Driving Experience During Cold Spell In New York

[debsen63]

I want to describe the sheer hell of owning an EV in general, and a Lucid in particular.

We drive back and forth between Brooklyn and Rhinebeck, NY, a distance of about 100 Miles. Last night, the temp was around 19 degrees. The car had been parked curbside overnight with about 170Miles. When I used the GPS to plot a route to Rhinebeck, it asked me to drive about 8 miles out toward the eastern edge of Williamsburg to get my SOC from about 31% to about 43% (numbers could be off a little) and drive to Rhinebeck. The chosen charger was a DC Fast Charging place, "Supercharge NY". Apparently, 4 plugs, and all in-service etc. The batteries start to precondition automatically and we head out.

When we got there, all the plugs had a green light on but all four were duds. (Strike 1 for Lucid GPS/Charger Data). The physical dimensions of the charging are was unbelievably cramped (Not a strike for Lucid). With two hapless drivers still trying to figure out what the screens were saying, just pulling into it was a mess. Pulling out after 20 minutes of trying was a bigger mess. And that caused me to back into a concrete pillar in the corner. (Strike 1 for me. Not Lucid.) I have no illusion about what it's going to cost me to fix that. I shall update later.

Next, Lucid pointed out another one, about 2 miles away in Greenpointe. 1 out of 2 available. Great! When we got there, there is a fenced out lot undergoing demolition or construction, but there is no possibility of a charger there. (Strike 2 for Lucid).

Next, we decided to cancel our drive up to Rhinebeck. The range was down to about 100 miles, dropping fast (probably because of the preconditioning in vain). I figured we should look for another one closer to our place in Brooklyn, to charge it up and leave early in the morning. Lucid points us to an EVGo DC(Fast) charging station 2 miles away from us; Just one plug and it's active. This is one I had tried out once before, so I figured it must be legit. We drove there, and the charger is lit up, but nothing works. I called the customer support, downloaded the EVGo app, and the former told me "oh, it's totally dead. Sorry.", and the app told me "last used 4 weeks ago." (Strike 3 for Lucid).

By this time, the range is down to 75-ish miles. We are now 2.5 hours since we left home in Brooklyn, and we are back to 2 Miles away from the apartment! Yes, this is EV experience in a $100K plus car. Read on.

Now, I am thinking ... well, let me see if there's any Chargepoint J1772 chargers out there. May be I could leave the car there for overnight charging, wake up super early, or monitor during the night, and retrieve it when done. May be I Uber back and forth.

Lucid points me to a farm of Chargepoint chargers at a Whole Foods not too far away. These are chargers I had heard of before. By this time, I already turned off even the butt-warmer in my seat, the hand warmer on the steering wheel. Gloves on, just all alpine gear, in a $100K plus car. I dropped off my wife and our dog to spare them the hassle (and to save some tough talk later because getting the EV was my idea in the first place!) I head out to WholeFoods, and arrive at a parking lot that's just absolutely devoid of any chargers. Just empty. Asked the guy moving the carts back to the corral, and he tells me "they are no longer here. They were removed some time ago." (Strike 1 next At Bat for Lucid).

At this point, I am more eager to find out the sheer extent of hi-tech dysfunction. So, looked for chargers again on Lucid GPS. There it is ... one about 950 Ft away. Chargepoint. Drove 950ft, the GPS says "you have arrived. It's on your right." There's a well sealed, access-controlled apartment building on my right. (Strike 2 for Lucid.) Back to our apartment. Surrendered for the night. Parked curbside with about 70 miles of range left. Went to bed.

5:30 AM, it's 11 degrees or so. I downloaded the PlugShare app (on a friend's recommendation). Looked up chargers, and they pointed to a Revel supercharger station, a perfect 10 PlugShare score. 8 CCS etc etc. It's in Williamsburg. Literally no more than a mile away from the first two chargers that Lucid took us to last night. This one never appeared on Lucid GPS. (Strike 3 for Lucid). I found another one called Bed-Stuy Supercharge Hub that never showed up last night either. (Strike 1 for the third at-bat for Lucid).

Went to the Revel at 5:30AM. FANTASTIC facility. It's inside a parking garage. The first hour is free parking. 150Kw, and 55 minutes later, I drove away with 270 miles of range. Of course, I had to pay for the charge.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the state of ownership experience in this hi-tech world. Reasonable and willing participant in this technology are being duped and sent through a maddening experience where fingerprinting goes on in every direction, prices are cut by tens of thousand after one buys the car, the experience gets worse and worse.

