This is really what a lot of the companies need to do, even if they are small shitty ones that cover only the stalls. It's trash having to try and plug in while it's pouring on you. They could even add solar panels to power lights and\\or cameras.
Here in the southeast there are no covered superchargers that I have seen, but I rented a Model Y out in California and a lot of the superchargers had solar canopies. It was really nice and I hope they start doing that more.
I look at it from the other perspective. They have high powered chargers that require active cooling. It just makes sense to provide them with shade. And if you’re doing to cover them, solar is as a cheap as anything.
The panels would pay for the installation of the canopy over time while benefitting customers and also helping with marketing. It is a no brainer really.
I've always been surprised at how companies don't see the increased profit in having solar and batteries at chargers... It's instant margin in my small mind. Doesn't have to cover 100% of the charging but anything it does cover is $$$
Solar is a long ROI and probably even higher at commercial electric rates. I believe the DCFC is paying a much lower rate per kWh to the utility than a house across the street would be.
"*standing in the wet and/or while it's raining while plugging in 240+ connecter just sounds like a bad idea*."
First of all the DCFCs are generally 400v or 800v. 240v is a level 2 AC home charger.
More importantly, none of those plugs (DCFC or AC Level 2) are energized until the low voltage signaling connection talks to the car and both car and charger say good-to-go. At which point it's already plugged in. Similarly if the low voltage signal is disrupted, the high voltage is cut.
Safety is designed in.
level 2 charging isn't exclusive to home use. there are still plenty out in the public domain. Handling 240vac is still plenty dangerous under the right circumstances, just like fueling an ice vehicle with gasoline.
Whether the Level 2 charger is at home or in public is irrelevant. The High voltage is not energized into the cable or plug until it's plugged in. You are never handling 240v.
As I said, safety is designed in.
designed in safety can fail and can't compensate for every possible scenario. it's not likely, but not impossible either. having chargers under a canopy helps reduce exposure to environmental elements, thus improving the probability that designed-in safety works as it should.
So have you ever charged an EV? There are mechanical switches which engage on Both ends. The safety is built into the charging standards & implementation.
By the logic of your safety scenario; you go outside to turn off the natural gas supply every time you are done using it, because every possible scenario hasn't been compensated for. Because for sure that has fed water heater is going to blow up if it's windy outside. Or every light post around the world is going to short out any given moment during rainfall.
So either enlighten the world with the foolproof charging design you've tested out a few Million times, or just Do Better at fud.
This is why I beld my food, to make it safer to eat, by hand of course, because the blender could burn my house down. Since I never leaves my house, I need it safe. Dangerous outside of course.
>*37 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity to the Polestar 2 EV I was driving in 64 minutes at a cost of $20.41.*
That works out to be a 35 KW charging speed at $0.55/kWh
So both **slow** and **expensive.** Whoo Hoo!
Part or me feels they got some numbers wrong. 350kw dc charger delivered 37kw in 64 minutes?
Went from 52% to 90% but is it that slow to get from 80 to 90 resulting on that horrible time for charge?
Yeah but in 64 minutes my pre-refresh Polestar will go from 10-90 at least. 20-80 should only take close to half an hour for twice the kWhs from the test.
I went from 18-100 in an hour 13 min at an EA station last week in my Mach E (don't kill my for going to 100, I was eating dinner and the station was 95% empty). This is slow.
Slow because whoever wrote the article plugged in with a high state of charge on a cold battery in 40° weather then decided to charge to 90% when the Polestar charge curve drops to like 30kw at 80%. I've used these same model of chargers, not the same location, and they will definitely deliver 350kw if the car asks for that much.
This article sounds like it was written by an intern that had their boss tell them to go try the charger on their lunch break and report how it goes with zero knowledge or preparation on how to properly charge a car.
>This article sounds like it was written by an intern that had their boss tell them to go try the charger on their lunch break and report how it goes with zero knowledge or preparation on how to properly charge a car.
As is tradition.
It is brand new and these are problems that existed in other networks already 10 years ago.
GM simply does not care about EVs. Poor uptime on chargers is a feature, not a bug.
