[Atlant]

From a usability point of view, the Nissan Leaf had it exactly right with the charge port up front and centered.

From a weather reliability point of view? I don't know.

My Volt has the charge port on the front left fender and the gasoline port on the right rear fender; that works well (although Chevy's fancy remote-controlled charge port door was unreliable and they eventually ditched it for an ordinary push-push door).

The ID.4's charge port location on the right rear is clearly sub-optimal for DCFC charging as you usually have to back in. But it works fine for my Level-2 charging because if I pull up right against the garage door (“beeeeeeeeeeep!”), the VW charge port is almost aligned with the Volt's charge port so swapping the EVSE cable back and forth is trivially easy.

 

[Atlant]

If the location of the charging port is such a big deal for you, why did you purchase the ID4 in the first place without doing your homework first?

This isn't really a productive answer to a person who has a legitimate concern.

 

[Atlant]

I remember reading years ago about chargers in city locations beside parallel parking, so curb side would have been useful.
View attachment 17622

But it's pretty uncommon. And I really hope wireless charging eventually fulfills that need.

That J1772 connector and the charger inlet port that it's attached to would last about 10 minutes on a busy American street. I know: I've my driver's side mirror smashed off.

 

[Atlant]

I don't care where the charging port is, I just want it to be in the same place on all the cars I might buy, so I can organize my garage right.

I understand you sentiment but if you park two EVs in the garage simultaneously, that may not be the best arrangement. See my comment above about how the ID.4 charge port location works synergistically with my Volt's different charge port location.

 

[Atlant]

I'm puzzled by the "I have to back in" comments.

Lots of people don't like to back in to parking stalls.

It doesn't bother me but I'll bet my wife wouldn't like it.

 

[Atlant]

I had an eGolf for 4 years and never found it a problem, though it was admittedly not as wide a car, and the port was closer to the rear bumper. When I bought my home charger I ordered an extra long cord. I have a single-wide driveway to the right of my house when facing it, but if someone is parked at the top of the driveway next to the charger, I can back in and still charge.

when using public dc fast charge stations I DID have to re-park on 2 occasions to get port access. Oddly I cussed at Electrify America and not at VW…. I guess I just really want to like my new car. You bring up an interesting point.

A recent photo that someone posted seemed to suggest that EA has gotten the message and the newer chargers have longer cords with some sort of gas pump-like cord slack management cable.

 

[Atlant]

Ideally, EV charging stations should be like gas pumps: drive-through.

I think they don't do this because every charging device is actually two separate units: The “dispenser-like” unit and a big cabinet full of high-powered electronics. EA likes to build a single secure(ish) enclosure in which they locate all of the high-power cabinets and then they can run relatively short cable runs to the dispenser units. If the dispenser were all separated by drive-through lanes, the cable runs to their associated high-power cabinets would be quite a bit longer costing more and producing more voltage drop for the dispenser units that were located farther from their respective high-power units. Alternatively, EA could locate each high-power unit near each dispenser but then they'd need to provide a secure enclosure around each individual high-powered unit.

It's a shame that defense against vandalism needs to be provided, but that's the reality of modern humanity.

 

[Atlant]

Your age is showing 😉. The top of the gas tank was also the floor of the trunk 😬.

Strictly speaking, I don't think that was every true although they were in intimate proximity.

 

[Atlant]

Second, when I brought the car home, I parked in the garage nose first and popped the hatch from inside the car. I quickly realized the vertical clearance (open hatch to the raised garage door) was not adequate. First scratch on the car within 2-min of bringing it home (ugh). The scratch is barely visible but the emotional damage was done. I will never pull forward into the garage again!

Elsewhere, we were discussing that horrible moment when one's car transitions from “Perfect” to “Damaged”. The good news is that none of the subsequent damage that will inevitably occur will hit you that way again. ;-)

When I first got my Volt, I was routinely backing it into my garage. The Volt has parking assist sensors that are, shall we say, way too pessimistic about side clearance so I had mostly learned to ignore them until one day, they were right! Ooops! I touched up the paint on the garage door surround but on the Volt, it had only taken off the top coat and left the darker primer perfectly intact underneath so I left it alone. Ten years later, the car still has those two unsightly marks but pretty much I'm the only one who knows that they are there. But that day, the car transitioned from “Perfect” to “Damaged”. Ah well…