I would've complained of the doors refusing to open in the cold weather, with the dog inside. I could've told you about one side mirror remained folded. The atrocious batter consumption of one of the worst designed key fob that one has seen. But those are absolutely trivial compared to the simple experience of getting from point A to Point b. At this point, even if she wanted to, I would not subject my wife to this driving experience, to handle this on her own. I would not want my 25+ year-old stepdaughters or the boyfriend to rely on this car. It's all good when everything works. But that thing is ... my trust in EXPECTING it to all work has reached its lowest level.

Thank you.

 

[DeaneG]

Yes, in general non-Tesla EVs are not really suitable for the general public yet. Things will get much better over the next 18 months as federal NEVI funding flows into states' charging infrastructure plans, and as Tesla opens their network - adding 30% more charging locations but tripling the number of charging stalls.

I always preplan where I'm going to charge while on the road, and always have a backup charging station identified. I use both Plugshare and the charging provider's own apps for this, never the car's nav. And always check the CPO's app again just before setting out for the next charging stop.

 

[Neurio]

Perfect encapsulation of the current state of EV charging- never rely on one app. You need to use a combination of Plugshare, ABRP, EA/Chargepoint/EVGo/etc., and the built in navigation. Annoying? Sure. But then you won't have that terrible song and dance you had last night. Sorry for your shitty experience, but it's definitely not all Lucid's fault.

 

[hmp10]

I want to describe the sheer hell of owning an EV in general, and a Lucid in particular.

I'm sorry for your experience, but I don't know that this problem is particular to Lucid. Forbes and other news outlets have reported masses of stranded Teslas that haven't been able to charge in Chicago during this cold spell.

However, your experience does point out a huge issue in this country with charging infrastructure. We have been driving EVs for eight years in Florida and love them. But I could not honestly recommend one to anyone who doesn't have home charging capability and do most of their driving within reach of it. (After our first year with a Lucid, we had so many difficulties with charging on trips -- almost none of them the car's fault -- that we reverted to our Honda Odyssey or our Tesla for a couple of trips we would have preferred to take in the Lucid. However, over the past half year we have found the roadside charging situation somewhat improved. Fluke or trend? I don't know yet.)

Over 80% of car sales in Norway are EVs. The Tesla Model Y is the best-selling car model in the history of Iceland. EVs can be driven in cold weather. But those countries have solid government support for EV charging structure. Here in the U.S., we prefer oil and fight light drunk teenagers over advancing EV charging infrastructure. And that doesn't appear to be changing much.

 

[par11768]

I find Plugshare to be the best app for finding chargers, getting user ratings and seeing when the last person used a station. If you are traveling, pick hotels or parking garages with level 2 chargers and leave your car overnight to charge to 90% if staying in that area, or 100% if leaving shortly for a longer drive. The Tesla situation in Chicago was largely people not understanding that you cannot charge a cold battery. You can precondition it on your way, or plug it in and wait for many minutes for the charging current to warm the battery enough to start charging.. People where plugging in, not seeing the charge start, then moving to another charger to start the cycle over again. Those charging who did not precondition were taking much longer to charge, creating a backlog. Lucid has preconditioning.

 

[Bobby]

Experiences are very location dependent. Here in SoCal, my wife and I both have EVs (neither is a Tesla) and no issues. That said, we have three Electrify America stations within 10 miles of our home. The closest one is 2 miles. We have two chargers in the garage. The EV experience is completely dependent upon your use case. If you intend to take a lot of road trips or do a lot of cold weather driving, it's not for you. But in a state where gas is the most expensive in the nation, and with the house powered by solar, it's the perfect choice for us.

 

[stratus]

EVs are undoubtedly better in a warm climate, for a variety of obvious reasons .
I have been pretty satisfied with my Air’s performance during winter. The only limitation has been reduced driving range , but I have not been negatively impacted , as most of my charging is at home. I am slightly hopeful that in the next decade the US will have a much better reliable charging network, especially to address rural , mountainous and cold areas. I would not let cold winter temperatures deter one from getting an EV. I must admit that I would still be uncomfortable if the Lucid was my only available winter car, even though I use it 95% of the time. Perhaps in the future , but not entirely practical at this time. I am truly sorry for your experience.

