Charging idiots or charging etiquette - you pick it!

[JRNJTAYCAN]

I know we have talked about this before but its seems to be getting worse. I pulled up to my local EA station today which has two 150KW and two 350KW stations. No surprise….the two 350 stations were both taken, one with a Chevy Volt and the other with a small Kia. The two 150 stations were wide open! Now we all know these two cars cannot benefit from the 350 charger but our cars can.
To make things worse the Volt was parked there from when I pulled in and the screen message said please unplug!

Why people why?????

Sponsored

 

[Jonathan S.]

In fairness to our slow-charging cousins, those could have been the only available chargers upon their arrival.
Although idling, no excuses for that!

 

[MConte05]

Also the 150 is still plenty fast, at most you’ll be there maybe 5-8 minutes longer. Just plug in and don’t worry about it.

 

[JRNJTAYCAN]

In fairness to our slow-charging cousins, those could have been the only available chargers upon their arrival.
Although idling, no excuses for that!

True

 

[JRNJTAYCAN]

Also the 150 is still plenty fast, at most you’ll be there maybe 5-8 minutes longer. Just plug in and don’t worry about it.

Your right, I pulled in at 14% and hit 85% in 29 minutes.

 

[bsclywilly]

I was caught red faced once occupying the lone chademo plug at a site. Pulled in and the other 3 ccs stations were full. When the Leaf pulled up I was the only one left. Happily moved though.

I was in a time crunch once and had to ask an ID3 owner to unplug. They were occupying the lone working station, typical EA, and at 96% on their way to 100. Sorry, I said (but not sorry)!

 

[bsclywilly]

Speaking of charging etiquette, I experienced this behaviors twice in as many days where I arrive at a nearly empty charging station and a second car pulls in and decides to use the charger directly adjacent to you. The first station was in Kettleman City, nice EA station midway between the bay and LA. The chargers are power sharing so as soon as the second guy plugged in my 220kw gets cut. They could have picked any of the other 6 stations that were available. No big deal, the split power isn’t obvious here.

Just now, I’m charging alone at an EV go with 6 plugs split between 3 pedestals. Dude pulls in and plugs in at the same pedestal I’m at. For some reason I get a charging error as soon as he plugs in, maybe a voltage fluctuation or something. Wtf is the psychology here?

 

[anonymouse]

We have the same pair of issues (speed-limited vehicles hogging the fastest charger, clueless or o obstinate drivers going to 100% while others queue) at Ionity in the Uk.
There is very little driver education; no educative signage; and no software support (cf Tesla which sets the limit to 80% on busy stations) and at Ionity no per-minute of overstay price incentive either.

 

[kort]

I'm not overly concerned about which charger someone uses.
what bugs me is the people who are using the chargers as their primary charger and they seem to always charge to 100%.
once you get over 80% the charge rates slow down and they are wasting their time and causing congestion at the very busy chargers.

there are so many new EV owners and few if any take the time to learn the nuances of charging their cars.

 

[jkoya]

I know we have talked about this before but its seems to be getting worse. I pulled up to my local EA station today which has two 150KW and two 350KW stations. No surprise….the two 350 stations were both taken, one with a Chevy Volt and the other with a small Kia. The two 150 stations were wide open! Now we all know these two cars cannot benefit from the 350 charger but our cars can.
To make things worse the Volt was parked there from when I pulled in and the screen message said please unplug!

Do you mean Chevy Bolt ? I had a Volt and it did not have DC fast charging..

 

[RedFiveGT]

I'm not overly concerned about which charger someone uses.
what bugs me is the people who are using the chargers as their primary charger and they seem to always charge to 100%.
once you get over 80% the charge rates slow down and they are wasting their time and causing congestion at the very busy chargers.

there are so many new EV owners and few if any take the time to learn the nuances of charging their cars.

I agree with the sentiment here but also struggle with it at the same time.

I'm lucky enough to not having to use public chargers very often. I normally do less than 250 miles a week and have offroad parking and my own 7kw charger so all gucci.

Last week though I went for a cheeky long weekend in the Yorkshire Dales. To my American friends think South Dakota for EV availability. The cottage we rented was 1000 ft up a hillside all on it's own and there are zero fast / rapid chargers once you enter the national park.

Scotch Corner now has 12 fantastic 350kw chargers and only two were taken when I arrived with 70% charge. So I hooked up, pulled 97 kw (meh) and went for a coffee. Came back 15 minutes later and now at 92% and still pulling 67kw. Still 9 bays free so I stayed on. An E-Tron SUV pulled up next to me and plugged in (see urinal sketch above, hilarious and true) and I felt compelled to leave as he looked at my display now showing 95%. I could feel the tut but was probably imagining it.

But here is the thing, I'm still pulling 67kw so only need another 5 minutes or so to a full charge and is way faster than many other EV's at their maximum theoretical speed such as the Mini, leaf, Honda E, all 46kw and most drivers of mainstream EV's such as the MG or Mercedes EQ's with 100kw maximum would be quite happy with real world 67kw.

So do I explain to Mr SUV my dilema as I needed every single drop of electrons to see me through my long weekend in the EV desert or should I have just gone?

I did go and ended up granny charging at the cottage so all good

I have seen EV's sitting at 2kw speed at 90% and owner no where to be seen (I'm looking at you Instavolt Booths, Windermere) and of course don't get me started on EV's using them as parking places and not charging but I think speed is much more important than capacity which is what makes our cars so fantastic as we have both on top of everything else.

 

[phljeeper]

Just plug into the 150, rarely have I seen a 350 run anywhere close to even 200.

 

[Jonathan S.]

Although I'm usually all in on optimization strategies ...
... the hierarchy of CCS1 dysfunctionality goes something like:

• insufficient total number of chargers at the top
• followed by insufficiently sized layouts (i.e., far too many clusters of just one or two chargers, and hence vulnerable to being skunked by just one or two cars ahead of you)
• broken chargers
• significantly derated chargers
• chargers blocked by cars that are not charging (whether ICE'd, EV owners using them as parking spots, or idling EVs)

... then a major drop down to suboptimal scenarios like:

• EV owners with free EA charging actually using such free charging b/c it's free (i.e., instead of charging at home)
• EV owners who use only DCFC since they don't have home or work L2 charging
• EV owners who use the 150 instead of the 350 even though the 150 is already way above the EV model's charging curve -- but which might be entirely moot since EA chargers are often so derated that the 150 and 350 chargers are all mired in the double digits

I realize that addressing the two different sets of problems would not be mutually exclusive actions.
But in terms of thinking to myself, "Oh gawd this sucks..." with regards to the CCS1 scene (at least in the Northeastern U.S.), my ire is focused on the first set.

 

[tigerbalm]

Voiceover: "And tonight on Charging Wars ...."

 

[Scandinavian]

Just plug into the 150, rarely have I seen a 350 run anywhere close to even 200.

I am surprised that we still hear so many issues in the US with charging rates. So many articles and videos have been shared and produced highlighting this dilemma. There has to be some limits from the grid that gives this problem.
we are much luckier here in Europe and below is my charge curve outside Binasco, south of Milano, Italy. And this was with 5 of the 6 stalls occupied and cars charging at Ionity. If I stop the car with a low enough charge level and have driven it sufficient time for the battery to preheat, this is the normal situation at Ionity.

The charge level was slightly too high when I plugged in to get the maximum power and there seems some peculiar steps in the curve, but all very good result.

Sponsored