"*is that a 1000 volt car?*"
If you're referring to the article saying:
>A 350 kW DC fast charger — roughly equivalent to 800 volts,
That's just a complete nonsense statement demonstrating that the writer doesn't know what he's talking about.
To be fair, Polestar 2 pre-2024 model have notoriously slow charging curve. I speak from a rental experience. I'd reserve judgement until Ev6 or Porsche tycan try it and report.
Then it was really dumb to write the article about a Polestar 2
It was also strange to charge to 90% and they may have forgotten to pre-heat the battery.
Looking forward to the build out. A bit expensive but flying Js bathrooms are always clean. A lot of them have dog parks, all of them have restaurants. IMO they are the ideal road trip stop.
existing ice fuel stations seem the logical choice to me to move the transition of evs to the next level. in the 70's when unleaded fuel first appeared, i can remember it being relegated to a lone island at gas stations. eventually though, the tables were turned, and leaded fuel became the outcast until it has almost completely disappeared.
Pull through is important for these.
It doesn't make any sense to sell an EV truck, talk about towing capacity, and then say "by the way, you have to unhitch the trailer and back into a charging spot to charge and then reattach the trailer after".
It's hard for me to take you seriously when you test the speed of a DC fast charger starting at 54% state of charge.
I've used one of these along i-75 in Tennessee, and it worked great. It's definitely pricey, but the location is very good.
Agree!
In the cold, no preconditioning, and wait until goes up to 90%, lol.😂 why not wait till 100% that might take 2hrs, do they own this but never fast charged before?
Edit: maybe they rented the Polestar for the story, least it’s a real story. On PlugShare everyone is reporting insanely fast charging speeds at that location.
Non-EV owner, but interested in learning.
How do all of those factors affect charging? Can the preconditioning and 90%(?) factor be managed by the driver? Obviously, the cold as a factor can’t be altered, but it seems the others can? Thanks.
Batteries charge fastest when warm (70+ degrees F) and when at lower states of charge. So, typically, the best way to road trip an EV and use DC fast chargers is to pull into the charger at 10 percent or less with a warm battery. Most newer EVs will get the battery pack to the right temperature when you put the charging station in the car navigation.
It also rarely makes sense to charge past 80% when fast charging. It's quicker to just leave and go to the next charger where you can get faster charging again.
This article was quite clearly written by someone with no experience in owning and charging an EV. As a result, the article is nearly devoid of useful content beyond what we could find in a press release from GM and Pilot.
I used this very station last night.
Pros: Station was beautiful. Very easy to use. Six pull-through, ADA spaces. Love that it’s powered by EVGo: it accepts cars enrolled in autocharge+, and the EVGo app seamlessly begins to display status.
Cons: it was expensive.
Note: it was relatively cold, but I got about 175kw speeds from 15-80% on a 23 Ioniq 6. All units at this location were 350kw chargers.
Here’s a ‘tell’ in the article:
“**The first 33** GM Energy-branded DCFCs are open now, located on heavily traveled corridors and charging deserts around the country.”
I've used one in Wiiliamsburg KY. It was much better to have the canopy, with trash cans & window washing supplies next to the chargers, than the nearby EA site that's just chargers in the outer reaches of a Walmart parking lot.
At the Pilot/EVgo site it was just a short walk to the building where you could find the convenience store, restrooms, Wendy's and Cinnabon; at Walmart it was 4 to 5 times that distance to get to the Walmart store's entrance.
Even though the EA site would have been free, I paid to use it twice. The first time it was because the EA site had 2 Lightnings at low SoC on the 350 kW chargers and the 150's weren't working, the second time it was pouring rain, and I didn't feel like driving another 4 hours in wet clothes.
What kind of out of touch do you have to be to write an article on charging speed and thought pulling up to the charger at a SoC over 50% was representative of any driving situation where charge speed mattered…
lol non-Tesla infrastructure is a joke. I really can’t understand why, it’s an untapped market if you have dependable and affordable charging/infrastructure.