 

[debsen63]

I'm sorry for your experience, but I don't know that this problem is particular to Lucid. Forbes and other news outlets have reported masses of stranded Teslas that haven't been able to charge in Chicago during this cold spell.

However, your experience does point out a huge issue in this country with charging infrastructure. We have been driving EVs for eight years in Florida and love them. But I could not honestly recommend one to anyone who doesn't have home charging capability and do most of their driving within reach of it. (After our first year with a Lucid, we had so many difficulties with charging on trips -- almost none of them the car's fault -- that we reverted to our Honda Odyssey or our Tesla for a couple of trips we would have preferred to take in the Lucid. However, over the past half year we have found the roadside charging situation somewhat improved. Fluke or trend? I don't know yet.)

Over 80% of car sales in Norway are EVs. The Tesla Model Y is the best-selling car model in the history of Iceland. EVs can be driven in cold weather. But those countries have solid government support for EV charging structure. Here in the U.S., we prefer oil and fight light drunk teenagers over advancing EV charging infrastructure. And that doesn't appear to be changing much.

Hello, hmp10 ... thank you for responding. Thanks for your comments And others as well. I do want to draw attention to one thing: if we want EVs to succeed, and Lucid to succeed, we need to be very clear-eyed about the problems because there are so many.

In the use case that I wrote about, the real point need was for Lucid to provide clean charging station data on their onboard GPS. That's it. Infrastructure stuff is out of their control, and I get it.

If all of us know that we should be using PlugShare to cross-validate GPS information as we navigate to a charging station, then it should be LUCID'S job to integrate PlugShare into their data. These are their responsibily! When they sell a car for $100K-plus, they need to own this. If they can't do it, it's THEIR choice to integrate more deeply with CarPlay, Google, and whoever else to make it happen.

Then entire mess I went through would've gone away had they offered me the Revel station that was literally a mile away from the dead ones they showed me. That simple.

This is not the government's fault. This is not Norway doing something better (may be it is), but this one manufacturer exercising some strategic prerogatives and planning accordingly. The focus has to be the quality of experience that one gets inside a Lucid vehicle. And the more we insist on it without sugarcoating or absolving Lucid of its responsibilities, the better it will be for Lucid.

Thank you.

 

[xponents]

Hello, hmp10 ... thank you for responding. Thanks for your comments And others as well. I do want to draw attention to one thing: if we want EVs to succeed, and Lucid to succeed, we need to be very clear-eyed about the problems because there are so many.

In the use case that I wrote about, the real point need was for Lucid to provide clean charging station data on their onboard GPS. That's it. Infrastructure stuff is out of their control, and I get it.

If all of us know that we should be using PlugShare to cross-validate GPS information as we navigate to a charging station, then it should be LUCID'S job to integrate PlugShare into their data. These are their responsibily! When they sell a car for $100K-plus, they need to own this. If they can't do it, it's THEIR choice to integrate more deeply with CarPlay, Google, and whoever else to make it happen.

Then entire mess I went through would've gone away had they offered me the Revel station that was literally a mile away from the dead ones they showed me. That simple.

This is not the government's fault. This is not Norway doing something better (may be it is), but this one manufacturer exercising some strategic prerogatives and planning accordingly. The focus has to be the quality of experience that one gets inside a Lucid vehicle. And the more we insist on it without sugarcoating or absolving Lucid of its responsibilities, the better it will be for Lucid.

Thank you.

I do agree with this, and it would be nice to have a unified standard. I wonder if there is potential for ABRP to be added to the Airs, as Rivian bought them recently and put it in their own cars?

 

[debsen63]

Experiences are very location dependent. Here in SoCal, my wife and I both have EVs (neither is a Tesla) and no issues. That said, we have three Electrify America stations within 10 miles of our home. The closest one is 2 miles. We have two chargers in the garage. The EV experience is completely dependent upon your use case. If you intend to take a lot of road trips or do a lot of cold weather driving, it's not for you. But in a state where gas is the most expensive in the nation, and with the house powered by solar, it's the perfect choice for us.

Thank you. I live in two residences. Every week, I drive two hundred miles to go back and forth. One is in the country, not around fancy city, and it has a charger. The other is in Brooklyn, a city of many million people, and I have to depend on chargers. The problem I saw was not related to winter, except that the batteries probably ran out of charge a little faster.

