using OpenStreetMap. It has a large basis of charging points and anyone is free to use the data or contribute, so integrating is pretty easy. Instead, we now need to use various third-party alternatives and the market is quite fragmented. I noticed a family member with an EV needs to check two or three different systems and they'll all show different results of what chargers are near
Of course, live (charging) status will need to be fetched from the operator, but that can be a URL field just like we have website and menu URL tags for restaurants
OpenStreetMap gives you static data. But when charging, you almost always need dynamic data (current station availability, availability forecast, charging prices...) even in the most basic use cases.
And to get dynamic data you can't just fetch it from one operator. My employer's charging network (Digital Charging Solutions) has about 1450 technical charge point operators (those are the brands you see on the stations). Even just looking at the commercial charge point operators (those are less) you'd have to connect to hundreds.
Ok, there are also roaming platforms that interconnect everything. But they exist to connect, so they are never going to give you this valuable data for free. And you'd still have to implement about a dozen API connections to get reliable status data for only Europe...
Edit: AMA about charging stuff :) I don't handle the data connections etc but I know a bit
Do you foresee consolidation occuring for access to the data? Having to install 10s of apps / consult multiple sources for charging prices (not all chargers present a price) is painful.
I do see consolidation happening, but it doesn't have to do with data. Right now there are many EMP (eMobility Provider) in Europe, trying to get a piece of the cake.
Scale of economics will make the big ones have an edge over the small ones, eventually only a few big ones will likely survive. Two examples:
- If an EMP connects directly to a CPO (Charge Point Operator) they can avoid roaming platform fees, but it requires individual integration. This is only worth for very large CPO like Ionity.
- An EMP has to sanitize and improve the raw chargepoint data they get from providers. Thousands of times CPOs have set their chargepoints to LatLng 0,0; have messed up lng and lat; have put their stations to Somalia's beach.
I don't understand. You're saying there's too many operators to reasonably connect to. How do they currently do these live maps then?
It seems to me that, somewhere, there is a URL (or whatever specification) which some central server then fetches and aggregates to show on their map (probably briefly caches, too). This specification of where to fetch the data from each charging point from could, per my understanding, be an OpenStreetMap tag just like other metadata that we can already add. A client can either connect to the (e.g.) 50 nearest points along the upcoming route directly, or a third party can do it and funnel the data back to the client, but the ground truth of which charge points there are and how to get their current status could be in OpenStreetMap rather than fragmented across various siloed map operators
Edit: actually, even if that's not the case, it's still better to show "there is a charge point here with 2x 150 kW but I don't know the current status" than not having it at all. That's static information which OpenStreetMap already has. Even if the live info spec is too elaborate or divergent for an OSM metadata field, it would still make sense to show all the points OSM is aware of in one's application because it draws more people to one's app/website
This was only data stuff. Once you actually want to sell electricity in all european countries and properly invoice it for all private & business customer needs, you also get a large headache :)
My neighbour's charge point is officially a public charger. It is located on his driveway, behind a closed fence. The reason it is 'public' is because there were government kickbacks for installing public charge points with no requirements to have ypur 'public' chargepoint be usable by the public.
This is not a one time exception. You can drive through city streets with your GPS showing multiple nearby public access chargers. With none in sight (they are iside people's garages or on their property behind closed fences).
That is textbook fraud. Courts consider intent, you cant just rules lawyer them with an argument that "it didnt technically say my public charger had to be accessible to the public".
We've definitely seen cases where intent of a law was clear, but the ruling was made according to the letter of the law. It's basically why Legalese exists. They have to try to cover every possible corner case and explicitly spell things out as much as possible to avoid loopholes that can be created by creative interpretations of the letter.
I'd report it to ChargePoint as not public (in the app, there is an option), and if you're feeling spicy, report it to whatever regulatory body handed out subsidies under the conditions you mentioned.
Maybe also browser dependent? Constantly janky on Firefox/Windows/8840HS laptop; janky on Chrome while loading new locations but then mostly very smooth.
I'm actually slight disappointed that there isn't some bizarre explanation for why North Sea rigs have charging points - preparing for electric helicopters maybe? ;-)
Take a perfectly smooth animation, add a fast-looking synchronous function call in the animation loop, get some jank. A modern GPU, even integrated into a CPU as usual on laptops, is ridiculously fast for the task of showing a globe, something like 100k triangles at worst. But you need to feed it on time.
We had the same experience going ~800mi in a day (each way; so we did this twice). We also had 3 kids in the car, so 5 people total... or to put it another way, approximately 500% more people in our EV than the big SUVs driving next to us.
A guy at one stop in TX was in a huge Excursion and was walking his dog near the charger, laughed and said "you're going to be here a while." We were in and out before he was. The FUD is extremely strong still. Our drive (CO to North TX) has to be one of the least populated (and anti-EV) drives in America and there was still no range or charge speed anxiety.
I also completed my first big road trip with the Tesla during the summer holidays. This was around France.
With a long trip my preference was to slow charge overnight so as to start the day at >90%, and sometimes we'd also have a single supercharge during the day. The supercharger experience is great - you plug in and it works. When you're done you unplug and continue your journey.
The slow charge experience was less good. In France there are a lot of charging points in car parks, but to actually start charging it involves a load of faf.
1. Slow chargers typically involve using an app or website, so you need to find that, figure out how to tell it which charger you're at, enter your payment details. Hopefully you've got internet access in the underground car park that you've selected.
2. Each provider has a different app or website - they're typically difficult to use and buggy, but each in its own unique way.
3. Slow chargers don't don't come with their own cables, so you need to get your one out of the boot, and put it away again.
4. Stopping charging typically involves navigating the website/app again, hopefully you haven't closed the tab, otherwise it's going to be a pain getting back there.
5. There's no indication on how much it's going to cost until after you've gone through all the trouble. Even then it can be unclear - for example do I need to pay for parking while I'm charging or not?
6. It often costs as much or more than the supercharger - although all the prices I saw were cheaper than the UK.
7. There are typically idle fees, so you might find yourself having to disconnect your car and move it in the middle of the night (assuming you put it on charge in the evening)[^1], or you might find yourself having to rush back to the car in the middle of your sightseeing.
I want to slow charge when I'm parked, because I'm away from the car anyway. My dream slow-charging experience is:
1. Broad availability in any given car park, let me just plug in if I happen to be stopped
2. Streamlined payment process, preferably automatic and through the touchscreen of the car, rather than involving a phone or website. Don't make me enter payment card details - I want something like the apple pay experience, but "Tesla pay".
3. No idling fees so I can change my mind and have a dessert if I fancy without worrying about getting back
I don't care about speed if I'm not waiting. 7kW is more than enough.
[^1]: My trick here is to adjust the charging current in the Tesla app, such that it will take longer to charge. This way I'm never idling, even though I'm taking up a space for the same time anyway.
Some of these things are the same in the US, others not.
> 1. Slow chargers typically involve using an app or website, so you need to find that, figure out how to tell it which charger you're at, enter your payment details. Hopefully you've got internet access in the underground car park that you've selected.
Yes, this can be somewhere from mildly to extremely annoying. I have also seen chargers that accept tap to pay credit cards though, no account needed.
> 2. Each provider has a different app or website - they're typically difficult to use and buggy, but each in its own unique way.
Similar in the US, though I wouldnt describe any of the apps as difficult to use or buggy. Usually the most annoying part is creating an account.
> 3. Slow chargers don't don't come with their own cables, so you need to get your one out of the boot, and put it away again.
Never seen this in the US. I dont even know what the cable would be.
> 4. Stopping charging typically involves navigating the website/app again, hopefully you haven't closed the tab, otherwise it's going to be a pain getting back there.
Stopping charging is usually doable from the app, but usually I dont want to stop charging until I am ready to physically disconnect which also stops charging.
> 5. There's no indication on how much it's going to cost until after you've gone through all the trouble. Even then it can be unclear - for example do I need to pay for parking while I'm charging or not?
I dont think I've run into a charger that doesnt display pricing info yet.
> 6. It often costs as much or more than the supercharger - although all the prices I saw were cheaper than the UK.
Wow, that is awful. In general slow (AC) charging in the US is half the price or less of fast (DC) charging. In fact, usually public AC chargers are even cheaper than charging at home (for me, very expensive kwh at home).
> 7. There are typically idle fees, so you might find yourself having to disconnect your car and move it in the middle of the night (assuming you put it on charge in the evening)[^1], or you might find yourself having to rush back to the car in the middle of your sightseeing.
