I am watching the “sh*t show” that EA is live and in person

[Swede-ish]

Sorry for your losses! I have had quite a few issues at EA recently, with using the Connect app to charge. Then I watched a uTube guy charing his Taycan and using the Porsche "charging" app instead. I tried it, and as long as it is in the background, I just have to plug in at EA and it starts charging! No input from me - just works. Hopefully not a coincidence or fluke, but so far so good!

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[feye]

I think Tesla has shown that it doesn't HAVE to be a government thing.

T has so far only shown how to burn billions of investor money. Without the Shanghai factory flourishing and selling cars in China and exporting lots of it into European countries (both markets EVs heavily driven by regulators) they would still bleeding money like crazy. Why is their next factory in Germany?

Sure you can wait and let the market decide when and if we want to switch over to Net Zero Emissions...

 

[feye]

As a side note: in Germany, Tesla network is also amongst the top. So much so that politicians have been talking about forcing them to open it to everybody... Meanwhile Ionity isn't nearly as good, enough for Diess to publicly diss them.

That was one dumb German politician. Nothing in the news about this anymore. Much more interesting how companies like EnBW, Fastnet, etc expand and make money.

IONITY stations are usually better located along the highways and have more power. Considering that they only started a few years ago, it's pretty good. Diess got cought up in summer holiday traffic through the alps - didn't he even apologize for his rant afterwards?

 

[fullmetalbaal]

T has so far only shown how to burn billions of investor money. Without the Shanghai factory flourishing and selling cars in China and exporting lots of it into European countries (both markets EVs heavily driven by regulators) they would still bleeding money like crazy. Why is their next factory in Germany?

Sure you can wait and let the market decide when and if we want to switch over to Net Zero Emissions...

Again, not trying to go into the whole Tesla vs. anything else thing. I know where you and others stand ... that's fine.

What I was saying, purely from an operating a network perspective... Tesla Supercharger network is privately run and does it's job. EA does not. It has nothing to do with government or not.

 

[kmcdonal]

EA was a hot mess in Colorado 15 months ago, but they did a lot of repairs a little under a year ago and things have been rock solid since then. Hopefully they are starting to figure things out and can apply those learnings across the country. Might be wishful thinking, but fingers crossed.

Totally agree about the importance of also using other L3 charging networks and L2 destination chargers. EV Go and Chargepoint have been incredibly reliable but they usually are not super fast.

I would just add that around me there are new L2 and L3 chargers popping up on a regular basis as more non-Tesla EVs hit the road. I am cautiously optimistic that the charging options for Taycans are just going to get better and better.

 

[fullmetalbaal]

Yeah, we could have a bunch of manufacturers make charging stations for just their cars. Sounds great. ?

If anything, Tesla has shown that it does have to be a government thing. Case in point:

It does sound great to me. I wish Porsche would start building some of those Porsche Charging Lounges they keep talking about and making pretty designs for.

Charging stations are magnitudes cheaper to build and run than gas stations. There's no inherent need to model the charging network after what worked for gas stations.

Personally I really like the situation that Tesla drivers have in Europe: they can use another network if they want to, but they also have a solid network available to themselves. No Bolt trickle charging at 50kw blocking a stall.

Enforcing a single standard also limits innovation IMHO. Just watch what happens in Europe with the USB-C for all cell phones mandate. They are basically decreeing by law that there shall be nothing different, and also nothing potentially better, than USB-C. They have essentially decided that USB-C is as good as it can ever get.

Allowing car makers to potentially run their own, dedicated, networks opens up the space to new ideas. If there's nothing there and it's all "commodity/utility" style charging, I'm sure the vast majority of car makers is going to get out of the business on their own anyway.

 

[thecoloradokid]

EA was a hot mess in Colorado 15 months ago, but they did a lot of repairs a little under a year ago and things have been rock solid since then. Hopefully they are starting to figure things out and can apply those learnings across the country. Might be wishful thinking, but fingers crossed.

Totally agree about the importance of also using other L3 charging networks and L2 destination chargers. EV Go and Chargepoint have been incredibly reliable but they usually are not super fast.

I would just add that around me there are new L2 and L3 chargers popping up on a regular basis as more non-Tesla EVs hit the road. I am cautiously optimistic that the charging options for Taycans are just going to get better and better.

Evidently you have not been to the Flagler location recently. That is the gateway east and it is a hot mess. I used Frisco and Glenwood Springs in the end of August and they worked great. I avoid Grand Junction, so can't comment on that.

The good news is that the State of Colorado is just about done implementing their charging network, so there are reliable options outside of Electrify America north, south, and west of Denver.

 

[fullmetalbaal]

Again, not trying to go into the whole Tesla vs. anything else thing. I know where you and others stand ... that's fine.

What I was saying, purely from an operating a network perspective... Tesla Supercharger network is privately run and does it's job. EA does not. It has nothing to do with government or not.

Speaking of government intervention being good or not...