No, the real issue was that the GPS simply didn't present perfectly viable chargers that were available. Instead, it led me to several duds within 2 miles of those perfectly viable locations. That's it.

It comes down to where they source this junk charger data from, how well they QA it, and how responsive they are to these customer woes.

I agree with you, this has nothing to do with Tesla either. That one looks good from a distance but if you own one you will get egregious issue that would simply not be tolerated in an ICE vehicle. I am not wearing rose-colored glasses on this.

 

[SubSailor]

Experiences are very location dependent. Here in SoCal, my wife and I both have EVs (neither is a Tesla) and no issues. That said, we have three Electrify America stations within 10 miles of our home. The closest one is 2 miles. We have two chargers in the garage. The EV experience is completely dependent upon your use case. If you intend to take a lot of road trips or do a lot of cold weather driving, it's not for you. But in a state where gas is the most expensive in the nation, and with the house powered by solar, it's the perfect choice for us.

After a year with the Air GT and 6 yrs. with a Tesla, living in AZ and planning ahead has eliminated most of my EV complaints. When I received my Lucid in Nov 2022, I was expecting EA charging to be as easy as my Tesla charging...it was not even close. Then, after many OTAs, the Lucid came back super strong and most EA stations work plug and charge with no problem. I already setup home solar, Tesla 80 amp charging circuit in garage and Tesla power walls, so I am pretty solid now. I will admit my spouse will not go on a cross country trip with the Lucid but she loves the car overall. She does like her Tesla Model 3 LR a lot though. I would say as soon as Lucid addresses the forum's list of software issues and additions and charging becomes more reliable and available, the Lucid will be the EV of choice.

 

[hmp10]

Hello, hmp10 ... thank you for responding. Thanks for your comments And others as well. I do want to draw attention to one thing: if we want EVs to succeed, and Lucid to succeed, we need to be very clear-eyed about the problems because there are so many.

In the use case that I wrote about, the real point need was for Lucid to provide clean charging station data on their onboard GPS. That's it. Infrastructure stuff is out of their control, and I get it.

If all of us know that we should be using PlugShare to cross-validate GPS information as we navigate to a charging station, then it should be LUCID'S job to integrate PlugShare into their data. These are their responsibily! When they sell a car for $100K-plus, they need to own this. If they can't do it, it's THEIR choice to integrate more deeply with CarPlay, Google, and whoever else to make it happen.

Then entire mess I went through would've gone away had they offered me the Revel station that was literally a mile away from the dead ones they showed me. That simple.

This is not the government's fault. This is not Norway doing something better (may be it is), but this one manufacturer exercising some strategic prerogatives and planning accordingly. The focus has to be the quality of experience that one gets inside a Lucid vehicle. And the more we insist on it without sugarcoating or absolving Lucid of its responsibilities, the better it will be for Lucid.

Thank you.

I did not mean to minimize your particular situation. Lucid clearly needs to up their game in keeping charge station data as current as possible. But "as possible" is an important point here.

A lot of bad data starts with the charging provider. The first time I tried to use a ChargePoint charger -- for which I had to download an app and open an account -- I spent over 20 minutes on the phone with a ChargePoint customer service person before she finally figured out charging would not start because the station was out of service. And I can't tell you how many times in the first year we owned the car that we arrived at an Electrify America station where even the screen on the charging post did not convey accurate information about the charger.

I disagree that government indifference plays no role in the charging situation in the U.S. There is a long history in this country of heavy government involvement in creating key infrastructure, be it power, telephone, and other services. Gasoline has been regulated for formulation and its sale regulated for decades. This notion that government should let the private sector handle everything -- even things related to key infrastructure -- is relatively new and is leaving us behind other countries in certain things.

 

[Haggy]

Yes, in general non-Tesla EVs are not really suitable for the general public yet. Things will get much better over the next 18 months as federal NEVI funding flows into states' charging infrastructure plans, and as Tesla opens their network - adding 30% more charging locations but tripling the number of charging stalls.

I always preplan where I'm going to charge while on the road, and always have a backup charging station identified. I use both Plugshare and the charging provider's own apps for this, never the car's nav. And always check the CPO's app again just before setting out for the next charging stop.