This is annoying but necessary. If chargers let you idle for free, it would be impossible to find an empty space many places. I think the idle fees (usually $1-3/hour in the US) are a reasonable compromise.
Then the chargers (and the car) just have a socket - but the sockets have locking pins on both ends. Thanks to your response I now realise that the stopping charging issue is related - the cables are locked in place until you stop. If the charging station provided their own cables all we'd have to do is disconnect from the car to stop charging.
> Wow, that is awful. In general slow (AC) charging in the US is half the price or less of fast (DC) charging. In fact, usually public AC chargers are even cheaper than charging at home (for me, very expensive kwh at home).
That sounds lovely. The cheapest slow charger in France that I used was €0.30/kWh ($0.33/kWh). A typical Tesla supercharger on the autoroute was a comparable ~€0.35/kWh ($0.39/kWh). Still, beats the socks off the £0.56/kWh ($0.75/kWh) I pay at the slow charger near my house.
> This is annoying but necessary. If chargers let you idle for free, it would be impossible to find an empty space many places. I think the idle fees (usually $1-3/hour in the US) are a reasonable compromise.
At home it's £3/hr ($4/hr), so if I charge overnight and don't play games with my charging rate I can easily spend more on idle fees than electricity.
Yeah, the aires are great. I only used the Tesla superchargers in the aires as they were cheaper than the others, and my car would automatically find them. I had no problems at all.
I invested in a Chargemap pass for my trip to France this summer. One card which works in nearly every French charger. Plug in, tap the card and it starts charging. Tap the card again to stop. That's it. Cost 20 euros for the card, and I think the rates are a little more than the native apps. But not enough to bother me. Highly recommended. You still have to deal with idle charges though.
Yeah, I think people underestimate the pleasure of not rushing yourself on a roadtrip even when the destination is the important part. It's a bit healthier too as I force myself to do a bit of walking and stretching
Here in Ireland, I noticed that most of the "main" network public chargers are on Google Maps now, and for some of them they even show the list of connector options, number of points, and whether they are currently in use or not. They don't have costs, but I can't imagine it being that long before that information is also included. ESB, which is the largest (and cheapest) network is the most information complete.
Combine this with Google Maps' existing rate + review features, ability to upload pictures and all that, I can see how this will very quickly make other 3rd party services like plugshare or similar superfluous.
On a recent 800km road trip I just used Google Maps to find charging points along my route that was already planned on there. I tried using other services like ABRP or EVNavigation and found all of them pretty lacking.
Ireland is probably not representative of the rest of the world. It's very small, so with my Kona EV and it's 450km range, I can basically go anywhere with minimal stops for charging. Most of the bigger towns have at least one 50kw charger, and they are rolling out 100/200kw chargers at these locations now as well. There just is no need to have a detailed route planned out with battery SOC estimates and consumption and all that, and with charge points on Google Maps I feel we are very close to ICE convenience. I just drive, and when I'm a little low on charge I search on GMaps for a charger location, drive there, plug in, empty my bladder, get a snack, and then continue on my trip again.
The vast majority of my charging takes place at home though, so the above only applies when I am travelling further than 200km from home. Home charging provides access to more than 60% of the country I feel.
This pretty much reflects what we get in the US as well. Obviously with the size of the US we have a ways to go before we get to ICE level of coverage but it has gotten much better the last 2-3 years. The only thing Google maps lacks over say the Tesla app is being able to see how many chargers are available at a station. I’ve changed my trip a little bit a few times when it’s clear one station is a lot busier than another one that might be 20 miles down the road.
I once arrived at a Tesla supercharger that was full and there were Teslas lining up, but there were 4 CCS high speed DC chargers right next to them and not a single one was taken. Thankfully I had the adapter and just used one of them.
Those connectors are a fucking bear to plug in though, and you usually have to try 3 times to get the charger-vehicle-payment dance to work.
The connectors themselves aren't usually the cause for the perceived difficulty of plugging in. It's instead the weight and flexibility of the cable. Try this: plug in a CCS connector at Electrify America, and then plug in a CCS connector at ChargePoint. The latter feels much heavier than the former. Yet both are CCS connectors. Even though the former is rated for 350kW and the latter usually only 125kW.
The CCS connector itself doesn't dictate what kind of cables manufacturers use and what kind of cooling. Tesla designs cables with less cooling and they replace them more often; other brands want long-lasting cables with fewer field visits so they add more cooling. And some brands use liquid cooled cables, others simply opt for thicker copper without liquid cooling. All of these have nothing to do with the connector.
That's true, although connector quality does vary as well. And in his case, he was using an adapter, which adds some unique potential problems. Some connectors have electronic latches. I've had those engage before the connector and the adapter were fully seated, making it nearly impossible to push them the rest of the way together. Usually fiddling with the latch button is the easiest way at that point.
Also, some connectors have nasty white plastic, while others have really nice and usable handles.
Interesting. What charging network were you using out of curiosity? I've never had any issue with Charge Points beyond the initial account and payment setup. I've used my NACS-CCS adapter dozens of times now mostly at hotels when I charge overnight.
ChargePoint is usually fine. I've rarely had problems except in rare cases where the cables were cut, presumably by some MAGA person.
EVgo and Electrify America routinely fail at the payment-charging stage for me. The Tesla is expecting to get charge as soon as it is plugged in; the charger on the other hand wants me to plug in BEFORE payment, and payment takes FOREVER by the time I open the app, inevitably have to re-log-in (for some reason ChargePoint keeps me log in but the others routinely log me out), forget my password, reset my password, then locate the goddamn charger stall ID zooming in from a map of the US and then have to search some stupid IKEA-like name of the actual charge station. By the time I finish this the car has already given up and when the charger catches up to telling the car "hey I have charge now", it's too late.
The real workflow should be either
(a) tap a EMV credit card, approved, THEN plug in, no app needed
OR
(b) scan a QR code, Google/Apple Pay, THEN plug in, no login needed
The charger should facilitate immediately delivering charge as soon as it's plugged in to the car.
> being able to see how many chargers are available at a station
Google Maps has this information for the ESB network in Ireland. It even shows which connections are currently being used, and which are out of order. Next step is to show information on the current in-use plugs, like when the session started. On the ESB app this information is available and it helps to estimate when a point might become available, if there is congestion.
Ireland is the ideal country for EVs, with our temperate climate and small size. We also don't have a large fossil fuel resource. We got government grants to install a home charger. Quick and easy. There are many public charges points but in the last 6 months I have noticed much more contention and have to wait frequently. Also more broken chargers. Sign of increased adoption I guess... But if we can't make it work here, I won't work anywhere.
As an EV owner, another issue I find is that there are a discomfortingly large number of chargers that are "for customers only" or that require you to pay for parking just to charge.
This is a massive UX issue. With gas cars you can use any gas station you want and you don't have to pay additional fees other than the gas.
I don't see what would really motivate businesses to change their mind on this. Since the barrier to entry for an EV charging station is many orders of magnitude lower than a gas station, it's pretty easy for a business to just add one in to an existing parking spot as an extra revenue stream or another way to draw customers. But they might reasonably value having available parking for customers over the revenue they get from EV charging.
I things will probably move more in this direction as EVs become more popular and the average customer is more likely to drive one.
Interesting. Where do you run into this? I've never encountered it in the U.S (east coast). If you're in Europe, maybe this is a concerning glimpse of where we're heading in the U.S. Although I think a charger with those restrictions would be ineligible for U.S. National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure ("NEVI") funds, so maybe we can hope that there is a strong enough disincentive for now?
Here in northern New Jersey there are many chargers that are inside municipal parking garages. Since you have to pay to enter (technically, to leave) you have to pay for parking time to use those chargers. That's obviously not an issue if you would be parking there anyway, but if you lived in the area and just wanted or needed to use the charger you'd have to pay an additional $1 - $2 per hour on top of the charges from the charger.
I'm not sure what the state of the chargers being installed at local businesses is. My local grocery store has four chargers now, but I don't recall seeing any signage about them being for customers only. They share the parking lot with the church across the street, though, so that may complicate things.
It makes sense if you invert your point of view. These are not chargers where you have to pay for parking; these are parking places which have a charger as an extra.
IMO, the long-term tendency will be for every parking place to have an electric vehicle charger (or at least a standard power socket which can be used for a slow charge), the same way every parking place has electric lighting.