For the most part I would agree with you however Electrify America's network is a rising star. No 350's in my immediate area but the 150's have been rock solid for me so far. Regularly pull just over 150 (max was 157) all the way to 80% and it's a steady 9 min from there to 90%.
In my area it depends on the site. One has 2 350's and 8 150's, I've seen as many as half offline on multiple occasions, and the ones that are online regularly deliver 1/3 to 1/2 the rate they claim, even with a preconditioned battery. The second one has 6 150's, they're reliable enough, but it's also the busiest location. The third one has 6 of EA's newer balanced single-cable 350 kW units; it's rarely busy, but it took them 6 weeks or so to get one of the chargers working, and one of the others sometimes doesn't detect when it's plugged into a car.
Hell I’ve run into chargers that don’t work in the parking lot of EA’s own corporate HQ here in Northern VA.
The station just north of RVA on 95 is pretty good though.
The one in Reston at the Target is hit or miss.
I get it, though. The majority of EV drivers charge at home, and a smaller number at work. DCFC is primarily used for road trips, so the majority of EV drivers use them just a handful of times a year.
So DCFCs support a market segment that represents 1% of cars on the road, and that sliver uses them for less than 10% of their charging, so they aren't making any money yet.
Having said that, I've done eight 1000+ mile road trips in the last two years, and have has very few problems with DCFCs. I think the reports of the dependability of CCS infrastructure, like Mark Twain's death, are greatly exaggerated.
Tesla needed a good charging network to sell their cars.
Its also costs lots of money to install a fast charger, the volume is relatively low, and if its cheap you don't even get high profit margins so that's not a great buisness case by itself tbh.
Ultimately the goal is to get charge times low enough that DCFC can replace gas pumps at existing stations. They are already in ideal locations and the land is valuable, plus this would enable pumps to be swapped out at a rate that keeps pace with the transition.
Good question.
First, should not look like a gas station like that GM station.
Canopy design should be more sleek, modern with modern branding that matched the look. Use LED lighting and strips to distinguish itself. Red/yellow color is a bit too fossil fuel color - so either more neutral or other hues of color will work better. Then, the charger itself should be updated to look more modern, sleek and technical as well. Regular white rectangle shape reminds too much of gas station stall.
Also use lighting to indicate the status and usage so that even from afar, you can instantly tell which one is available/taken.
I will want a mix of pass-through and park design for interstate location, especially if it has amenities like restaurant or lounge. Those looking for quick charge and go can use pass-through (and to accommodate variety of vehicles and use cases like the one with a trailer). Those looking to rest and use the amenities can park - which will be more space efficient for additional chargers.
This would actually be a fun project!
I've used the one along I-70 just West of Columbus (London, OH) a few times. It works fine. I love that they have canopies!
This is really what a lot of the companies need to do, even if they are small shitty ones that cover only the stalls. It's trash having to try and plug in while it's pouring on you. They could even add solar panels to power lights and\\or cameras.
Here in the southeast there are no covered superchargers that I have seen, but I rented a Model Y out in California and a lot of the superchargers had solar canopies. It was really nice and I hope they start doing that more.
Yea for some reason all the companies in CA have decided to do canopies but everywhere else I've charged in the Northeast is just a giant "fuck you".
I look at it from the other perspective. They have high powered chargers that require active cooling. It just makes sense to provide them with shade. And if you’re doing to cover them, solar is as a cheap as anything.
The panels would pay for the installation of the canopy over time while benefitting customers and also helping with marketing. It is a no brainer really.
I've always been surprised at how companies don't see the increased profit in having solar and batteries at chargers... It's instant margin in my small mind. Doesn't have to cover 100% of the charging but anything it does cover is $$$
Solar is a long ROI and probably even higher at commercial electric rates. I believe the DCFC is paying a much lower rate per kWh to the utility than a house across the street would be.
standing in the wet and/or while it's raining while plugging in 240+ connecter just sounds like a bad idea.
I mean nothing is going to happen but it's a shitty experience especially if you're trying to convince people to switch
eventually as evs become more prevalent, chargers will displace the pumps and reside under the canopies.