The charging companies definitely have a lot of strikes against them. It's not Lucid's data, and if they get it from an inaccurate source, that source is to blame. But if other apps have more accurate data, I'd want to know Lucid's answer as to why they are using less accurate sources. I haven't found any apps that I'm comfortable with, outside of Tesla's app and built in system in the car, but it's a moot point since I'm not likely to be using the Tesla for road trips.

"General public" is a broad term, and in many locations EVs work fine for the general public. They also work fine for people who have regular places to charge, especially their own garages. But infrastructure is a real problem, and if I couldn't charge at home, I wouldn't want an EV. With a garage, I do fine. My daughter has a Tesla and merely 120V 15A power (she rents and isn't going to change it) and it's still enough for an overnight charge to cover a typical day. Longer trips need a few days for the range to build back up over time, and Tesla chargers are plentiful. So an EV per se isn't going to be a problem for some people under less than ideal conditions. If she didn't have a garage, I don't think she'd want an EV though.

I have no idea what the state of non-Tesla chargers were a few years ago, but from what I'm reading, it's gotten worse and will probably get better. If Tesla deploys V4 chargers AND changes the equipment they use that's connected to the chargers, then we might have a better solution in a few years. But for now, there are few Tesla chargers available in the US to non-Teslas, and all of them are currently limited to 400V. If they get rid of the current limitation, the extra current and available chargers could go a long way.

 

[hmp10]

I see Lucid's in-car listing of available EV stations often compared unfavorably to PlugShare. It's important to remember a key difference. As far as I know, Lucid gets its information from the charging providers. PlugShare is a community-based app which not only gets information from charging providers but which also tracks where users are charging -- no matter what brand of car they are driving -- and that accepts inputs from users about the condition of charging locations they're using.

Lucid is entirely dependent on the accuracy of the databases maintained by charging providers, and experience indicates those databases are notoriously unreliable.

Could Lucid set up a competing app or make a deal with PlugShare to use its information? Maybe. But that's asking an awful lot of a company just finding its sea legs in the horribly complex business of engineering and manufacturing new cars when drivers can just access PlugShare on their cell phones.

 

[Haggy]

I see Lucid's in-car listing of available EV stations often compared unfavorably to PlugShare. It's important to remember a key difference. As far as I know, Lucid gets its information from the charging providers. PlugShare is a community-based app which not only gets information from charging providers but which also tracks where users are charging -- no matter what brand of car they are driving -- and that accepts inputs from users about the condition of charging locations they're using.

Lucid is entirely dependent on the accuracy of the databases maintained by charging providers, and experience indicates those databases are notoriously unreliable.

Could Lucid set up a competing app or make a deal with PlugShare to use its information? Maybe. But that's asking an awful lot of a company just finding its sea legs in the horribly complex business of engineering and manufacturing new cars when drivers can just access PlugShare on their cell phones.

It's not just that, but it's theoretically subject to abuse. If the current system gets it wrong, the legitimate excuse it that it's the information from the charging providers themselves. If they get it from PlugShare and it's wrong, they are essentially saying "I read it on the Internet" because it's from random contributors. I personally expect PlugShare data to be more reliable, but I question whether Lucid could add it to their app without a giant disclaimer, and at that it would have to be adjunct to what's provided by the companies.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Thank you. I live in two residences. Every week, I drive two hundred miles to go back and forth. One is in the country, not around fancy city, and it has a charger. The other is in Brooklyn, a city of many million people, and I have to depend on chargers. The problem I saw was not related to winter, except that the batteries probably ran out of charge a little faster.

No, the real issue was that the GPS simply didn't present perfectly viable chargers that were available. Instead, it led me to several duds within 2 miles of those perfectly viable locations. That's it.

It comes down to where they source this junk charger data from, how well they QA it, and how responsive they are to these customer woes.

I agree with you, this has nothing to do with Tesla either. That one looks good from a distance but if you own one you will get egregious issue that would simply not be tolerated in an ICE vehicle. I am not wearing rose-colored glasses on this.