Worth mentioning that the US's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is helping to fund chargers:
> This funding opportunity is made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s signature EV charging investments: the $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program and funds from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program that are set aside for strategic grants to states and local governments to deploy EV chargers.
And as a part of this, federal standards were established for qualifying chargers. There's a bunch here to insure physical and electrical compatibility. But one of the excellent requirements is real-time API availability information, on how many chargers there are, what their charge rates are (per charger), and what chargers are presently open.
For Android users wanting to use Open Charge Map, I recommend using the EVMap app instead of the official one. It doesn't let you see or post comments, but you can see pictures if available. Much smoother and also tries to show the charger status:
Is the demand there? Affluent customers probably have chargers at home, so unless it's a 200+ mile round trip to visit the business, probably don't have much need to charge.
Relevant article from today referencing a recent MIT study.
As someone who owns multiple EVs, it's about the fact that you are much more likely to go to a business within probably 1000ft of the charger. The chargers are also frequently very busy. I 100% go to a ton a businesses that I wouldn't otherwise simply because they are located near the charger. Convenience is king
Those tourism promoting visitor centers would also be great candidates. We spent 30 minutes learning about some random region of Georgia because they put chargers outside.
I’d never stopped in one of those places in my life.
I think being able to charge at home is almost a requirement but definitely not necessary in some places. I charge at home maybe twice a month, and there are dozens of chargers within a few minute walk of where I live. Many retail areas have chargers too, so its easy to get a few kwh of charge on a short trip to get groceries or something.
I think there are also a significant number of EV owners who almost exclusively use public DC fast charging. If there are enough fast chargers around, you can treat an EV similarly to an ICE car - drive it til its mostly empty then fill it up.
Even just for travelers though. If you’re within 30 minutes of a highway exit and there area isn’t well covered by other chargers it seems like it would be a good investment.
If it were me I’d even try to sell them washer fluid and other road supplies.
Because Plugshare is closed source, locked down and a bizarre cesspool of uncurated garbage with zealously curated but misleading or straight up wrong information.
For example, in Australia, the largest supercharger networks are Tesla and Evie. For reasons I won't even pretend to understand, Plugshare refuses to allow either name in their labels, so if a town has both, they're called "Town (1)" and "Town (2)" at random. Not only does this make searching a pain, but people just select whichever pin happens to be on top and then submit their charging reports for the wrong charger. Gar! Typical example:
Weird, this problem doesn't exist in Europe. I found Plugshare to be more reliable and informative than ABRP, especially in the areas where charger stations aren't that common.
Being truly open is a huge plus for OCM. Checking a few locations in both I found that PlugShare had locations properly listed as under maintenance while OCM listed them as open, so at least near me the Plugshare data seems more accurate.
I also really appreciate the images and comments people have posted in Plugshare to help find out of the way stations or stations that might not be reliable. If OSM took off it would get there, but none of the stations I checked had any comments or images.
I'm not a big fan of the OCM station formatting. There's a bunch of useless information above the fold and a bunch of useful information below the fold.
OCM doesn't appear to have any pricing information while PlugShare at least tells me if the station has a charge and if the parking itself has a charge.
I hope that open services like this can get station data from more direct sources for more accurate information, but the data isn't quite there yet for me to want to use it when I'm actively looking for a station.
This was my immediate question. Looking at this data in my city it reports a bunch of chargers that are either 100% gone or have been broken for a year. PlugShare reports those all correctly. I'd have a pretty bad time trying to charge around here (metro population of 2.5 million) if I relied on this dataset.
In London (UK), OCM seems to have more chargers and more accurate data than PlugShare. Zap Map is probably the best option though, but even them are missing some slow chargers.
China is missing from this map, even though it has the most charging infrastructure of any country. Here's the best map I could find in a few minutes for China (warning - very resource-intensive website): https://chargermap.nio.com/pe/h5/static/chargermap#/.
Surprisingly, the above map is just charging infrastructure from one company. There is a lot of infrastructure from Tesla and other companies as well.
Is there any official source that lists all chargers in China? OCM automatically imports data from different countries (UK, Portugal, France, etc). Operators can also submit their data: https://openchargemap.org/site/about/datasharing
I’m visiting Chiang Mai Thailand and China is flooding the roads with cheap EVs, BYD, Hozon. There is charging infrastructure everywhere. I don’t know how the United States is going to compete.
So far it would seem that the U. S. is tackling that competition with tariffs. OTOH, I’m not sure what it would take to get a (for example) BYD to pass crash testing, and if it would still be price-competitive.
It's so frustrating that rather than treat the climate crisis as an actual crisis, we've instead decided to heavily tax EV buyers in order to support domestic manufacturers that have been dragging their feet for decades.
> Tariffs of 100% on China EVs is a nuclear weapon to prevent them from gaining any ground here
Doesn't matter if Chinese manufacturers enjoy economies of scale from supplying Europe, South and Southeast Asia, Africa and South America. If American automakers are constrained to America and grow complacent, the compounding effects of learning curves and R&D advantage due to greater total profits will leave us with a fleet of Ladas.
At the end of the day we have to compete. Other than Tesla, we are uncompetitive in the mass market. The tariffs are meant to give us a safe harbor. But they don't automatically deliver us an edge.
A Global Times article says that China has 3,000,000 public EV chargers[0]
US Department of Energy data has the number for the USA and Canada combined as 66,650[1]
This might not be Apples to Apples as the USA numbers might be "sites" and the china number might be "chargers", but I don't think there's anywhere close to an average of 45 chargers per site to make up the difference.
EVs will go mainstream when, and only when, this sort of thing is not needed, because you can charge your EV whenever and wherever you are, and in a few minutes, like gas stations.
To replace an incumbent product, a new competitor has to be at least two of: cheaper to buy, more convenient, and cheaper to use in the long run. EVs are running at 0.5 for 3, at best.
This is already the reality in most of EU and the UK. There are 300kW charging stations all over the place, and a decent EV can recharge in 20 minutes.
I actually prefer this over refuelling, because filling up takes 5+ minutes of my time, while recharging is unattended, so I can plug in in seconds, and go get a coffee/break in the meantime. Chargers also tend to be next to nicer places, near food courts and other retail, which is handy, and doesn't need to be a separate stop on road trips.
If you can charge at home, then for daily driving, they're more convenient than ICE. Road trips aren't bad if you have access to Tesla Superchargers. If you're CCS only, then it's another story.
> cheaper to use in the long run
If you can charge using residential rates in an area that doesn't have absurd energy pricing, then in the long run, an EV IS cheaper. The cost to replace a battery is a popular talking point, but it's just not relevant on any EV that isn't a first generation Leaf. It typically takes over 100,000 miles to see even 10% degradation.
EVs are cheaper to maintain. No oil changes, your brake pads last forever, no transmission fluids...your only maintenance is tires, cabin air filter, and wiper blades/fluid.
> EVs are running at 0.5 for 3, at best.
If you charge at home, I'd say they're 1.75 out of 3, with 0.25 taken out just for road trips.
In the Netherlands we have the touring club (ANWB) app which shows all the chargers, their current status, all the parking places and petrol stations including the actual prices. Oh it also shows real time traffic and provides roadside help. All in one functional fast app for free. Amazing really what nonprofits can do.
No. How do you enable payment for such normal sockets? Even if you figure out a way to do that, the amount of payment for electric bikes is so tiny that just to cover credit card processing fees would require electric bike users to pay for exorbitantly expensive electricity.
So bike batteries are typically not more than 750 Wh. If you are trying to go on some long cross-country trip for fun, then maybe you pack three of them (2kWh of electricity). That gives you ~100 km of pedal assist.
That's still a dollar/day including CC fees. Seems reasonable.
0.75kWh per charge even at Electrify America prices ($0.64/kWh) is not enough for a single transaction. Maybe they will force you to preload the account and then deduct from your balance. But the fact is a normal outlet consumes so little electricity that it's not economically worthwhile to meter any reasonable duration of using that single outlet.
Or fast WIFI and delivery bikes/bots. People just want to play with their cell phone and drink coffee.
My guess is that eventually there will be fewer but larger charging site. Built beside major routes and close to a big grid connection. Have a few hundred MW's of charging all in one place. Much easier to maintain and more investable for large companies.
Visiting the gas station is an across-the-income-strata chore with recurring economics. Wealthy EV owners, on the other hand, charge at home--"the economic burden of installing home chargers" being unfeasiable "for many living in multi-family housing or renting" [1]. It's unclear whether electric trucks will charge en route, and if so, whether they'll have many people on board for long hauls. So you’re stuck, as a base case, with road trippers. An intermittent, lower-volume and presumably pro-cyclical market.
