rawlins02 said:
Relatively new CHAdeMO charger at local Nissan dealership* has been down for several weeks. The one at Nissan dealership 20 miles away has been down for two years. Chargepoint station at college 3 miles from me has been down then up then down over past two years. Electrify America station near dealer 20 miles away has been down for many weeks. Anyone know of similar issues near them? I could not in good conscience sell my 2014 Leaf to a family member or friend in this area. Charging far too unreliable. Unless things change I will have limited ability to get around much this coming winter. Good thing I spend most of my time at home!
*Another user posted on plugshare:
"Both high-speed chargers out of order. Please take this location off the network or fix your chargers!! You’re the only high speed charger in the neighborhood, does it occur to you that people might count on you?? This is the kind of crap that discourages people from getting EVs. Please take a little responsibility.
This story reminded me of a situation about a month ago in NE Ohio when I used my '19 LEAF (40KWh) beyond it's round-trip range for the 1st time in over 2 years of ownership, and 1st time using a paid station since my Nissan NCTC expired. The trip wasn't very far beyond the car's range, would only need ~5-10 KWh of dispensed power from a public DCFC. There were 3 public DCFC charging locations (all EVGo) along the path, and had a "Plan D" at my part-time employer's garage where I can plug the portable cord into a 50 amp 240v if all else fails. I had some spare time to kill that day so why not give it a try.
So opportunity #1 was outbound relatively close to the destination, was still over 55% SOC so passed on that location.
Opportunity #2 was the same place as #1 but on the return trip, that was ICED so continued on the Turnpike to the next location. The only loss at this point was time and a few miles backtracking to the Turnpike entrance.
Opportunity #3 was open, but the CHAdeMO failed to work correctly despite EVGo Customer Support restarting the station several times. At that point, the SOC was @ 20% and discussed the working condition of opportunity #4 with EVGo Support before weaving the back roads to the location to stretch the range. In hindsight, should have tried the L2's available at this location given that I had already blown 20 minutes on the phone messing with the DCFC.
Upon arrival at opportunity #4, SOC was 8% and the station was in use by a Chevy Bolt. Cool, this station at least works, get a cup of coffee and wait 30 minutes for the Bolt to finish. Upon connecting, the station behaved the same as #3. This time EVGo Customer Support rebooted the station a couple times and somehow forced the session to work, but maxed out about 30 KW, and charged some crazy rate by the minute with the 20 minutes connected (10 KWh dispensed) costing $6.30 (likely why the Bolt owner also bailed out in 20 minutes).
My "Plan D" backup location was about 5 miles away and very reachable on the remaining 8% SOC if needed.
It's pretty obvious this technology is far from dependable and totally lacks the station saturation to satisfy realistic usage expectations.
Next time will take my Ridgeline.
