The folk over at CleanTechnica had appalling experience attempting to refill their Honda Clarity in the LA region. 4 of 4 hydrogen stations visited were out of fuel, out of order, or closed. 14 out of 21 stations in LA we're down. That's over 50%. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/14/a-look-at-hydrogen-fueling-infrastructure-in-2018/ I don't know what else to say. This might be acceptable in the first three months of infrastructure roll out. But this level of failure after several years is incomprehensible.
This brings up an interesting thought. Both the non-Tesla and now the hydrogen car makers are not connected at the hip with their energy/fuel suppliers. A minority of non-Tesla dealers may have a fast DC charger but they lock them up outside of business hours. The rest may have L2 chargers, not a sure thing, but they are locked up. Without a network of 24x7 fast DC chargers, their EVs become home town scooters. Electrify America, the VW penalty, is installing fast DC chargers BUT they don't seem to care if they are working ... or don't know how to keep them up. As for the non-Tesla EV makers, "Not my problem but I can give you a great deal on <insert model>!" Talk about the blind leading the blind. We're seeing the same disconnect between the fuel cell manufactures and hydrogen suppliers. Bob Wilson
Yeah it’s concerning to see Electrify America’s chargers are lacking in initial reliability. I’m going to chalk that up to “new rollout pains”. If it’s still that way in 6-12 months what conclusions can we draw? 1. Piss poor technology? 2. Intentionally installing crap equipment to stall the market? 3. Poor supplier contacts? I’d be surprised if they don’t have uptime guarantees. 4. Simply doesn’t care as VW EVs aren’t on the market? All this confirms is Tesla’s charging model will be very hard to beat. I wonder what the Ionity network is like in Europe.
Well, we will hope for the sake of those who are actually driving FCEVs that this is a highly unusual, "perfect storm" event, unlikely to be repeated. I personally don't believe that the attempt to use compressed hydrogen to power mass-produced wheeled vehicles is going to continue for many more years -- I view it as a science experiment that somehow grew wildly out of control, far past its original purpose -- but I doubt the entire infrastructure of H2 filling stations is going to collapse overnight. Hopefully it will shrink no faster than it has grown, giving sufficient time for those still driving FCEVs to find other vehicles to use as this grand experiment winds down. Still, we have seen fairly recent news reports of H2 supply shortages in California causing stations to run out of fuel: "Hydrogen Shortage Hits Hard: Toyota Mirai Owners Urged To Top Up Frequently"
I would expect any fast charger installed at a dealer would be locked up when the shop is closed. However, for the most part, they are low power DC chargers, and around here you won't want to spent hours in the night there anyhow. Here in Washington state, the state is spending a million bucks on installing 50KW DC chargers. In Eastern Washington a single DC charger is installed at least four different locations, and operated by Green Lots. In Western Washington, one location was opened in Tacoma with I believe four 50KW chargers next to the LeMay museum, and operated by EVgo. EVgo does seem to maintain their chargers. Although they are subject to vandalism. I think vandalism is going to be a problem. Hopefully, Walmart will take an active interest in maintaining the DC chargers that Electrify America is installing in their parking lots. Another issue I see, is that the DC chargers are not under some kind of shelter like a gas pump would be. That's not going to be much fun in the rain.