Put simply, the economics of gas stations don't map cleanly to EV charging.
A bit of a nitpick perhaps, but I'd say a personal parking area.
I don't charge in my garage, I charge in my driveway. My garage is stupidly small. My previous car, a small Subaru BRZ, barely fit in my garage. It doesn't help that there's a pillar right in the middle of it, preventing anyone from opening the passenger door of any car parked.
If I parked my Model 3 in my garage, I'd have about two feet between the front bumper and the back wall of the garage.
I've always said they need them at all the McDonalds along the interstates. You need them at a place where a person can sit down and eat for 20-30 minutes. A 5 minute purchase at a store isn't going to charge the car much.
I hate having to rely on bathrooms inside businesses to relieve myself during road trips while charging. Sometimes they need a code and the business won't give it to you unless you buy something.
Agreed. But again, taking a pee isn't a long enough break to charge on a long trip. I'm assuming people will charge at home without the middleman fees, and only need public charging stations on long trips. You certainly can take a longer break a rest stop, I just tend to have longer stops for food.
Even on a road trip, not every charging stop is a meal stop. It's basically every other or even every 3rd charging stop. If it's a charging stop that I won't be eating at, I'd rather it be somewhere with a guaranteed restroom.
I had one time during COVID I was on a trip and had to charge at like 10:30 PM. All the fast food places nearby were drive-through only. There was a Safeway, but apparently they closed their bathrooms at 10 PM. I was just lucky I didn't have to go urgently and was able to hold it until I got to my hotel an hour later.
And tell us exactly where these are, their hours of operation, what they sell, and the best way to get there from here. A dedicated EV mapping team should have been something cooking at Google a decade ago. For some reason, they just aren't interested (or are now too stupid to realize) this massive, ripe business opportunity.
Well, for one, charging duration isn’t the same as filling a gas tank, so the store needs to be more coffee shop / lounge than convenience store, although those items must be available, too. It really should have an upscale vibe because electric cars are purchased more by higher income families. Spaces for telecommuting should be involved. Think of it as a truck stop but for luxury electric cars. No showers, but cubicles are there. Can I get ycombinator approved for this idea? :) /half sarcasm
In Washington state, I’m starting to see EVGo chargers at AM/PM convenience stores. And I’m hearing that there are chargers at Pilot truck stops, and Buckee’s stores in other states.
Yes. I heard this about Shell recently. The key to this is that the big oil money is coming for this opportunity and it will soon be ceded to them entirely, unless someone goes after it. It’s a multifaceted problem of electrical engineering plus real estate plus supply chain plus marketing. Needs a real team with funding.
I did a road trip through a part of Canada recently. These are only on 401 I think, but they were pretty nice. Small convenience store, a food court with 2-3 fast food choices, gas pumps, and DC fast chargers. Usually have their own exit/on ramps on the highway as well, made it super easy to get in and out. Well-spaced for charging on a road trip too.
Yes, that makes sense, of course, but the point is that there is a business opportunity in the vast wide open world of the US for electric charging to not just be a sidecar to established businesses but rather a destination unto itself. Consider how much money McDonalds has made from people needing a restroom over the years.
100% agreed. Took a road trip, and at any charger I stopped at I either purchased a meal, or purchased snacks from a coffee shop. Given how spread out they are, competition is fairly thin.
I wonder if this is economically feasible. A fast charger is going to take at least 20-30 mins to charge a car, where filling up with gas is more like 5 minutes. This means a gas station can get significantly more customers per hour than an equivalently sized EV charging station.
I’m still kind of bummed that I can’t do a trip to eastern Oregon without renting a car. Even John Day is still iffy, I hope we can get more charging off the beaten track soon.
Yes, but there is no room for error (broken charging stations are a thing, and if they only have one....). There is one charger in John Day and one charger in Burns. IF Tesla Superchargers were open to my EV already, it would be a completely different story. I'm better off just going into BC instead, the Canadians are much better at this than we are.
I found a free charger that was super slow. But nothing else was really in range. Luckily it was by a beach. But I literally had to hang out on this beach for five hours. Weird experience. Forced leisure?
I've been driving a Tesla around California these last couple of weeks, and using PlugShare to find "free" chargers (there are plenty of municipal chargers that don't charge, or don't charge for the first 2 hours, etc).
That works pretty well, though it's not entirely up to date yet. Shell ReCharge spots aren't listed consistently.
But what surprised me the most is that the Tesla map doesn't do a good job of alerting you to clustered Superchargers. For instance, in Quartsize, I've usually stopped at the only Supercharger I know about -- the one behind Carl's Jr. But across the highway there are new Superchargers, and behind Terrible's, there's a new one too. It's almost a year old at this point, and Terrible's has restrooms, and in 110F heat, the walk from the original Supercharger over to the Terrible's location is definitely something you'd want to avoid.
Tesla could do a better job of letting you know that when it's routed you to a Supercharger, there are actually alternatives/ options in the immediate vicinity. It pretty stubbornly just points you to whichever one it chose.
In the long run, we won't need any maps to find chargers. If you park, you can charge, not DC fast charging, but 240V charging. Cars are parked 22 - 23 hours/day, no need to build expensive DC Fast charging.
I wish there was a federal rule requiring all parking to have 240V. Every building spends millions of dollars on adding handicapped parking and making the building accessible -- these features are rarely ever used, but EV parking spots will be used every day and forever.
Are trips longer than 300 miles outlawed in your vision of the future? Barely anyone needs DC charging for their day-to-day usage, it's largely for supporting longer trips.
I'm surprised the various charging maps aren't simply using OpenStreetMap. It has a large basis of charging points and anyone is free to use the data or contribute, so integrating is pretty easy. Instead, we now need to use various third-party alternatives and the market is quite fragmented. I noticed a family member with an EV needs to check two or three different systems and they'll all show different results of what chargers are near
Of course, live (charging) status will need to be fetched from the operator, but that can be a URL field just like we have website and menu URL tags for restaurants
OpenStreetMap gives you static data. But when charging, you almost always need dynamic data (current station availability, availability forecast, charging prices...) even in the most basic use cases.
And to get dynamic data you can't just fetch it from one operator. My employer's charging network (Digital Charging Solutions) has about 1450 technical charge point operators (those are the brands you see on the stations). Even just looking at the commercial charge point operators (those are less) you'd have to connect to hundreds.
Ok, there are also roaming platforms that interconnect everything. But they exist to connect, so they are never going to give you this valuable data for free. And you'd still have to implement about a dozen API connections to get reliable status data for only Europe...
Edit: AMA about charging stuff :) I don't handle the data connections etc but I know a bit
Do you foresee consolidation occuring for access to the data? Having to install 10s of apps / consult multiple sources for charging prices (not all chargers present a price) is painful.
I do see consolidation happening, but it doesn't have to do with data. Right now there are many EMP (eMobility Provider) in Europe, trying to get a piece of the cake.
Scale of economics will make the big ones have an edge over the small ones, eventually only a few big ones will likely survive. Two examples:
- If an EMP connects directly to a CPO (Charge Point Operator) they can avoid roaming platform fees, but it requires individual integration. This is only worth for very large CPO like Ionity.
- An EMP has to sanitize and improve the raw chargepoint data they get from providers. Thousands of times CPOs have set their chargepoints to LatLng 0,0; have messed up lng and lat; have put their stations to Somalia's beach.
I don't understand. You're saying there's too many operators to reasonably connect to. How do they currently do these live maps then?
It seems to me that, somewhere, there is a URL (or whatever specification) which some central server then fetches and aggregates to show on their map (probably briefly caches, too). This specification of where to fetch the data from each charging point from could, per my understanding, be an OpenStreetMap tag just like other metadata that we can already add. A client can either connect to the (e.g.) 50 nearest points along the upcoming route directly, or a third party can do it and funnel the data back to the client, but the ground truth of which charge points there are and how to get their current status could be in OpenStreetMap rather than fragmented across various siloed map operators
Edit: actually, even if that's not the case, it's still better to show "there is a charge point here with 2x 150 kW but I don't know the current status" than not having it at all. That's static information which OpenStreetMap already has. Even if the live info spec is too elaborate or divergent for an OSM metadata field, it would still make sense to show all the points OSM is aware of in one's application because it draws more people to one's app/website
> only Europe
I'd say "wow, even Euripe". I would expect the European market, even just within the EU, much more fragmented the in the US. I may be wrong though.
