This seems to happen a lot. Chargers offline for weeks or months at a time. The companies must want to have functional equipment and make money, what is causing them to have chargers sit there broken for months? Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
In my area Shell bought out a bunch of standalone DCFC sites, put them into "maintenance" state for months and then eliminated them.
It is hugely frustrating and unacceptable when we're trying to transition to a better world. Over the past couple years, the supply chain problems were a big part of the problem - networks had to wait to get parts to fix them. I don't believe that's the issue currently. Now, the biggest issue seems to be capital investment, planning, and testing. I would also say the government hasn't really stepped up in a helpful and timely manner. Although I doubt the previous adminstration would have committed to back stopping network development, our present one would, but hasn't. It is doing a lot of good things in the charging area, but really it should be partnered with the major networks to supply resources when the networks can't - it should be noted that Electrify America under its previous CEO was very hostile to the idea of government becoming involved with regulating the networks. I do believe things are starting to turn around and will improve. Charging equipment, generally, is improving and coming more robust, and government investment is beginning to make a difference.
Good topic and from what I have learned it seems the answer varies by the network and sometimes by location. In this case, from the screenshot it looks like the EVgo app, so EVgo is the network, and one of their (named) dispensers are down, with one working. Service (maybe a local contract) seems better in some places than others. I feel like supply chain issues (and truck driver shortages) are still a thing. If all dispensers were down that could be a site problem where maybe the lease or agreement allowing the equipment to be there is up. Or there could be a bigger problem with site power. In my experience, sometimes calling customer service helps, and sometimes it does not. I also am in the camp of believing that things are starting to turn around, and more installations provide more choices. There are alot more CCS locations now (and to be fair, a lot more EV's using them) compared to our first CCS EV purchase four years ago. With that I still plan my out-of-range trips and charge to enough buffer to get to the next location and an alternate charging location. Also I read user comments to, when I can, avoid chronic problem or heavy use sites.
As someone else said, EvGo is in the process of removing the 50 kW chargers and putting 350 kW ones in when possible. So that may be some of the issue. https://www.evgo.com/press-release/evgo-launches-evgo-renew-to-enhance-and-improve-fast-charging-experience-nationwide/
That press release says: EVgo ReNew is comprised of six core pillars that outline EVgo’s approach to reliability: Prevention, Diagnostics, Rapid Response, Analysis, Resilience, and Continuous Customer Service. "Diagnostics" almost certainly includes charging station communications with EVgo. Why not make all charging stations post their unencrypted status on the 'net? Then apps like PlugShare could steer EV drivers away from disappointment. Oh, maybe EVgo doesn't want to reveal the average down-time their charging stations suffer.
Good to know. Having sites there but offline is a bad look though. I could see an exec saying "let the 50kw that are down sit, we're eventually replacing with 350kw units anyway" but if they are in the position where they have to make a choice between the two, that's just poor planning. The more efforts to highlight uptime metrics and the more competition the better, so companies don't feel like they can get away with poor uptime and service. I wonder how much the free charging deals with auto manufacturers plays into this. If the charger company already made their money through big deals with manufacturers, they have less incentive to invest and focus on operational excellence.
I don't think that's much of an issue. I think they just don't want to put a bunch of money into old, slow chargers. They really want to go with 350 kW chargers. However, I seem to remember that there is a supply issue as some of the states have complained to the federal government that they couldn't meet the deadlines due to a bottleneck with the charger manufactures. Plus according to today's Podcast, the manufactures of charging equipment can now add a Tesla plug. So that may take some additional time.
I did a 350 mile round trip I my mini yesterday. 3 charging stops. 1st one, Shell, could not find the account linked to my card. I apped it to life first try and then called them while it charged. My card is on their system. They thought it must be a station glitch. NBD, I had a working phone. 2nd station. EA. Multiple plugshare reports of problems. One dead, 24kW reported on one, 47kW on the 350. We went there anyway as we wanted to get food there and 24kW wasn't a dealbreaker. The 350 was free when we got there so I plugged in and we went to eat. A MachE was sipping 24kW at another. My rate was probably up around my max of around 50 judging by the charge I managed to get. Came back 35 minutes later and I have enough charge for the next leg. There was an irritated guy with a Lightning only getting 24kW from the last working one. Checked on Shell stop 3 while we were eating. It was reported down in plugshare, but not the shell app, so back to stop 1 for the home stretch. That took about 15minutes to get going. My bad for following the instructions. Trick was to start charge on app, then plug in. I've had to use that trick on an EA before. No, this is just dismal. The reliability of charging in the USA is just not acceptable. Yes stuff breaks. My job is keeping a factory running. If we had stuff half this flaky, we would be giving it's supplier absolute hell until it wasn't. Sales gets really, really pissy if a machine is down for a week. My passenger said the charging flakiness exactly why she doesn't want to drive an EV. I really don't blame her. You currently need to be something of a masochist to rely on CCS fast charging. The chargers should last 10 years. I can see the odd screen or cable/plug issue happening, but they should not be too frequent or difficult to fix. My last roadtrip it was cold and wet. Lots of chargers had isolation failures. In English: They got damp. That is poor design, rain and humidity are not new phenomena. I don't know how much is design issues and how much is a lack of resources or damns to fix any issues. Something else I've seen. A new charging station taped off for painting. Shown as online in the app, still powered and ready. I'd used it the previous evening. I ducked my car under the tape and left tyre marks. No other charges in range... If you are to take a station offline. You should show it unavailable a few hours before you actually shut it down. That way, people who are enroute can still grab electrons before getting screwed. Or show it scheduled for work on the app. Station operators need some financial incentive to avoid excess downtime. It appears that there is a real lack of damns given. Yes, 350kW chargers everywhere would be nice. But they need a a lot of electricity. 480V 500A, each. Fine if you have 11kV nearby and the budget for a transformer. Good to put along major routes. First, though we need to deal with the lack of charging sites. Those 50kW chargers can be used in a lot more places, where there isn't a heavy supply available. A huge number of industrial buildings could spare the 480V 80A supply that they need. Some kind of incentive for sites outside major routes and cities? There are black holes I can't venture into as there are zero chargers. A 50kW beats nothing. I mostly charge at home for commuting and running around locally. But I've found chargepoint to be the least reliable, EvGo to be the best. Many EvGo stations have plug and charge. So no messing around with apps, cards or calling them up. I do my best to avoid chargepoint, they are so bad. EA stations always seem to have at least one charger down and a few that do work. Good enough. Their app is crapp, though.
