DC fast charger networks - issues, future needs, and everything else

Aside from EA stuff already mentioned, I see a few fundamental DC fast charger issues:

• Smaller networks might have a really hard time staying on top of their equipment and making a profit at the same time. This might result in a lot of broken stations. Witness the linked thread in post #1.
• Even for the big networks, how is the profit margin going to work out long term? Can they make it and provide excellent service? It is one thing for Tesla to build a network to resolve their chicken and egg issue, and take a hit financially on the charger network. Same for EA while they were settling the dieselgate issues. Going forward in a competitive world, who knows?
• Single points of failure: The feed into the charge station can go down and take the entire setup with it. If there is not fast charger within a reasonable distance, an EV driver might have a hard time.
• Grid load: If the local grid cannot keep up with cars drawing lots of juice, we have a problem that needs much more work. Battery storage can help, as do solar panels on the overhead canopies.
• Remote management: How reliably and quickly can operators notice issues and fix them remotely? That's quite obviously only partially solved today.

What I do see as imperative for us early adopters are three things:

1. Report station status on PlugShare or similar crowdsourced platform for the benefit of other EV drivers.
2. Report issues to the station owner whenever possible.
3. Press politicians, network operators, and utilities to do their utmost to improve the situation.
4. Push operators and car manufacturers to adopt Plug and Charge.

Once everyone in this fine country has a situation as I find it here in Southern California, most of the charging pain fades away.

ChristophW said:

On another note: As Shell and some other oil companies start adding charge stations to gas stations (fast chargers, L2 don't count), support them by using it and demand even more. Gas station locations are a naturally good fit for DC fast chargers (except for grimy bathrooms).

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This is a good point.

It is almost impossible to tell exactly where this is going in my view and what precisely needs to be done. Certainly, your previous post has good suggestions that I am not sure that I can add much to.

Once upon a time, since I have personally known a few Tesla owners since the early Model S/X days (when I was living in Chicago), the Tesla Supercharger network was not so reliable and available as, reportedly, it is today. I am sure that as deliveries of Tesla vehicles increased, Tesla benefited heavily from telemetry data streamed from their chargers whereas it is likely that Electrify America is just seeing a significant usage ramp-up for the first time ever as the Ford Mustang Mach-E and VW ID.4 start to enter the picture in respectable numbers (and soon to be many more models in the US that offer some quantity of free charging on the Electrify America network).

It seems to me, until very recently, no one really had a vested interest in making Electrify America great in many of the dimensions you cite.

Just my two cents...

Sincerely,

Adam J. Cook

Biggest issue i see as someone who has been living all my life in EU and now work related living in US. Is short term investment and expectations on quick profits... this type of business is not going to help with adaptation and improvement in this sector. .. I'm not against competition but expectations that if someone wants to invest asking for quick time turn around profits📈 will drag this extremely slow.
Back in my country my family and I have properties across multiple countries and are tourists attractions. ... we decided to install L2 chargers across all of our locations and ... this was 200 000 euros costing us as family. .. and our main focus was to see no profits at all expect cost to cover expenses and maintenance over 5 years period. ..
Some would say we are idling 200k doing it this way....but actually after less than 2 years other busines owners have figured out that they are making better than they use to before we started L2 charging stations. ...they actually come and ask if they can advertise businesses in front of our L2 chargers with some type of money contributions....
So if something like this gets alive and becomes supported by local businesses you can continue installing more L2 chargers even you don't make enough profit to expand.
And that is exactly what all advertisements money we collect going for more L2 chargers installs.... We have been approached couple times by investors to buy out our little experiment ...but our vision is to make affordable prices and after 5 years try to see if we can run it as business that actually brings some income.
And this is how do you make good foundation for business and not being greedy in exchange charging people for your services. US have a lot of greedy mindset people.

ericy said:

But the question of how many DCFC do we really need looms large - to an ICE driver, they just assume the experience is just like an ICE car, but in reality, it is far more nuanced than that.