This was only data stuff. Once you actually want to sell electricity in all european countries and properly invoice it for all private & business customer needs, you also get a large headache :)
My neighbour's charge point is officially a public charger. It is located on his driveway, behind a closed fence. The reason it is 'public' is because there were government kickbacks for installing public charge points with no requirements to have ypur 'public' chargepoint be usable by the public.
This is not a one time exception. You can drive through city streets with your GPS showing multiple nearby public access chargers. With none in sight (they are iside people's garages or on their property behind closed fences).
Is that not fraud?
That is textbook fraud. Courts consider intent, you cant just rules lawyer them with an argument that "it didnt technically say my public charger had to be accessible to the public".
Depends on the lawyer, judge, and possibly jury.
We've definitely seen cases where intent of a law was clear, but the ruling was made according to the letter of the law. It's basically why Legalese exists. They have to try to cover every possible corner case and explicitly spell things out as much as possible to avoid loopholes that can be created by creative interpretations of the letter.
I'd report it to ChargePoint as not public (in the app, there is an option), and if you're feeling spicy, report it to whatever regulatory body handed out subsidies under the conditions you mentioned.
Actual site is here: https://openchargemap.org/site
Site is quite janky on my M1 iPad Pro 12.9’’, and honestly, using a 3D globe view for this feels like form over function.
The guy running the project doesn't seem to have the time needed to improve the site:
https://github.com/openchargemap/ocm-app/issues/37
Maybe also browser dependent? Constantly janky on Firefox/Windows/8840HS laptop; janky on Chrome while loading new locations but then mostly very smooth.
The service seems to believe there are multiple charging sites in the middle of the North Sea - which seems slightly unlikely...
57.782509, 2.295993 should have been 12.295993. For those "Data Provider = NOBIL", but good to see there is an edit and comment feature.
I'm actually slight disappointed that there isn't some bizarre explanation for why North Sea rigs have charging points - preparing for electric helicopters maybe? ;-)
Driving my electric car to my oil drilling job in the middle of the ocean, as I do every day
FYI I'm on a 2015 MBP and Firefox is doing ok here, so I suspect this is a perf problem with Safari.
seems they just used mapbox defaults. if your device can't run mapbox something is wrong with your device, it's a common and well supported library.
Example 3D globe maps on Mapbox website run very smoothly, so it’s not that.
Take a perfectly smooth animation, add a fast-looking synchronous function call in the animation loop, get some jank. A modern GPU, even integrated into a CPU as usual on laptops, is ridiculously fast for the task of showing a globe, something like 100k triangles at worst. But you need to feed it on time.
This is going to sound weird but I just did my first Tesla road trip and the charging stops were sort of low key highlights of the trip!
Picnic at one while we change. Nice stroll in a park coming back. Went to a restaurant I’d never go to another time.
We had the same experience going ~800mi in a day (each way; so we did this twice). We also had 3 kids in the car, so 5 people total... or to put it another way, approximately 500% more people in our EV than the big SUVs driving next to us.
A guy at one stop in TX was in a huge Excursion and was walking his dog near the charger, laughed and said "you're going to be here a while." We were in and out before he was. The FUD is extremely strong still. Our drive (CO to North TX) has to be one of the least populated (and anti-EV) drives in America and there was still no range or charge speed anxiety.
I also completed my first big road trip with the Tesla during the summer holidays. This was around France.
With a long trip my preference was to slow charge overnight so as to start the day at >90%, and sometimes we'd also have a single supercharge during the day. The supercharger experience is great - you plug in and it works. When you're done you unplug and continue your journey.
The slow charge experience was less good. In France there are a lot of charging points in car parks, but to actually start charging it involves a load of faf.
1. Slow chargers typically involve using an app or website, so you need to find that, figure out how to tell it which charger you're at, enter your payment details. Hopefully you've got internet access in the underground car park that you've selected.
2. Each provider has a different app or website - they're typically difficult to use and buggy, but each in its own unique way.
3. Slow chargers don't don't come with their own cables, so you need to get your one out of the boot, and put it away again.
4. Stopping charging typically involves navigating the website/app again, hopefully you haven't closed the tab, otherwise it's going to be a pain getting back there.
5. There's no indication on how much it's going to cost until after you've gone through all the trouble. Even then it can be unclear - for example do I need to pay for parking while I'm charging or not?
6. It often costs as much or more than the supercharger - although all the prices I saw were cheaper than the UK.
7. There are typically idle fees, so you might find yourself having to disconnect your car and move it in the middle of the night (assuming you put it on charge in the evening)[^1], or you might find yourself having to rush back to the car in the middle of your sightseeing.
I want to slow charge when I'm parked, because I'm away from the car anyway. My dream slow-charging experience is:
1. Broad availability in any given car park, let me just plug in if I happen to be stopped
2. Streamlined payment process, preferably automatic and through the touchscreen of the car, rather than involving a phone or website. Don't make me enter payment card details - I want something like the apple pay experience, but "Tesla pay".
3. No idling fees so I can change my mind and have a dessert if I fancy without worrying about getting back
I don't care about speed if I'm not waiting. 7kW is more than enough.
[^1]: My trick here is to adjust the charging current in the Tesla app, such that it will take longer to charge. This way I'm never idling, even though I'm taking up a space for the same time anyway.
Some of these things are the same in the US, others not.
> 1. Slow chargers typically involve using an app or website, so you need to find that, figure out how to tell it which charger you're at, enter your payment details. Hopefully you've got internet access in the underground car park that you've selected.
Yes, this can be somewhere from mildly to extremely annoying. I have also seen chargers that accept tap to pay credit cards though, no account needed.
> 2. Each provider has a different app or website - they're typically difficult to use and buggy, but each in its own unique way.
Similar in the US, though I wouldnt describe any of the apps as difficult to use or buggy. Usually the most annoying part is creating an account.
> 3. Slow chargers don't don't come with their own cables, so you need to get your one out of the boot, and put it away again.
Never seen this in the US. I dont even know what the cable would be.
> 4. Stopping charging typically involves navigating the website/app again, hopefully you haven't closed the tab, otherwise it's going to be a pain getting back there.
Stopping charging is usually doable from the app, but usually I dont want to stop charging until I am ready to physically disconnect which also stops charging.
> 5. There's no indication on how much it's going to cost until after you've gone through all the trouble. Even then it can be unclear - for example do I need to pay for parking while I'm charging or not?
I dont think I've run into a charger that doesnt display pricing info yet.
> 6. It often costs as much or more than the supercharger - although all the prices I saw were cheaper than the UK.
Wow, that is awful. In general slow (AC) charging in the US is half the price or less of fast (DC) charging. In fact, usually public AC chargers are even cheaper than charging at home (for me, very expensive kwh at home).
> 7. There are typically idle fees, so you might find yourself having to disconnect your car and move it in the middle of the night (assuming you put it on charge in the evening)[^1], or you might find yourself having to rush back to the car in the middle of your sightseeing.
This is annoying but necessary. If chargers let you idle for free, it would be impossible to find an empty space many places. I think the idle fees (usually $1-3/hour in the US) are a reasonable compromise.
> Never seen this in the US. I don't even know what the cable would be.
The cable I have is like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MENNEKES-36213-c%C3%A2ble-%C3%A9lec...
Then the chargers (and the car) just have a socket - but the sockets have locking pins on both ends. Thanks to your response I now realise that the stopping charging issue is related - the cables are locked in place until you stop. If the charging station provided their own cables all we'd have to do is disconnect from the car to stop charging.
> Wow, that is awful. In general slow (AC) charging in the US is half the price or less of fast (DC) charging. In fact, usually public AC chargers are even cheaper than charging at home (for me, very expensive kwh at home).
That sounds lovely. The cheapest slow charger in France that I used was €0.30/kWh ($0.33/kWh). A typical Tesla supercharger on the autoroute was a comparable ~€0.35/kWh ($0.39/kWh). Still, beats the socks off the £0.56/kWh ($0.75/kWh) I pay at the slow charger near my house.
> This is annoying but necessary. If chargers let you idle for free, it would be impossible to find an empty space many places. I think the idle fees (usually $1-3/hour in the US) are a reasonable compromise.
At home it's £3/hr ($4/hr), so if I charge overnight and don't play games with my charging rate I can easily spend more on idle fees than electricity.
Did you stop at any of the fast chargers on the autoroute stops (Aires de service)?
