Public Charging in Socal Sucks!

Dreamer.

 

same here. unless you've got a tesla, chargers are few and far between. and that's assuming they are unused and working.
(i like garlic)

 

Hey, I'm a freelancer for EVgo. Which station are you at? Would like to report that for you. Also, I'm still subscribed here but I just sold my '17 Prius Prime for $22k and got a $14k 2016 Kia Soul EV with 95 miles of range and only 20k miles on it. I'm a million times happier with it and I'll pay it off two years sooner. I probably shouldn't say this on a Prius forum but I'm so happy to have zero relationship with gas anymore. My "new" car has much better acceleration too. 95 miles of range is perfect for getting around my area, I used to charge every day with the Prius Prime and majorly stress about it because, like you, I hated using gas. Anyway, best of luck to you.

 

I am not sure that owning a Tesla is much better if your using Super Chargers for the majority of your charges. They are always full, so waiting on an open spot requires free time and patience.

 

I thought California was being the leader for infrastructure for BEV, guess I was wrong.

Here in Indiana we are just glad to have a bad road and lamp oil to see by.

 

I think they're a step ahead of Toyota still. They just announced the ID 3, an all electric hatchback for sale in Europe in 2020. They had 10,000 pre-orders on the first day. Any news on a Toyota BEV with 200+ mile range?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/electrek.co/2019/05/08/vw-id3-specs-electric-hatchback-range/amp/

 

There are other decent options like the Hyundai Kona (258 miles) or a better PHEV like the Chevy Volt (53 miles). But I totally hear you, it's tough to get the best of both worlds. I'm up in Seattle and we'll be renting a car for weekends to Vancouver or Portland. But anyway about the infrastructure, I know it sucks now but please know a) There are a lot of people working really hard on this. EVgo plans to double their charging capacity before the end of 2020 and they are headquartered in LA; b) It's better in CA than most places; and c) Infrastructure does get a little better when you have a full BEV because you can use the CHAdeMO or CCS chargers. And the Level 3 chargers can get you 90 miles in 30 minutes - it's pretty cool. Anyway, best of luck to you.

 

Extremism of any sort is bad. Preaching it is even worse...

 

I think you need to carry your charger with you. ChargePoint has a map of sockets you can use. There is the chance of it getting stolen but I hear you. I live in SoCal also. And there’s a ton of EV cars never really noticed till I got one.

 

If public charging in CA is that bad, no wonder I have not seen a single charge station around where I live in rural NE. Even when I travel down to Boston, I have not spotted any public charge station. Admitted, I did not look for them hard, for even if I find it somewhere waiting 2 hours to gain 30 miles of EV range is just not appealing to me.

 

Why not charge at the friend's house?

 

there were two charging stations when i parked at symphony hall garage, both were ooo

 

We're not too far behind with tough public charging in NorCal.

Perhaps the biggest problem is with "free" public charging stations. Most of these are blocked by squatters who plug in for "free" (to them) juice. The rest of us who want to plan shopping trips and get some juice are often out of luck. Unfortunately the squatters ruin the win-win for customer/business there. If businesses saw that charging folks were appropriately patronizing their stores, more stations would appear. Alas, human nature.

EVgo is a problem for much of the same reason. Although they do have paid subscriptions, the most common folks I see using their stations have "no charge to no charge" (free to customer) plans from companies like Nissan. A few EVgo stations also have free to everyone L2 charging.

All of this makes it a poor business decision to build more charging stations and a lucrative situation for squatters (who value free electricity . Even the rare busy charging station at $0.30/kWh never recovers install and repair costs.

As with most things economic, such things must be priced right to work well.

 

Interesting that people "expect" to find free electricity for fuel, but we don't have free gasoline anywhere.

The problem with public charging is that unless you have a really fast charge, the vehicle will be left unattended. 2+ hours for full charge on a Prime, nobody is sitting in the car the whole time. This leads to vehicles taking up a space in the queue when they are done. When you pump a tank of gasoline, you are done in a few minutes and drive away. And, at the cost of most public L2 charging with fees, it's cheaper for me to run the car on gasoline back to the house and charge at home at my leisure.

 

And that assumes the station is somewhere you would find something to do other than sit in the car and read. I didn't see any with that description between here and Sackville New Brunswick. You would think that at least some shopping malls would have charging stations.

And in a Prime, gas would have to cost over $4/gallon to break even. There is a gas station 3 miles from my house with a charging station - $2/hour, minimum $2. Break even on gas would be what, $13/gallon?

 

In a Prime, charging for 30 minutes while shopping may not be worth it. In our Leaf or Model 3, however, that's 13 miles range gained during that time at most L2 stations.

Spend 2 hours shopping at the mall and 54 EV miles are banked. Unfortunately, the mall usually takes a lot more money than is saved in free electricity, but that's how the game is supposed to work.