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There are four answers I can think of:

1. As long as stalls are available, we have enough.
2. As long as you can comfortably reach another charge station when your first one is down or full, we have enough.
3. As long as you can reach a charge station when you come back off the mountain or other remote area and not have range anxiety, we have enough.
4. Real-time feed of available stalls back to the car nav or connected phone, plus active route adjustment.

To me, items 2 and 3 work out to a 35 - 50 miles spacing along interstate highways. In between those corridors, maybe 100 miles. In metro areas and larger cities, demand will tell. Where I live in San Diego, the next EA buildout phase and Tesla opening will pretty much suffice as long as enough stalls are provided. Here's hoping other areas will reach a similar state quickly.

The basic answer to chargers is many more than are available now. But that observation just means I am nominated for Master of the Obvious award. For me, I have tried to figure out how I could use Interstate 86 in New York (sometimes called the Southern Tier Expressway) but there is now way. The distances between charging station (only one - in Binghamton) are too far. But the other problem I see is that the spacing seems to assume your car has a range of about 250-300 miles, which is actually slightly more than mine seems to have, especially at highway speeds. And with the current spacing it seems that you are totally dependent on the stations always working and being available, since you generally don't have any other option. I have tried to map out a trip from where I live (Dutchess County - Southeastern NY) to my cousins in far western NY state, about 400 miles. I cannot use I86 as stated above but should be able to use the NYS Thruway, which does have chargers that would allow my car (VW ID.4 AWD) to reach the next charging stations. I believe I need to leave home with 100% charge and then charge at least twice and probably three times to make the trip. This is worrisome, as I am absolutely counting on the chargers working and being available. Please note that this rant is specific to ElectrifyAmerica L3 (fast DC) locations, which is what you need for a road trip.

But there are still a couple of things I would like to point out.

1) Car manufacturers like to give their maximum range, seemingly under pretty ideal circumstances. My car is listed as having 240 miles of range. But that is at 100% charge. The first thing every car maker does is to warn you to only charge the car to 80%. This means my real ideal range is actually under 200 miles. And charge times are always quoted as up to 80%. But the spacing seems to be designed as if I had the full range available, not 80% of the range. Both the charger networks and car manufacturers seem to be guilty in this case.
2) You can't assume that people are going to pull into charging stations with 2% of their charge left. I don't wait until the low fuel light has been on in my car for 30 or 40 miles before I look for a gas station. So a more realistic range that I would actually drive is from 80% (what the charger seems to thing I will charge to) and 20% (where I expect to be pulling into a charger station). In my case that is more like 130 miles or so. So the spacing between charges cannot be more than 130 miles, at least with today's cars. And that assumes they are 100% reliable and available.
3) Cold and hot weather must be taken into account in all mileage calculations.
4) The waiting time of 10 minutes is very unrealistic. Suppose I pull into a charger and start charging. I then decide to walk into the Walmart and shop for what I expect to be at least 30 minutes of charging or maybe into a restaurant to eat. The only way I can expect to be at my car when the session ends (or is abruptly terminated after 11 minutes for no obvious reason, as has happened to me) is to stay in the car and pay attention to the charging session. I don't plan to park all day but I can't always count on how fast the lines are in a Walmart or how long a meal will take.

Another consideration is the layout of highway recharging stops. With an ICE gas station, you pull in for gas, pump in the gas--which takes a couple of minutes--then move your car to the parking area to eat lunch. With an EV, you pull in for electricity, plug in, then expect it to take perhaps half an hour to charge. The distinction between the refueling and parking areas is less distinct.

Perhaps what is needed at rest stops is a system where you can plug in your car for charging, and leave it plugged in for an hour, even if it only takes 15 minutes, say, to charge. In other words, there is no "parking area," there is only a "charging and parking" area. From the rest stop owner's viewpoint, that represents more charging stations (where customers plug in) but maybe only 1/3 to 1/2 utilization of the rest stop's total available charging capacity is in use at any point in time.

And from the customer's viewpoint, maybe charging doesn't start right away during that hour window, it waits a while until a slot in the rest stop's total available capacity opens up. Which has to work right, because you don't want to sit there for an hour in the restaurant and come out and find that your charging session has still not started!