Almost everyone one we stopped at that had a mini-mart/restaurant also had an Ionity or Total station with 8 or 16 bays.
Yeah, the aires are great. I only used the Tesla superchargers in the aires as they were cheaper than the others, and my car would automatically find them. I had no problems at all.
I invested in a Chargemap pass for my trip to France this summer. One card which works in nearly every French charger. Plug in, tap the card and it starts charging. Tap the card again to stop. That's it. Cost 20 euros for the card, and I think the rates are a little more than the native apps. But not enough to bother me. Highly recommended. You still have to deal with idle charges though.
I would like to see slow charging points in the parking lots for French low-cost chain hotels. Pay for it at the same time as the room.
The chain hotels are used during the week by tradespeople, we will want them to be using electric vans soon.
Yeah, I think people underestimate the pleasure of not rushing yourself on a roadtrip even when the destination is the important part. It's a bit healthier too as I force myself to do a bit of walking and stretching
Here in Ireland, I noticed that most of the "main" network public chargers are on Google Maps now, and for some of them they even show the list of connector options, number of points, and whether they are currently in use or not. They don't have costs, but I can't imagine it being that long before that information is also included. ESB, which is the largest (and cheapest) network is the most information complete.
Combine this with Google Maps' existing rate + review features, ability to upload pictures and all that, I can see how this will very quickly make other 3rd party services like plugshare or similar superfluous.
On a recent 800km road trip I just used Google Maps to find charging points along my route that was already planned on there. I tried using other services like ABRP or EVNavigation and found all of them pretty lacking.
Ireland is probably not representative of the rest of the world. It's very small, so with my Kona EV and it's 450km range, I can basically go anywhere with minimal stops for charging. Most of the bigger towns have at least one 50kw charger, and they are rolling out 100/200kw chargers at these locations now as well. There just is no need to have a detailed route planned out with battery SOC estimates and consumption and all that, and with charge points on Google Maps I feel we are very close to ICE convenience. I just drive, and when I'm a little low on charge I search on GMaps for a charger location, drive there, plug in, empty my bladder, get a snack, and then continue on my trip again.
The vast majority of my charging takes place at home though, so the above only applies when I am travelling further than 200km from home. Home charging provides access to more than 60% of the country I feel.
This pretty much reflects what we get in the US as well. Obviously with the size of the US we have a ways to go before we get to ICE level of coverage but it has gotten much better the last 2-3 years. The only thing Google maps lacks over say the Tesla app is being able to see how many chargers are available at a station. I’ve changed my trip a little bit a few times when it’s clear one station is a lot busier than another one that might be 20 miles down the road.
I once arrived at a Tesla supercharger that was full and there were Teslas lining up, but there were 4 CCS high speed DC chargers right next to them and not a single one was taken. Thankfully I had the adapter and just used one of them.
Those connectors are a fucking bear to plug in though, and you usually have to try 3 times to get the charger-vehicle-payment dance to work.
> Those connectors are a fucking bear to plug in
The connectors themselves aren't usually the cause for the perceived difficulty of plugging in. It's instead the weight and flexibility of the cable. Try this: plug in a CCS connector at Electrify America, and then plug in a CCS connector at ChargePoint. The latter feels much heavier than the former. Yet both are CCS connectors. Even though the former is rated for 350kW and the latter usually only 125kW.
The CCS connector itself doesn't dictate what kind of cables manufacturers use and what kind of cooling. Tesla designs cables with less cooling and they replace them more often; other brands want long-lasting cables with fewer field visits so they add more cooling. And some brands use liquid cooled cables, others simply opt for thicker copper without liquid cooling. All of these have nothing to do with the connector.
That's true, although connector quality does vary as well. And in his case, he was using an adapter, which adds some unique potential problems. Some connectors have electronic latches. I've had those engage before the connector and the adapter were fully seated, making it nearly impossible to push them the rest of the way together. Usually fiddling with the latch button is the easiest way at that point.
Also, some connectors have nasty white plastic, while others have really nice and usable handles.
Interesting. What charging network were you using out of curiosity? I've never had any issue with Charge Points beyond the initial account and payment setup. I've used my NACS-CCS adapter dozens of times now mostly at hotels when I charge overnight.
ChargePoint is usually fine. I've rarely had problems except in rare cases where the cables were cut, presumably by some MAGA person.
EVgo and Electrify America routinely fail at the payment-charging stage for me. The Tesla is expecting to get charge as soon as it is plugged in; the charger on the other hand wants me to plug in BEFORE payment, and payment takes FOREVER by the time I open the app, inevitably have to re-log-in (for some reason ChargePoint keeps me log in but the others routinely log me out), forget my password, reset my password, then locate the goddamn charger stall ID zooming in from a map of the US and then have to search some stupid IKEA-like name of the actual charge station. By the time I finish this the car has already given up and when the charger catches up to telling the car "hey I have charge now", it's too late.
The real workflow should be either
(a) tap a EMV credit card, approved, THEN plug in, no app needed
OR
(b) scan a QR code, Google/Apple Pay, THEN plug in, no login needed
The charger should facilitate immediately delivering charge as soon as it's plugged in to the car.
> being able to see how many chargers are available at a station
Google Maps has this information for the ESB network in Ireland. It even shows which connections are currently being used, and which are out of order. Next step is to show information on the current in-use plugs, like when the session started. On the ESB app this information is available and it helps to estimate when a point might become available, if there is congestion.
Ireland is the ideal country for EVs, with our temperate climate and small size. We also don't have a large fossil fuel resource. We got government grants to install a home charger. Quick and easy. There are many public charges points but in the last 6 months I have noticed much more contention and have to wait frequently. Also more broken chargers. Sign of increased adoption I guess... But if we can't make it work here, I won't work anywhere.
As an EV owner, another issue I find is that there are a discomfortingly large number of chargers that are "for customers only" or that require you to pay for parking just to charge.
This is a massive UX issue. With gas cars you can use any gas station you want and you don't have to pay additional fees other than the gas.
> This is a massive UX issue
I don't see what would really motivate businesses to change their mind on this. Since the barrier to entry for an EV charging station is many orders of magnitude lower than a gas station, it's pretty easy for a business to just add one in to an existing parking spot as an extra revenue stream or another way to draw customers. But they might reasonably value having available parking for customers over the revenue they get from EV charging.
I things will probably move more in this direction as EVs become more popular and the average customer is more likely to drive one.
Interesting. Where do you run into this? I've never encountered it in the U.S (east coast). If you're in Europe, maybe this is a concerning glimpse of where we're heading in the U.S. Although I think a charger with those restrictions would be ineligible for U.S. National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure ("NEVI") funds, so maybe we can hope that there is a strong enough disincentive for now?
Here in northern New Jersey there are many chargers that are inside municipal parking garages. Since you have to pay to enter (technically, to leave) you have to pay for parking time to use those chargers. That's obviously not an issue if you would be parking there anyway, but if you lived in the area and just wanted or needed to use the charger you'd have to pay an additional $1 - $2 per hour on top of the charges from the charger.
I'm not sure what the state of the chargers being installed at local businesses is. My local grocery store has four chargers now, but I don't recall seeing any signage about them being for customers only. They share the parking lot with the church across the street, though, so that may complicate things.
It makes sense if you invert your point of view. These are not chargers where you have to pay for parking; these are parking places which have a charger as an extra.
IMO, the long-term tendency will be for every parking place to have an electric vehicle charger (or at least a standard power socket which can be used for a slow charge), the same way every parking place has electric lighting.
Where is this? Here in California, it's pay-for-use for the chargers without any restrictions as far as I've seen.
Worth mentioning that the US's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is helping to fund chargers:
> This funding opportunity is made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s signature EV charging investments: the $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program and funds from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program that are set aside for strategic grants to states and local governments to deploy EV chargers.
https://driveelectric.gov/news/new-cfi-funding-released
And as a part of this, federal standards were established for qualifying chargers. There's a bunch here to insure physical and electrical compatibility. But one of the excellent requirements is real-time API availability information, on how many chargers there are, what their charge rates are (per charger), and what chargers are presently open.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/28/2023-03...
This should be a great help to EV owners/renters in the US!
Really precise blog post with useful case, as usual with the author. Love his writing, findings and technical details.
My only feedback was that he should really really consider linking the text `Open Charge Map` to the website.
