Featured Europe passes two big laws to make EV charging a whole lot better

Where do you get a 40 page TOS?
I am fine with different opinions, but please don't make stuff up.

If you own a Tesla, it is a part of the package you already have.
If you own another EV, you likely were provided an app to connect with the car or query it for information.
If you absolutely don't want an app, stick with a PHEV which you can charge at home and use gas on the road.

I'll stick with the added security and convenience of my Tesla app.

 

Curiously, in Germany, the scenario was reversed. Banks advocated for these modernizations, but customers feared fraudsters (using "secure" wallets to block RFID) and prized their privacy. This resulted in a system where consumers are readily reimbursed ifanything bad happens, since bankscannot afford any bad publicity.

Nordic countries like Denmark/Sweden barely use cash anymore for quite some time and are years ahead. Wheteher you like a tracked, cashless society is a different question but probably none to be discussed here.

I have faith in the Tesla app because they're skilled in software and a large company. If they missstep, they could face major issues at the EU level.

But I'm not confident in most of the other apps (like "Countryside Energy provider EV Charging app") needed for different chargers. If I don't use them, my choices are limited. That's why making it easier to access and standardizing interfaces would help a lot.

Practically speaking, the last time I looked, the prices for chargers near me were inflated anyway. So, there's work to do before "ordinary" folks decide to switch.

 

Fair enough, I can't know the page count.

I can't believe that they didn't subject you to some sort of "click-wrap" legal agreement in the course of getting your account set and app linked.

You've purchased a Tesla and went through that enrollment system apparently without complaint, so everything was ready ahead of time before you pulled up to the charger.

When the day comes that I need to use a public charger, it's far more likely to be a rented EV in a distant city. I won't have been through any kind of enrollment system like that. Chances are I won't have any app. I just want to charge the car, get a receipt for client billing, get some rest and go back to work the next day. Gas stations make that really, really easy. I'd like to keep my workload that low.

I realize that it isn't a big deal for you or many others, but not everyone is approaching this from the same direction with the same needs or expectations.

 

I am in the habit of saving a copy of the terms of service from any online service I sign up for.

This is a very big part of the reason I sign up for so very few online services. The web designer has often been paid to make it as difficult as possible to read, let alone save, the terms of service.

They are often presented in the form of a scrolling text box, barely a dozen lines high, in which you can read while scrolling the terms to the end. Finding the printable/savable form of the terms, or capturing them and saving in a reasonable format (sometimes the web designer will also have disabled selecting and copying), often adds something like a quarter hour to my process of signing up.

Among the terms of service that I have saved over the years for various services, thirty pages would not be an outlier at all. I'm not sure I've saved one at forty pages, but it would scarcely surprise me. I can't speak specifically to Tesla's because I haven't downloaded that one. If "40 pages" is made up, it's made up fairly reasonably based on other real-world examples.

 

I just happened to have needed to change my Tesla account credit card due to a lost credit card. So I just went to the app and went to add a credit card and tapped on the terms page. It is 9 pages on a phone. I went to my laptop and it is 4.5 pages. It is not just legalese, but actually some useful info on how they charge you, idle fees, etc.

Mike

 

Maybe nitpicking but I don’t think these supply devices are chargers. Like the 120 volt charging cord, it is a not a charger but everyone calls them chargers. Anyway, good for them but it’s harder to do in large countries with long runs of open space to put “chargers” in every 24 miles.

 

Technically they are called Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE.) But they accomplish charging the EV so I'm OK with the less technical term, chargers. It makes it easier to discuss with non-EV people and some unsophisticated EV owners.

Bob Wilson

 

I’m fine with the word used that way too. But when I was looking at cheap charging cords on Amazon, so many reviewers think the cord and box are a charger. They sometimes think it charges faster, etc.
The reason I am looking as I see Toyota wants like $850 for a replacement charging cord. I would rather have someone take, damage, or cut a $120 one from Amazon. $850 seems like a lot. I think that is a discounted price.

 

The tesla mobile connector that allows 120VAC and 240VAC came with my car but now they sell it for $230. I have no idea why Toyota's is $850.

 

I needed one for my 2017 BMW i3-REx:


Bob Wilson

 

The list for a Toyota device is $844.87 , my error, can be had discounted to about $700. Made in Japan. Where is the Tesla charging device made? Maybe I can get one and use an adapter. My price range is $100 to 160 though. All made in China of course with a thousand unheard of brand names except for a few like Schumacher.

On the topic, rules and goals can be made about charging, but implementing them successfully is another thing.

 

Ah but the name may be familiar but you can find it was bought after a bankruptcy like so many have been. For example, I love my new GE refrigerator but know the parent company is not the same as the old GE.

 

Hertz rent-a-car has made a big commitment to adding EVs to their fleet. I've seen quite a few at the last few locations I've used.

Here's a screenshot of their charging instructions:


(from How to charge an electric car - Hertz Travel Blog viewed 7/20/23)

A few points here:

Hertz offers a service that allows a rented Tesla to pass its charges through to the card used to rent the car- but with an asterisk (it says see terms of EV rental agreement.)

The way Hertz handles pass-thrus of gasoline and toll pass charges is by adding a significant "access fee" to the actual cost of the toll or fuel.

Most of my corporate clients specifically disallow the use of such pass-thrus, due to these bonus fees. I'm not expecting it to be any different for electricity. This has not been put to the test yet, so we will see.

And I also see the closing advice on the page: just pay on the spot. That would have been my go-to move anyway, before I discovered how difficult that might actually be.

 

That’s for sure. Like SK tools, well it’s sorta SK now if you buy the USA versions. But not really. I bought some, quite a bit, on their steals on deals just before the turnover to the new company, hugely discounted and the real deal. I guess it was SK Wayne at the end, not sure. The genuine Mr. S and Mr. K are of a long gone era.
Now it’s “Hangzhou GreatStar Industrial, a Chinese tool company under the authority of the Chinese Communist Party in July 2021.”
Well this is nicely far off topic. Can’t even see the topic.

 

Funny you should mention this. The Electrify America charging lane device reported "Card reader down" but would allow me to use an "Electrify America membership" card. It was easier to change charging lanes.

Bob Wilson

 

Yep... Very few of us want to try to use a bunch of usually expensive mobile data to download some app while standing on the side of the road after you parked your car, especially it you're trying to show up on time. There's too many points of failure in that system.

If we had well informed political leaders that understood the very real risks/hassles of downloading and installing apps while roaming, we'd likely have laws that didn't allow parking meters to force you to install an app and they'd allow you to pay direct like all the other merchants.

I mean can you imagine if every store you shopped at forced you to install their crapware app, just to buy something? It's wrong! Parking meter services shouldn't be allowed to do this!

 

I never heard of any app only requirement for a parking meter, sounds strange because it isn’t required to have a cell phone to live.
I finally learned after six years how to do my Chargepoint app. I had a card but can’t find it, they still send cards out for $8. Have to use the Chargepoint app or card to authorize even a free station.
Maybe that’s how the parking meters work, there could be another way you can use them. Parking meters are not high up on the political leader chain, it’s usually a city parking office keeping things going from what I see and I park in a city garage or the street almost every day.

It’s interesting that it went from privately owned ev charger payments to it’s ill informed political leaders fault in a split second.

 

It is in China. You can't use mass transit, buy stuff at stores, or even open the door in your apartment complex without a government app that takes away your ability to do these task if you speak badly about the government.