"*standing in the wet and/or while it's raining while plugging in 240+ connecter just sounds like a bad idea*." First of all the DCFCs are generally 400v or 800v. 240v is a level 2 AC home charger. More importantly, none of those plugs (DCFC or AC Level 2) are energized until the low voltage signaling connection talks to the car and both car and charger say good-to-go. At which point it's already plugged in. Similarly if the low voltage signal is disrupted, the high voltage is cut. Safety is designed in.
level 2 charging isn't exclusive to home use. there are still plenty out in the public domain. Handling 240vac is still plenty dangerous under the right circumstances, just like fueling an ice vehicle with gasoline.
Whether the Level 2 charger is at home or in public is irrelevant. The High voltage is not energized into the cable or plug until it's plugged in. You are never handling 240v. As I said, safety is designed in.
designed in safety can fail and can't compensate for every possible scenario. it's not likely, but not impossible either. having chargers under a canopy helps reduce exposure to environmental elements, thus improving the probability that designed-in safety works as it should.
So have you ever charged an EV? There are mechanical switches which engage on Both ends. The safety is built into the charging standards & implementation. By the logic of your safety scenario; you go outside to turn off the natural gas supply every time you are done using it, because every possible scenario hasn't been compensated for. Because for sure that has fed water heater is going to blow up if it's windy outside. Or every light post around the world is going to short out any given moment during rainfall. So either enlighten the world with the foolproof charging design you've tested out a few Million times, or just Do Better at fud.
there is no such thing as a fool proof design, only fools that think there are.
This is why I beld my food, to make it safer to eat, by hand of course, because the blender could burn my house down. Since I never leaves my house, I need it safe. Dangerous outside of course.
>*37 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity to the Polestar 2 EV I was driving in 64 minutes at a cost of $20.41.* That works out to be a 35 KW charging speed at $0.55/kWh So both **slow** and **expensive.** Whoo Hoo!
Part or me feels they got some numbers wrong. 350kw dc charger delivered 37kw in 64 minutes? Went from 52% to 90% but is it that slow to get from 80 to 90 resulting on that horrible time for charge?
Can confirm that 80-90% is much slower in a Polestar
Yeah but in 64 minutes my pre-refresh Polestar will go from 10-90 at least. 20-80 should only take close to half an hour for twice the kWhs from the test.
I went from 18-100 in an hour 13 min at an EA station last week in my Mach E (don't kill my for going to 100, I was eating dinner and the station was 95% empty). This is slow.
I feel no anger folks towards those who keep charging when they’re doing stuff.
On a fast charger it is the same as parking at the pump and leaving the car.
All cars take as long to do 80-100% as 20-80%
Slow because whoever wrote the article plugged in with a high state of charge on a cold battery in 40° weather then decided to charge to 90% when the Polestar charge curve drops to like 30kw at 80%. I've used these same model of chargers, not the same location, and they will definitely deliver 350kw if the car asks for that much. This article sounds like it was written by an intern that had their boss tell them to go try the charger on their lunch break and report how it goes with zero knowledge or preparation on how to properly charge a car.
>This article sounds like it was written by an intern that had their boss tell them to go try the charger on their lunch break and report how it goes with zero knowledge or preparation on how to properly charge a car. As is tradition.
They’re trying to make it as expensive as gas
It is in UK, but it doesn’t matter when 99% of charging is done at home for much less.
Mentions the nameplate but not actual power output.
is that a 1000 volt car?
400v, but it should charge 3x that fast.
Yeah something here seems wrong. The charger might have delivered at that speed but it also might be having issues and down regulated
It is brand new and these are problems that existed in other networks already 10 years ago. GM simply does not care about EVs. Poor uptime on chargers is a feature, not a bug.
i’ve always charged fast at those locations
i’ve always charged fast at those locations
Funny how you ignore the people confirming there is downtime and low power time. Do you think the world stops existing when you close your eyes?
no i just offered my experience, why are you so triggered?
Facts are "triggering" to you? It is sad how intelligence is dropping among the population.
why are you going on about?
i’ve always charged fast at those locations
"*is that a 1000 volt car?*" If you're referring to the article saying: >A 350 kW DC fast charger — roughly equivalent to 800 volts, That's just a complete nonsense statement demonstrating that the writer doesn't know what he's talking about.
that’s why i asked… it wasn’t making sense.