For Android users wanting to use Open Charge Map, I recommend using the EVMap app instead of the official one. It doesn't let you see or post comments, but you can see pictures if available. Much smoother and also tries to show the charger status:
- https://ev-map.app/
- https://github.com/ev-map/EVMap
I only use OCM when I want to add a picture or read/add a comment.
Can it filter by charging level?
You can filter by speed, connector type, operator, number of connectors, and ignore chargers that are marked as having issues.
GOOD Point by my wife. Why wouldn’t every business want to put in some chargers to attract affluent customers with 30+ minutes to kill.
It makes perfect sense for quality interstate stops. There's a reason that Sheetz, Wawa, and Buc-ees have so many of them.
Is the demand there? Affluent customers probably have chargers at home, so unless it's a 200+ mile round trip to visit the business, probably don't have much need to charge.
https://insideevs.com/news/734705/ev-chargers-cash-cow-nearb...
Relevant article from today referencing a recent MIT study.
As someone who owns multiple EVs, it's about the fact that you are much more likely to go to a business within probably 1000ft of the charger. The chargers are also frequently very busy. I 100% go to a ton a businesses that I wouldn't otherwise simply because they are located near the charger. Convenience is king
Those tourism promoting visitor centers would also be great candidates. We spent 30 minutes learning about some random region of Georgia because they put chargers outside.
I’d never stopped in one of those places in my life.
It's chicken and egg at this point.
Having an EV requires charging at home. People that can't charge at home don't buy an EV. People that would charge in a parking lot don't have an EV.
Public charging has really stagnated in the last 5 years.
I think being able to charge at home is almost a requirement but definitely not necessary in some places. I charge at home maybe twice a month, and there are dozens of chargers within a few minute walk of where I live. Many retail areas have chargers too, so its easy to get a few kwh of charge on a short trip to get groceries or something.
I think there are also a significant number of EV owners who almost exclusively use public DC fast charging. If there are enough fast chargers around, you can treat an EV similarly to an ICE car - drive it til its mostly empty then fill it up.
Even just for travelers though. If you’re within 30 minutes of a highway exit and there area isn’t well covered by other chargers it seems like it would be a good investment.
If it were me I’d even try to sell them washer fluid and other road supplies.
Me and my partner exclusively charge at work.
Why would I use this over PlugShare?
Because Plugshare is closed source, locked down and a bizarre cesspool of uncurated garbage with zealously curated but misleading or straight up wrong information.
For example, in Australia, the largest supercharger networks are Tesla and Evie. For reasons I won't even pretend to understand, Plugshare refuses to allow either name in their labels, so if a town has both, they're called "Town (1)" and "Town (2)" at random. Not only does this make searching a pain, but people just select whichever pin happens to be on top and then submit their charging reports for the wrong charger. Gar! Typical example:
"Oliver's Gundagai (1)" https://www.plugshare.com/location/205861 (Chargefox)
"Oliver's Gundagai (2)" https://www.plugshare.com/location/76887 (Tesla)
Weird, this problem doesn't exist in Europe. I found Plugshare to be more reliable and informative than ABRP, especially in the areas where charger stations aren't that common.
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Being truly open is a huge plus for OCM. Checking a few locations in both I found that PlugShare had locations properly listed as under maintenance while OCM listed them as open, so at least near me the Plugshare data seems more accurate.
I also really appreciate the images and comments people have posted in Plugshare to help find out of the way stations or stations that might not be reliable. If OSM took off it would get there, but none of the stations I checked had any comments or images.
I'm not a big fan of the OCM station formatting. There's a bunch of useless information above the fold and a bunch of useful information below the fold.
OCM doesn't appear to have any pricing information while PlugShare at least tells me if the station has a charge and if the parking itself has a charge.
I hope that open services like this can get station data from more direct sources for more accurate information, but the data isn't quite there yet for me to want to use it when I'm actively looking for a station.
Plugshare is owned by evgo. It'd be nice to have a fully independent entity owning the data and sharing it freely.
This was my immediate question. Looking at this data in my city it reports a bunch of chargers that are either 100% gone or have been broken for a year. PlugShare reports those all correctly. I'd have a pretty bad time trying to charge around here (metro population of 2.5 million) if I relied on this dataset.
In London (UK), OCM seems to have more chargers and more accurate data than PlugShare. Zap Map is probably the best option though, but even them are missing some slow chargers.
PlugShare doesn't list all stations, for one.
And it's easy to add a new station to PlugShare. I've done that before.
Neither does this; obviously.
IME, Plugshare is of variable value. Good in Germany; terrible in Mallorca, for example.
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Why would I use PlugShare over other apps on which I can also charge?
Or instead of OSM.
OSM doesn't have the same metadata as this project.
China is missing from this map, even though it has the most charging infrastructure of any country. Here's the best map I could find in a few minutes for China (warning - very resource-intensive website): https://chargermap.nio.com/pe/h5/static/chargermap#/.
Surprisingly, the above map is just charging infrastructure from one company. There is a lot of infrastructure from Tesla and other companies as well.
Is there any official source that lists all chargers in China? OCM automatically imports data from different countries (UK, Portugal, France, etc). Operators can also submit their data: https://openchargemap.org/site/about/datasharing
I’m visiting Chiang Mai Thailand and China is flooding the roads with cheap EVs, BYD, Hozon. There is charging infrastructure everywhere. I don’t know how the United States is going to compete.
So far it would seem that the U. S. is tackling that competition with tariffs. OTOH, I’m not sure what it would take to get a (for example) BYD to pass crash testing, and if it would still be price-competitive.
BYD cars already get top crash ratings in European tests. For example: https://youtu.be/7ThTci70350?si=8-gTWRr1_jTdZam0.
> BYD cars already get top crash ratings in European tests
I see it coming up in the top 10 for 2023, but not 2024 [1]. Just not released yet?
[1] https://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/electric-vehicle...
It's so frustrating that rather than treat the climate crisis as an actual crisis, we've instead decided to heavily tax EV buyers in order to support domestic manufacturers that have been dragging their feet for decades.
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> Tariffs of 100% on China EVs is a nuclear weapon to prevent them from gaining any ground here
Doesn't matter if Chinese manufacturers enjoy economies of scale from supplying Europe, South and Southeast Asia, Africa and South America. If American automakers are constrained to America and grow complacent, the compounding effects of learning curves and R&D advantage due to greater total profits will leave us with a fleet of Ladas.
At the end of the day we have to compete. Other than Tesla, we are uncompetitive in the mass market. The tariffs are meant to give us a safe harbor. But they don't automatically deliver us an edge.
A Global Times article says that China has 3,000,000 public EV chargers[0]
US Department of Energy data has the number for the USA and Canada combined as 66,650[1]
This might not be Apples to Apples as the USA numbers might be "sites" and the china number might be "chargers", but I don't think there's anywhere close to an average of 45 chargers per site to make up the difference.
[0] https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202406/1314382.shtml
[1]https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity-locations
EVs will go mainstream when, and only when, this sort of thing is not needed, because you can charge your EV whenever and wherever you are, and in a few minutes, like gas stations.
To replace an incumbent product, a new competitor has to be at least two of: cheaper to buy, more convenient, and cheaper to use in the long run. EVs are running at 0.5 for 3, at best.
This is already the reality in most of EU and the UK. There are 300kW charging stations all over the place, and a decent EV can recharge in 20 minutes.
I actually prefer this over refuelling, because filling up takes 5+ minutes of my time, while recharging is unattended, so I can plug in in seconds, and go get a coffee/break in the meantime. Chargers also tend to be next to nicer places, near food courts and other retail, which is handy, and doesn't need to be a separate stop on road trips.
> cheaper to buy
Yeah, that probably won't happen for a long time.
> more convenient
If you can charge at home, then for daily driving, they're more convenient than ICE. Road trips aren't bad if you have access to Tesla Superchargers. If you're CCS only, then it's another story.
> cheaper to use in the long run
If you can charge using residential rates in an area that doesn't have absurd energy pricing, then in the long run, an EV IS cheaper. The cost to replace a battery is a popular talking point, but it's just not relevant on any EV that isn't a first generation Leaf. It typically takes over 100,000 miles to see even 10% degradation.
EVs are cheaper to maintain. No oil changes, your brake pads last forever, no transmission fluids...your only maintenance is tires, cabin air filter, and wiper blades/fluid.
> EVs are running at 0.5 for 3, at best.
If you charge at home, I'd say they're 1.75 out of 3, with 0.25 taken out just for road trips.
