Is it me, or has the charging situation dramatically improved over the last ~6 months?

[BigSkies]

I remember being on these forums maybe 6 months to a year ago, and we'd get multiple posts about charging problems every week.

I'm not seeing nearly as many of those posts anymore.

I took delivery of my R1T in June and have only done a handful of trips that required DCFC since then. My anecdotal experience is that broken chargers aren't nearly as much of a thing as they were just a few months back. The few data points I have:

1. There was a consistently broken EA station near my home when I first took delivery. All of the hardware was recently replaced with newer equipment.
2. Several trips in the mountains outside of Denver had successful no-drama charging.
3. My trip from Denver to Kansas City had no drama. There was one station with 2/4 stalls broken, but plenty of other options on the route.
4. I'm planning a trip to Los Angeles over the holidays, and it seems to be pretty drama-free on Plugshare. There's a few spots in Utah that have some mildly sketchy Plugshare reviews, but nothing that would make the trip a disaster.

How is everyone else's recent experience? Are you still running into a lot of broken chargers out there?

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[vandy1981]

It really depends where you live. My city went from twelve fully functional 150 kW+ EA and EVGo chargers last year to four this year. The others are either completely broken or derated. At the moment there's only one 350 kW non-Tesla charger in the entire Nashville metropolitan area. Things will get a lot better when the Superchargers open up next year.

Edit: GM's Cruise is also testing a bunch of autonomous Chevy Bolts around Nashville and they have been clogging up the few operational fast chargers in town.

 

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

How is everyone else's recent experience? Are you still running into a lot of broken chargers out there?

I rarely charge outside of the house. But I was able to charge to 80% recently on an EA charger before it turned red on me and stopped (after the first one wouldn't work because the screen was broken). Usually none of them work at all, so I guess that's an improvement? ?

 

[Marchin_MTB]

Anectodally, I am also finding that the charging situation has improved. There was one RAN in Colorado when we had our truck delivered. Now there are four and just as many Magic Dock Tesla stations. The existance of these is what pushed me over the edge to take a family road-trip for thanksgiving in a couple weeks.

 

[Joe schmoe]

It really depends where you live. My city went from twelve fully functional 150 kW+ EA and EVGo chargers last year to four this year. The others are either completely broken or derated. At the moment there's only one 350 kW non-Tesla charger in the entire Nashville metropolitan area. Things will get a lot better when the Superchargers open up next year.

This. In my city (Memphis) we went from one mostly functional 100kw+ charger last year to zero this year, in a city with 1.2 million people living in the MSA along the most traveled east-west corridor in the country (I-40). The I-40/I55 interchange just west of Memphis carries more traffic than any other interchange in the country if you can believe the local news.

The only EA station in town has been offline since memorial day weekend, with no apparent timeline to fix it.

I bought a Tesla in 2015, before the supercharger network was built out. The level 2 charging options are no better locally than they were then, and significantly worse than 2-3 years ago.

I brought my Rivian home through Illinois and Kentucky in early march 2023, then traveled through the area again in late July. The availability of chargers was significantly worse on the second trip.

For the charging infrastructure within a 2-3 charge range of my house, I'd characterize it as a significant deterioration over the last 6 months, mostly but not entirely due to a lack of maintenance at EA stations.

 

[SDH]

it's you!

 

[vandy1981]

This. In my city (Memphis) we went from one mostly functional 100kw+ charger last year to zero this year, in a city with 1.2 million people living in the MSA along the most traveled east-west corridor in the country (I-40). The I-40/I55 interchange just west of Memphis carries more traffic than any other interchange in the country if you can believe the local news.

The only EA station in town has been offline since memorial day weekend, with no apparent timeline to fix it.

I bought a Tesla in 2015, before the supercharger network was built out. The level 2 charging options are no better locally than they were then, and significantly worse than 2-3 years ago.

I brought my Rivian home through Illinois and Kentucky in early march 2023, then traveled through the area again in late July. The availability of chargers was significantly worse on the second trip.

For the charging infrastructure within a 2-3 charge range of my house, I'd characterize it as a significant deterioration over the last 6 months, mostly but not entirely due to a lack of maintenance at EA stations.

Yeah, it's unbelievable that the Memphis EA station has been offline so long. I'm guessing that lightning fried the transformer or some other grid-related gear and that they've been waiting for the utility to replace it but it doesn't help people who need functional CCS chargers.

 

[jjswan33]

Honestly 19 months and 47k miles with my R1T and I can honestly say that I have not had any trouble getting anywhere I wanted to go. Sure I have had to wait a few times during periods of high demand but never so bad I felt the need to wine about it.