I’ve had EVGo app and Chargepoint apps tell me a charger was online when it wasn’t. To make matters worse Chargepoint allows the owner of the charger to list it as “public” even if it’s in a locked private building as you experienced. Lucid’s system merely gets data from them, although I agree Lucid’s navigation charging location suggestions is mediocre if you’re using it to find anything other than EA stations (try navigating to chargers in an Ioniq or Kia EV6, you’ll find their navigation is even worse and more frustrating, and I’ve had Polestar navigation, which is Google maps based and everyone just gushing about how much they adore the flawless and mighty Google maps, also navigate me to sites with offline chargers). Unfortunately NYC is a real pain for charging, I’ve dealt with that also, with PlugShare itself even suggesting L2 chargers that actually weren’t available or inside a private garage. I found adjusting the filters just right on PlugShare worked best in NY, excluding certain brands, eliminating anything with plug score less than 7 and then reading the reviews to be sure there’s a recent one describing a positive experience. Unfortunately you’re going to have to do this with any non-Tesla EV. A $200K Porsche Taycan Turbo S has the same issues, so bringing up Lucid being a $100k car doesn’t really add anything to the argument. My <$1K iPhone and free PlugShare app provides the best guidance to chargers so I don’t think it’s the price of something in this situation that entitles someone to a superior experience.

 

[hmp10]

About a year ago I found myself sitting in the cell phone lot at an airport in southwest Florida with time to spare. I had used only Electrify America on road trips and decided to use the time to experiment with other chargers. So I checked the Lucid navigation system for nearby chargers and found a ChargePoint L3 charger about 2.5 miles away. The system told me the lone charger there was occupied, but it switched to "Open" while I was looking at the screen. So off I went.

I arrived to find the charger in the parking lot of a Harley Davidson dealer. I pulled up, read the instructions, loaded the ChargePoint app on my phone, and opened an account. Then I tried to plug my car in and found the cable wouldn't reach. Fortunately there was no one else parked there, and by straddling two parking spots I was able to angle my car enough for the cable barely to reach. I then tried to initiate charging but was unable to do so. After several attempts, I called the ChargePoint Customer Service number on the charging station. No one answered on the first attempt, so I tried to initiate charging again. No luck, but on the second call I was able to get through to Customer Service. She verified my account had activated and walked me through the scanning procedures to initiate charging (which I had already tried several times). No luck. She then walked me through other ways to initiate charging from the app without the scanning code. No luck. She then tried to initiate charging from her end. No luck. After about 15 minutes of this, she said she would check with her supervisor and put me on hold. She finally came back with the news that the charging station was out of service.

Months later, while on a road trip, we pulled into a 7/11 convenience store for snacks and a bathroom break. We did not need to charge but were surprised to find two L3 chargers -- branded 7/11 -- in the parking lot. So I decided I would try one just to check out the speed, at which point I found that I had to load a 7/11 app on my phone and open an account.

We drove off and have never tried another charge provider since. I decided that if I'm going to have to deal with road travel charging nonsense, I might as well stick with the nonsense I know from Electrify America.

I am head-over-heels in love with driving our EVs. But I would not own one if I did not have home charging capability. Given the ups and downs of U.S. politics on the issue of EVs in general, it's going to be years -- probably more years than I have left -- before we have a reliable public charging infrastructure in this country. When the Gravity comes out, we plan to become an all-EV household as we say goodbye to our Honda Odyssey . . . but only because we have three charging circuits in our home garage.

 

[no gas]

About a year ago I found myself sitting in the cell phone lot at an airport in southwest Florida with time to spare. I had used only Electrify America on road trips and decided to use the time to experiment with other chargers. So I checked the Lucid navigation system for nearby chargers and found a ChargePoint L3 charger about 2.5 miles away. The system told me the lone charger there was occupied, but it switched to "Open" while I was looking at the screen. So off I went.

I arrived to find the charger in the parking lot of a Harley Davidson dealer. I pulled up, read the instructions, loaded the ChargePoint app on my phone, and opened an account. Then I tried to plug my car in and found the cable wouldn't reach. Fortunately there was no one else parked there, and by straddling two parking spots I was able to angle my car enough for the cable barely to reach. I then tried to initiate charging but was unable to do so. After several attempts, I called the ChargePoint Customer Service number on the charging station. No one answered on the first attempt, so I tried to initiate charging again. No luck, but on the second call I was able to get through to Customer Service. She verified my account had activated and walked me through the scanning procedures to initiate charging (which I had already tried several times). No luck. She then walked me through other ways to initiate charging from the app without the scanning code. No luck. She then tried to initiate charging from her end. No luck. After about 15 minutes of this, she said she would check with her supervisor and put me on hold. She finally came back with the news that the charging station was out of service.