In the Netherlands we have the touring club (ANWB) app which shows all the chargers, their current status, all the parking places and petrol stations including the actual prices. Oh it also shows real time traffic and provides roadside help. All in one functional fast app for free. Amazing really what nonprofits can do.
Does anyone know if these charging stations have normal sockets so one can charge their electric bike on them?
No. How do you enable payment for such normal sockets? Even if you figure out a way to do that, the amount of payment for electric bikes is so tiny that just to cover credit card processing fees would require electric bike users to pay for exorbitantly expensive electricity.
So bike batteries are typically not more than 750 Wh. If you are trying to go on some long cross-country trip for fun, then maybe you pack three of them (2kWh of electricity). That gives you ~100 km of pedal assist.
That's still a dollar/day including CC fees. Seems reasonable.
0.75kWh per charge even at Electrify America prices ($0.64/kWh) is not enough for a single transaction. Maybe they will force you to preload the account and then deduct from your balance. But the fact is a normal outlet consumes so little electricity that it's not economically worthwhile to meter any reasonable duration of using that single outlet.
Charging the bike batteries would block use of the charger for cars for too long.
Some of the very oldest chargers in Europe are just normal power sockets, but I don't know what happens if you connect a small appliance.
In my experience in the PNW US the answer is no. They only have DC charging attachments.
Someone needs to build convenience stores attached to charging stations. The money is in the store / lounge.
Or fast WIFI and delivery bikes/bots. People just want to play with their cell phone and drink coffee.
My guess is that eventually there will be fewer but larger charging site. Built beside major routes and close to a big grid connection. Have a few hundred MW's of charging all in one place. Much easier to maintain and more investable for large companies.
> money is in the store / lounge
Is this demonstrated?
Visiting the gas station is an across-the-income-strata chore with recurring economics. Wealthy EV owners, on the other hand, charge at home--"the economic burden of installing home chargers" being unfeasiable "for many living in multi-family housing or renting" [1]. It's unclear whether electric trucks will charge en route, and if so, whether they'll have many people on board for long hauls. So you’re stuck, as a base case, with road trippers. An intermittent, lower-volume and presumably pro-cyclical market.
Put simply, the economics of gas stations don't map cleanly to EV charging.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13640...
> Wealthy EV owners
This is largely a function of needed to charge in a garage.
A bit of a nitpick perhaps, but I'd say a personal parking area.
I don't charge in my garage, I charge in my driveway. My garage is stupidly small. My previous car, a small Subaru BRZ, barely fit in my garage. It doesn't help that there's a pillar right in the middle of it, preventing anyone from opening the passenger door of any car parked.
If I parked my Model 3 in my garage, I'd have about two feet between the front bumper and the back wall of the garage.
I agree "Garage" isn't the right phrase but what really matters is owning something to (or having autonomy to) attach a charger near where you park.
I guess "Garage" is just shorthand for owning a single family home.
I've always said they need them at all the McDonalds along the interstates. You need them at a place where a person can sit down and eat for 20-30 minutes. A 5 minute purchase at a store isn't going to charge the car much.
I'd rather see them at rest stops.
I hate having to rely on bathrooms inside businesses to relieve myself during road trips while charging. Sometimes they need a code and the business won't give it to you unless you buy something.
>> I'd rather see them at rest stops.
Agreed. But again, taking a pee isn't a long enough break to charge on a long trip. I'm assuming people will charge at home without the middleman fees, and only need public charging stations on long trips. You certainly can take a longer break a rest stop, I just tend to have longer stops for food.
Even on a road trip, not every charging stop is a meal stop. It's basically every other or even every 3rd charging stop. If it's a charging stop that I won't be eating at, I'd rather it be somewhere with a guaranteed restroom.
I had one time during COVID I was on a trip and had to charge at like 10:30 PM. All the fast food places nearby were drive-through only. There was a Safeway, but apparently they closed their bathrooms at 10 PM. I was just lucky I didn't have to go urgently and was able to hold it until I got to my hotel an hour later.
Agreed. The lounge word in my post is doing a lot of heavy lifting. See below.
And tell us exactly where these are, their hours of operation, what they sell, and the best way to get there from here. A dedicated EV mapping team should have been something cooking at Google a decade ago. For some reason, they just aren't interested (or are now too stupid to realize) this massive, ripe business opportunity.
Well, for one, charging duration isn’t the same as filling a gas tank, so the store needs to be more coffee shop / lounge than convenience store, although those items must be available, too. It really should have an upscale vibe because electric cars are purchased more by higher income families. Spaces for telecommuting should be involved. Think of it as a truck stop but for luxury electric cars. No showers, but cubicles are there. Can I get ycombinator approved for this idea? :) /half sarcasm
In Washington state, I’m starting to see EVGo chargers at AM/PM convenience stores. And I’m hearing that there are chargers at Pilot truck stops, and Buckee’s stores in other states.
Yes. I heard this about Shell recently. The key to this is that the big oil money is coming for this opportunity and it will soon be ceded to them entirely, unless someone goes after it. It’s a multifaceted problem of electrical engineering plus real estate plus supply chain plus marketing. Needs a real team with funding.
I did a road trip through a part of Canada recently. These are only on 401 I think, but they were pretty nice. Small convenience store, a food court with 2-3 fast food choices, gas pumps, and DC fast chargers. Usually have their own exit/on ramps on the highway as well, made it super easy to get in and out. Well-spaced for charging on a road trip too.
https://www.onroute.ca/
In Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia they put major chargers next to large malls, so you have all the convenience of a mall while the car is changing.
Yes, that makes sense, of course, but the point is that there is a business opportunity in the vast wide open world of the US for electric charging to not just be a sidecar to established businesses but rather a destination unto itself. Consider how much money McDonalds has made from people needing a restroom over the years.
You are completely right of of course. I often think about that when I can't avoid charging in the middle of nowhere.
100% agreed. Took a road trip, and at any charger I stopped at I either purchased a meal, or purchased snacks from a coffee shop. Given how spread out they are, competition is fairly thin.
I wonder if this is economically feasible. A fast charger is going to take at least 20-30 mins to charge a car, where filling up with gas is more like 5 minutes. This means a gas station can get significantly more customers per hour than an equivalently sized EV charging station.
Most of the ones in Pennsylvania are at Wawa or Sheetz. I wish they all were.
They're starting to, I've seen quite a few
I’m still kind of bummed that I can’t do a trip to eastern Oregon without renting a car. Even John Day is still iffy, I hope we can get more charging off the beaten track soon.
You can. I've done these trips multiple times. There is a charger in Burns that makes it possible.
Yes, but there is no room for error (broken charging stations are a thing, and if they only have one....). There is one charger in John Day and one charger in Burns. IF Tesla Superchargers were open to my EV already, it would be a completely different story. I'm better off just going into BC instead, the Canadians are much better at this than we are.
I found a free charger that was super slow. But nothing else was really in range. Luckily it was by a beach. But I literally had to hang out on this beach for five hours. Weird experience. Forced leisure?
nice job
needs an easy Type I/Type II ... filter. easier than a kw slider
The site lags on $1.000+ hardware. </thread>
I've been driving a Tesla around California these last couple of weeks, and using PlugShare to find "free" chargers (there are plenty of municipal chargers that don't charge, or don't charge for the first 2 hours, etc).
That works pretty well, though it's not entirely up to date yet. Shell ReCharge spots aren't listed consistently.
But what surprised me the most is that the Tesla map doesn't do a good job of alerting you to clustered Superchargers. For instance, in Quartsize, I've usually stopped at the only Supercharger I know about -- the one behind Carl's Jr. But across the highway there are new Superchargers, and behind Terrible's, there's a new one too. It's almost a year old at this point, and Terrible's has restrooms, and in 110F heat, the walk from the original Supercharger over to the Terrible's location is definitely something you'd want to avoid.
Tesla could do a better job of letting you know that when it's routed you to a Supercharger, there are actually alternatives/ options in the immediate vicinity. It pretty stubbornly just points you to whichever one it chose.
In the long run, we won't need any maps to find chargers. If you park, you can charge, not DC fast charging, but 240V charging. Cars are parked 22 - 23 hours/day, no need to build expensive DC Fast charging.
I wish there was a federal rule requiring all parking to have 240V. Every building spends millions of dollars on adding handicapped parking and making the building accessible -- these features are rarely ever used, but EV parking spots will be used every day and forever.
Are trips longer than 300 miles outlawed in your vision of the future? Barely anyone needs DC charging for their day-to-day usage, it's largely for supporting longer trips.