That said RAN has grown in my area and EA (and some smaller players) have added new chargers on routes that have made things easier, for example my route this summer through MT and SD that wasn’t possible last summer.

 

[Guy]

I agree things have gotten better overall - as expected with all the companies rolling out fast charger stations.

 

[Joe schmoe]

Yeah, it's unbelievable that the Memphis EA station has been offline so long. I'm guessing that lightning fried the transformer or some other grid-related gear and that they've been waiting for the utility to replace it but it doesn't help people who need functional CCS chargers.

There is a Tesla supercharger in the same parking lt that went offline during the same storm.

Tesla had it up and working in a day, and while it was down there are two other supercharger sites in town so it was never a big problem.

Once we have NACS access I'll go back to using the Rivian for travel. As I type this, I'm in the Florida panhandle, after a 7.5 hour drive in my wife's ICE SUV. It's an 11 hour trip in the Rivian, and that's if the critical EA station in Alabaster is working (averages 2/4 online)

 

[VSG]

Once we have NACS access

To be clear, you mean access to the Tesla Superchargers. That is not the same as and not contingent upon the plug that is used. The only one who can "grant" us access to these Superchargers is Tesla. And I personally am not going to count on Tesla's promised timeline for when this will happen. If we get working adapters and can use all the V3 Superchargers by March I will be happy, but I'm not counting on it.

 

[SANZC02]

I rarely charge outside of the house. But I was able to charge to 80% recently on an EA charger before it turned red on me and stopped (after the first one wouldn't work because the screen was broken). Usually none of them work at all, so I guess that's an improvement? ?

Did you try the one with a broken screen? I pulled into a station awhile ago, there were a couple of people waiting, I asked if they had tried the one with a broken screen, they had not. I tried it and was able to charge on that station using app to initiate the charge.

 

[Joe schmoe]

To be clear, you mean access to the Tesla Superchargers. That is not the same as and not contingent upon the plug that is used. The only one who can "grant" us access to these Superchargers is Tesla. And I personally am not going to count on Tesla's promised timeline for when this will happen. If we get working adapters and can use all the V3 Superchargers by March I will be happy, but I'm not counting on it.

You're exactly right. I think I tend to write "NACS" when I mean "V3 superchargers" to avoid some of the anti-Elon vitriol that bubbles up when you mention Tesla on this site.

It appears (based on the EA app) that 3/4 of the EA chargers at the only Memphis site are now up for the first time since May, but the only checkin says they're down. I'll check tomorrow when I get home.

Meanwhile, Tesla just upgraded the original Memphis supercharger site (less than 2 miles from my house) to V3 and added a bunch more stalls.

 

[VSG]

Meanwhile, Tesla just upgraded the original Memphis supercharger site (less than 2 miles from my house) to V3 and added a bunch more stalls.

It's exactly things like this that make me skeptical of Tesla's commitment to opening up their network by adding 3,500 Magic Dock stations by the end of 2024 and by opening up the Supercharger network to CCS vehicles whose manufacturers have made an agreement with Tesla.

You describe Memphis as an area where better chargers are desperately needed. Tesla recognized the need for higher-powered chargers and went to the trouble and cost to upgrade the supercharger to V3 and expand the number of stalls. However, for an extremely small incremental cost they could have also added Magic Dock connectors to that upgraded site when they upgraded. That would have made the V3 supercharger usable by all and would have shown commitment to meeting their Magic Dock goal. It's going to cost a lot more for Tesla to re-work that site at some future time if they intend to open it up, which makes me wonder why they didn't do it during the upgrade.

Regardless, Tesla could do make an enormous difference in the public charger landscape, and at significant benefit to them through charging revenue where they can charge more for non-Tesla vehicles, and through increase utilization of existing stations in the process by opening them to 2x the customers, and by putting underperforming competitors out of business. But it seems to me that Tesla has been dragging its feet on this.

I think most of us would very much like to have Tesla Superchargers as an option, but aside from the few supercharges that currently have a Magic Dock we have no good idea how this is going to happen or when it is going to happen, other than the vague, Rivian-like promise of "starting in Spring 2024" made by various car manufacturers.

 

[Ralph]

Snip........... "starting in Spring 2024" made by various car manufacturers.

I'm not certain about Tesla's commitments, but I believe that Rivian has only, and very carefully said, "as early as 1st quarter 2024".

I could well be wrong and would be pleased be so.

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