The EV Charging Grid Needs Work, Lots of Work

• Studies by JD Power and Deloitte confirm what many electric-vehicle drivers already know: The EV charging system in America is woefully inadequate, clunky, and just plain doesn't work.

• With the numbers of EVs coming onto the market increasing every model year, something has to be done. The question is, what?

• Standards for payment is one way the Dept. of Transportation could help.

Complaining about the EV charging network today is like standing at Kitty Hawk watching the Wright Brothers glide past and yelling, “What the heck, man? I got a 5 o’clock flight to LAX I gotta be on! What is taking you morons so LONG?”

Patience, grasshopper.

Yes, there is technically a charging network for electric cars in place in this country and, yes, you can plug into it—some of it, anyway, sometimes. But it’s a long way from being practical and a lot of it isn’t even useable.

At least that’s based on my own firsthand anecdotal experiences and the whinings and web postings of EV-savvy friends. The EV charging network in America is not exactly in its infancy, but it’s not yet in its adolescence, either. At least anecdotally speaking.

“Charging an EV today at public stations is a lot like the wild, wild west—anything could happen,” said friend and colleague Richard Truett of Automotive News. “Or, more frequently, nothing could happen.”

Another friend, president, and chief analyst at Auto Pacific Ed Kim, drove a “wonderful” Genesis G80 EV from Southern California to Las Vegas recently. While the car performed flawlessly, the charging network did not.

“I plugged in at my local EVgo Network 350-kW charger (which should allow the G80 to charge to 80% in 22 minutes) and went for a 50-minute run, expecting to find the car fully charged upon my return. Came back to find it had a ‘connection error’ at 18% so basically, it wasn’t charging for nearly the entire time I was gone on my run. This is one of countless times I have had problems with public DC fast-chargers.”

My own experiences on long-distance road trips that required DC fast-charging have been equally frustrating. The vast majority of my attempts at DC fast-charging have resulted in frustration, and almost half of them have yielded no charge at all.

Let me share an example: I had a Lucid Air recently—surely the pinnacle of technology in an EV for the current time. The Lucid Air can go as much as 516 miles on a charge. But I wanted to plug it in anyway. So I searched “CCS charger” on my phone and was directed to a Loop Level 3 DC charger in Manhattan Beach. I parked and started following the limited directions on the charger. Nothing worked.

I tried every different configuration I could think of, based on my interpretation of the hieroglyphics on the charging pedestal. Nothing. There was no 800 number to call, at least not listed. There was a QR code, which I scanned. That lead to a web page encouraging me to buy a Loop charger.