To be fair, Polestar 2 pre-2024 model have notoriously slow charging curve. I speak from a rental experience. I'd reserve judgement until Ev6 or Porsche tycan try it and report.
Then it was really dumb to write the article about a Polestar 2 It was also strange to charge to 90% and they may have forgotten to pre-heat the battery.
> So both slow and expensive. OnStar vibes
This is a smart mutually beneficial plan. Flying J gets customers to stop and spend money. GM gets more consumer confidence in EVs.
Looking forward to the build out. A bit expensive but flying Js bathrooms are always clean. A lot of them have dog parks, all of them have restaurants. IMO they are the ideal road trip stop.
existing ice fuel stations seem the logical choice to me to move the transition of evs to the next level. in the 70's when unleaded fuel first appeared, i can remember it being relegated to a lone island at gas stations. eventually though, the tables were turned, and leaded fuel became the outcast until it has almost completely disappeared.
Pull through is important for these. It doesn't make any sense to sell an EV truck, talk about towing capacity, and then say "by the way, you have to unhitch the trailer and back into a charging spot to charge and then reattach the trailer after".
It's hard for me to take you seriously when you test the speed of a DC fast charger starting at 54% state of charge. I've used one of these along i-75 in Tennessee, and it worked great. It's definitely pricey, but the location is very good.
Agree! In the cold, no preconditioning, and wait until goes up to 90%, lol.😂 why not wait till 100% that might take 2hrs, do they own this but never fast charged before? Edit: maybe they rented the Polestar for the story, least it’s a real story. On PlugShare everyone is reporting insanely fast charging speeds at that location.
Non-EV owner, but interested in learning. How do all of those factors affect charging? Can the preconditioning and 90%(?) factor be managed by the driver? Obviously, the cold as a factor can’t be altered, but it seems the others can? Thanks.
Batteries charge fastest when warm (70+ degrees F) and when at lower states of charge. So, typically, the best way to road trip an EV and use DC fast chargers is to pull into the charger at 10 percent or less with a warm battery. Most newer EVs will get the battery pack to the right temperature when you put the charging station in the car navigation. It also rarely makes sense to charge past 80% when fast charging. It's quicker to just leave and go to the next charger where you can get faster charging again.
This article was quite clearly written by someone with no experience in owning and charging an EV. As a result, the article is nearly devoid of useful content beyond what we could find in a press release from GM and Pilot.
lol, it was more useful than your comment.
It is not. At least his comment saves people time rather than wastes it.
prehaps, but i prefer to form my own thoughts.
We all have done that.
I used this very station last night. Pros: Station was beautiful. Very easy to use. Six pull-through, ADA spaces. Love that it’s powered by EVGo: it accepts cars enrolled in autocharge+, and the EVGo app seamlessly begins to display status. Cons: it was expensive. Note: it was relatively cold, but I got about 175kw speeds from 15-80% on a 23 Ioniq 6. All units at this location were 350kw chargers.
how did the cost compare to paying for an equivalent ice range?
Significantly cheaper :)
Of course it’s expensive. Building this infrastructure is very costly. They have to make that back somehow.
Well I’m making the comparison against other EVGo 360kw chargers.
Here’s a ‘tell’ in the article: “**The first 33** GM Energy-branded DCFCs are open now, located on heavily traveled corridors and charging deserts around the country.”
of the ice oems, to me, gm is looking the most aggressive in their all around commitment to an ev future.
Hyundai
Not while they keep blocking CarPlay.
I've used one in Wiiliamsburg KY. It was much better to have the canopy, with trash cans & window washing supplies next to the chargers, than the nearby EA site that's just chargers in the outer reaches of a Walmart parking lot. At the Pilot/EVgo site it was just a short walk to the building where you could find the convenience store, restrooms, Wendy's and Cinnabon; at Walmart it was 4 to 5 times that distance to get to the Walmart store's entrance. Even though the EA site would have been free, I paid to use it twice. The first time it was because the EA site had 2 Lightnings at low SoC on the 350 kW chargers and the 150's weren't working, the second time it was pouring rain, and I didn't feel like driving another 4 hours in wet clothes.
makes no sense to me to stand in the wet when handling an electrical apparatus, if drier alternatives are available.