Months later, while on a road trip, we pulled into a 7/11 convenience store for snacks and a bathroom break. We did not need to charge but were surprised to find two L3 chargers -- branded 7/11 -- in the parking lot. So I decided I would try one just to check out the speed, at which point I found that I had to load a 7/11 app on my phone and open an account.

We drove off and have never tried another charge provider since. I decided that if I'm going to have to deal with road travel charging nonsense, I might as well stick with the nonsense I know from Electrify America.

I am head-over-heels in love with driving our EVs. But I would not own one if I did not have home charging capability. Given the ups and downs of U.S. politics on the issue of EVs in general, it's going to be years -- probably more years than I have left -- before we have a reliable public charging infrastructure in this country. When the Gravity comes out, we plan to become an all-EV household as we say goodbye to our Honda Odyssey . . . but only because we have three charging circuits in our home garage.

Good assessment. Not only do we need chargers, we need chargers that work and real time accurate updates. Charging companies need to get their act together.

 

[Steveinarizona]

About a year ago I found myself sitting in the cell phone lot at an airport in southwest Florida with time to spare. I had used only Electrify America on road trips and decided to use the time to experiment with other chargers. So I checked the Lucid navigation system for nearby chargers and found a ChargePoint L3 charger about 2.5 miles away. The system told me the lone charger there was occupied, but it switched to "Open" while I was looking at the screen. So off I went.

I arrived to find the charger in the parking lot of a Harley Davidson dealer. I pulled up, read the instructions, loaded the ChargePoint app on my phone, and opened an account. Then I tried to plug my car in and found the cable wouldn't reach. Fortunately there was no one else parked there, and by straddling two parking spots I was able to angle my car enough for the cable barely to reach. I then tried to initiate charging but was unable to do so. After several attempts, I called the ChargePoint Customer Service number on the charging station. No one answered on the first attempt, so I tried to initiate charging again. No luck, but on the second call I was able to get through to Customer Service. She verified my account had activated and walked me through the scanning procedures to initiate charging (which I had already tried several times). No luck. She then walked me through other ways to initiate charging from the app without the scanning code. No luck. She then tried to initiate charging from her end. No luck. After about 15 minutes of this, she said she would check with her supervisor and put me on hold. She finally came back with the news that the charging station was out of service.

Months later, while on a road trip, we pulled into a 7/11 convenience store for snacks and a bathroom break. We did not need to charge but were surprised to find two L3 chargers -- branded 7/11 -- in the parking lot. So I decided I would try one just to check out the speed, at which point I found that I had to load a 7/11 app on my phone and open an account.

We drove off and have never tried another charge provider since. I decided that if I'm going to have to deal with road travel charging nonsense, I might as well stick with the nonsense I know from Electrify America.

I am head-over-heels in love with driving our EVs. But I would not own one if I did not have home charging capability. Given the ups and downs of U.S. politics on the issue of EVs in general, it's going to be years -- probably more years than I have left -- before we have a reliable public charging infrastructure in this country. When the Gravity comes out, we plan to become an all-EV household as we say goodbye to our Honda Odyssey . . . but only because we have three charging circuits in our home garage.

Fortunately, I don't do a lot of long distance trips. I did do one to Las Vegas around Thanksgiving but used an ICE vehicle for that trip. The few times I do that kind of travel, I will rent an ICE vehicle until the interstate charging infrastructure has adequate fast chargers that (a) work and (b) are in sufficient quantity that one doesn't have to wait more than five minutes to get on one. In other words, similar to the fueling experience. I do about 12K miles a year on my EV and charge every night in my garage to 80%. I have never come close to running out of electrons or even getting close to 20%. And, I might add, I drive it like I stole it without concern for range.

For someone with a similar profile, EVs right now make a lot of sense. If, on the other hand, one is in sales and regularly travels between cities that are 400 miles or more apart, Pure EVs may be stressful to use. For the latter, a PHEV might make more sense as a transition device (in my life I have moved from ICE cars to hybrids to PHEVs and now to an EV).

Like hmp10 I love my EV. Sometimes I pass someone not because I need to but because it is so much fun to do it. But as a consumer, one does need to carefully evaluate one's needs in picking a vehicle.

 

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With the current state of the charging infrastructure in the USA, any potential buyer of any EV at this time needs to critically assess their driving needs before purchasing an EV. There are many really nice hybrids available.

When you need a spoon, a fork won’t do.