Ars: Electric cars are doomed if fast charger reliability doesn’t get better

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WetEV

Well-known member
Joined
May 4, 2012
Messages
5,147
Location
Near Seattle, WA
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/07/electric-cars-are-doomed-if-fast-charger-reliability-doesnt-get-better/

Reliability and numbers of chargers both.

On my recent road trip, there was once someone had to wait. And twice there were no free available chargers, they were all in use. Suppose there were twice as many EVs.... Which will likely be the case in a year or two.
 
While I don't generally use public charging and if so only in the suburbs in say a free Chargepoint, my brother who lives in the city said several of the free Chargepoint chargers he frequents have begun having the cable cut off by copper thieves :( I mean these businesses are nice enough to provide a service, making nothing on it and a small segment of the public does something like this! It makes me really lose faith in the world for sure :( well that and the fact my daughter got her catalytic converter cut out of her car while parked in a student parking lot near the city and people are apparently stealing newer Hyundai cars as once you break in them via busting out the rear window a dishonest person can easily "hot wire" them and just last night on the news they said people have figured out a way to somewhat easily read the FOB codes on popular Honda cars and clone them, and later steal them :( Really makes me want to find a better place to live!
Listen, I'm not living in a dreamland saying we haven't had issues like this in the past but the extreme to which people will go seems to be getting worse. People have always stolen cars but that's because oftentimes people didn't lock them up or they were very easy to hotwire, nowadays no lock is a match for a hammer to a window. Now you could say(and people are) that if the vehicle was only more secure to start people wouldn't be able to start them and to a degree that's true, but where does it stop. Everything has its vulnerabilities and people will exploit them and with the internet and some people's lack of morals or values that vulnerability can be shared instantly with other such like-minded people in a very short period of time. No need to bunk with a criminal in a prison cell to learn tricks of the trade, just logon to the internet, do some searching and you'll easily learn how to steal a car and if parts are required to do it, logon to another site and an unscrupulous seller will be more than willing sell you the tools that back in the day, say of certain mechanical lock tools to aid in bypassing locks, there seemed to be very little oversite.
I am truly worried about the world our kids will inherit, I hope my worries are unfounded and many don't seem worried but time will tell.
 
"nowadays no lock is a match for a hammer to a window"

Ahhh... the good old days, when hammers could not break car windows.
 
While I wish every charging station worked all the time (and we've all been victims of bad timing), I still don't think public charging is the "make it or break it" deal for EVs that some like to advertise.
The fact is: EVs aren't for everyone and it will be many, many, many years before ICE vehicles (and the corner gas stations) are gone...so there will be many "road trip" options out there for personal travel. Most EV owners have a "gas station" right in their garage where they can charge whenever they like, and battery pack sizes (and range) will continue to grow; it has more than doubled during my EV ownership (and that's in the same car!). The growth of charging station vandalism is troubling (and wrong), but I actually wonder if at some point the folks funding these things decide there's just not ROI and we don't need an EVSE on every corner (like we once had with gas stations).
 
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