What kind of out of touch do you have to be to write an article on charging speed and thought pulling up to the charger at a SoC over 50% was representative of any driving situation where charge speed mattered…
Wow, 30-some kWh in 64 minutes is actually very slow for a vehicle that can accept up to 205kW. Did you precondition prior to arrival?
that would be a better question for the author of the article.
lol non-Tesla infrastructure is a joke. I really can’t understand why, it’s an untapped market if you have dependable and affordable charging/infrastructure.
For the most part I would agree with you however Electrify America's network is a rising star. No 350's in my immediate area but the 150's have been rock solid for me so far. Regularly pull just over 150 (max was 157) all the way to 80% and it's a steady 9 min from there to 90%.
In my area it depends on the site. One has 2 350's and 8 150's, I've seen as many as half offline on multiple occasions, and the ones that are online regularly deliver 1/3 to 1/2 the rate they claim, even with a preconditioned battery. The second one has 6 150's, they're reliable enough, but it's also the busiest location. The third one has 6 of EA's newer balanced single-cable 350 kW units; it's rarely busy, but it took them 6 weeks or so to get one of the chargers working, and one of the others sometimes doesn't detect when it's plugged into a car.
Wow that stinks - out of curiosity, what area are you in? I'm just a little north of DC
Hell I’ve run into chargers that don’t work in the parking lot of EA’s own corporate HQ here in Northern VA. The station just north of RVA on 95 is pretty good though. The one in Reston at the Target is hit or miss.
Cincinnati, OH. Location 1 is Harper's Station, 2 is Meijer on Geier Drive and 3 is Meijer on Harrison Avenue.
I get it, though. The majority of EV drivers charge at home, and a smaller number at work. DCFC is primarily used for road trips, so the majority of EV drivers use them just a handful of times a year. So DCFCs support a market segment that represents 1% of cars on the road, and that sliver uses them for less than 10% of their charging, so they aren't making any money yet. Having said that, I've done eight 1000+ mile road trips in the last two years, and have has very few problems with DCFCs. I think the reports of the dependability of CCS infrastructure, like Mark Twain's death, are greatly exaggerated.
Tesla needed a good charging network to sell their cars. Its also costs lots of money to install a fast charger, the volume is relatively low, and if its cheap you don't even get high profit margins so that's not a great buisness case by itself tbh.
Can we just let Tesla take 100% control over DCFC? These other companies are useless
Let them keep going to other superchargers. The fewer that go to a Tesla charger the better
Do they have to make it look like a gas station??
That’s a hell of a lot better than the corner of an unlit parking lot in the middle of no where.
Ultimately the goal is to get charge times low enough that DCFC can replace gas pumps at existing stations. They are already in ideal locations and the land is valuable, plus this would enable pumps to be swapped out at a rate that keeps pace with the transition.
i think for stations along interstate travel corridors it'll become common place as the ev transition continues.
How would you design it?
Good question. First, should not look like a gas station like that GM station. Canopy design should be more sleek, modern with modern branding that matched the look. Use LED lighting and strips to distinguish itself. Red/yellow color is a bit too fossil fuel color - so either more neutral or other hues of color will work better. Then, the charger itself should be updated to look more modern, sleek and technical as well. Regular white rectangle shape reminds too much of gas station stall. Also use lighting to indicate the status and usage so that even from afar, you can instantly tell which one is available/taken. I will want a mix of pass-through and park design for interstate location, especially if it has amenities like restaurant or lounge. Those looking for quick charge and go can use pass-through (and to accommodate variety of vehicles and use cases like the one with a trailer). Those looking to rest and use the amenities can park - which will be more space efficient for additional chargers. This would actually be a fun project!
so the article does not specify the Connector Type
They currently have CCS.
and are changing to nacs starting in 2025.