It’s time once again for a true tale involving the travails of charging an electric vehicle.
I was out of the office yesterday afternoon to guest on another automotive podcast — check it out here — and the studio is about 30 miles from my house. I am currently testing a Cadillac Lyriq. I had plenty of charge to go there and back, but I wanted to leave some reserve for the press fleet when they pick up the car. So I decided to charge it from 77-ish percent up to 100 percent — which would be 285 miles of range.
I can’t charge EVs in my condo building — the board forbids it, and it would be a slow charge anyway — but there is a Chargepoint station mere blocks away. I figured I’d plug in before work and then walk over and snag the car to go to my podcast appearance.
Easy, right?
When I pulled into the Chargepoint station, I noticed two of the three parking spaces dedicated for EV charging were open. There are two chargers — one with two cords and one with just one cord. The two-cord charger offered one open space while the other was occupied by a charging Volkswagen ID.4. I pulled in, ready to use the other plug.
I opened up the app, scanned my phone against the reader, popped open the charge port on the Caddy — and was told that the charger was in use. Well, OK, one cord was — it was feeding the ID.4. But the other cord was free — yet the charger continually insisted it was in use. I dug through the app — you can ID each charging cord to see if it’s open or in use — and saw that it thought it both cords were in use. The app showed me pictures of a blue Ford Mustang Mach-E. Except the Mach-E wasn’t there. What the heck?
Now, I don’t want to complain too much over an easily solved problem — I simply moved the Caddy to the other open space and plugged in. This charger worked flawlessly. But I was annoyed that both the Chargepoint app and the charger itself would try to tell me that a cord was in use when it was, in fact, available. If it were the only open cord, I’d have had to drive around a bit to the next charger. And it’s frustrations like this that prevent EV-curious buyers from pulling the trigger.
Oddly enough, when I returned to the garage to pick up the Caddy — there was a blue Mach-E parked in the space I’d tried to use, plugged in. Which only puzzled me further. Was there some feature in the app that allows you to reserve a space before you get there, or to hold if it you need to use your car? Had the Mach-E owner figured out some hack?
Regular readers (and podcast listeners) know I am neither an EV evangelist or EV hater. I believe the technology shows promise, and someday I expect most commuter cars to be EVs, with ICE, diesel, and hybrid powertrains remaining for some special uses (trucks, sports cars). But I also believe that EVs are being held back as a viable consumer option by low ranges, high sticker prices, and charging struggles.
Automakers are working on the first two and getting much better. The third, however, has a long way to go.
In this case, I am not sure if the problem lies with the app or just a lack of available charging cords. All I know is that stuff like this will slow EV adoption if these problems aren’t solved.
[Image: nutt/Shutterstock.com]
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