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/09/2...-infrastructure-turns-capitalism-on-its-head/

 

[kmcdonal]

Evidently you have not been to the Flagler location recently. That is the gateway east and it is a hot mess. I used Frisco and Glenwood Springs in the end of August and they worked great. I avoid Grand Junction, so can't comment on that.

The good news is that the State of Colorado is just about done implementing their charging network, so there are reliable options outside of Electrify America north, south, and west of Denver.

Grand Junction is solid and fast. I don't remember exact charging speeds, but I recall it has been around 130kW. They have quite a few stalls too and I haven't seen anyone in there aside from an ICE pickup or two.

Totally agree that State of Colorado did a nice job. They analyzed the weak spots in the state and worked with 3rd parties to fill the gaps. You don't need chargers everywhere, you just need enough of them.

 

[kreshi]

Again, not trying to go into the whole Tesla vs. anything else thing. I know where you and others stand ... that's fine.

What I was saying, purely from an operating a network perspective... Tesla Supercharger network is privately run and does it's job. EA does not. It has nothing to do with government or not.

Ionity works extremely well. There are more SC, yes, that is the only advantage.

 

[fullmetalbaal]

Ionity works extremely well. There are more SC, yes, that is the only advantage.

Agreed. Again - not about SC being amazing. Just saying EA sucking has nothing to do with anything other than EA sucking.

If you want to use Ionity as an example instead, that's fine too. There's no inherent advantage that Ionity had over EA. Yet Ionity works well and EA doesn't.

 

[kreshi]

Agreed. Again - not about SC being amazing. Just saying EA sucking has nothing to do with anything other than EA sucking.

If you want to use Ionity as an example instead, that's fine too. There's no inherent advantage that Ionity had over EA. Yet Ionity works well and EA doesn't.

I said that because you did say here that “Ionity isn’t nearly as good” -direct quote-

 

[fullmetalbaal]

I said that because you did say here that “Ionity isn’t nearly as good” -direct quote-

Fair enough. My main point is that EA sucks and has nobody to blame but themselves.

A secondary point: how is it that the startup is beating everybody so badly? Ionity is smaller than Tesla SC despite it being a JV of 4 different OEMs that each is larger than Tesla. And yes, I would argue right now the number of chargers available is part of what makes a network good. Watch Rivian catch up and then beat EA too.

 

[feye]

Again, not trying to go into the whole Tesla vs. anything else thing. I know where you and others stand ... that's fine.

What I was saying, purely from an operating a network perspective... Tesla Supercharger network is privately run and does it's job. EA does not. It has nothing to do with government or not.

It has everything to do with government.

T network is proprietary, so it is not a public infrastructure.

EA is public infrastructure. Anybody with an EV can use it. So who invests in public infrastructure, if it does not make money or if it only makes money for the whole economy???

It does sound great to me. I wish Porsche would start building some of those Porsche Charging Lounges they keep talking about and making pretty designs for.

Audi also has big plans in Germany, too, but I think it is a waste of money. Batteries get better and we need more fast charger at perfect locations.

Charging stations are magnitudes cheaper to build and run than gas stations. There's no inherent need to model the charging network after what worked for gas stations.

Not so sure. Getting a high power electric line to a remote highway stop location is a big investment. IONITY was saying that they spend 7 figures for some of their locations. Also running costs are high because the grid companies in Germany at least charge hefty running fees for just providing the high power connection.

Personally I really like the situation that Tesla drivers have in Europe: they can use another network if they want to, but they also have a solid network available to themselves. No Bolt trickle charging at 50kw blocking a stall.

To prevent this, IONITY has quickly raised the price to close to a dollar per kWh.

Enforcing a single standard also limits innovation IMHO. Just watch what happens in Europe with the USB-C for all cell phones mandate. They are basically decreeing by law that there shall be nothing different, and also nothing potentially better, than USB-C. They have essentially decided that USB-C is as good as it can ever get.

Completely wrong. Mandating these standards is meant to lower the enormous waste on chargers and cables in the electronics consumer sector. These standards are changing with technical innovations.

Allowing car makers to potentially run their own, dedicated, networks opens up the space to new ideas. If there's nothing there and it's all "commodity/utility" style charging, I'm sure the vast majority of car makers is going to get out of the business on their own anyway.

Allowing car makers to run their own, dedicated, networks (public infrastructure) is extremely wasteful and completely limits the speed and maybe even the overall adaption of EVs and a net zero carbon future.

 

[riburn3]

You must be in California. I bought my first Tesla in early 2013 and have driven cross country several times. I've only had to wait for a SpC spot twice outside of CA, and in both cases it was <5 min wait. I'll take Tesla's reliability over EA every time.

Actually West Texas.

Before my wife sold her X, we did a road trip to San Antonio and we had 2 wait at two stops there and back. One because 4/8 stalls were down for repair, and one in Van Horn Texas was just crowded for some strange reason.

That said, you're right. The Tesla network is flawless compared to EA but it's not without its issues.

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