This is Ruining Electric Cars

The charging experience is just as important as the car experience. And it's lagging way behind.

Shot on Galaxy S23 Ultra

[ofSeptember]

I live and work in Japan and the first thing I notice when I visit Canada or the US is how things that are broken don't get fixed right away. So many things are "out of order" and there is a lack of pride in making sure things are working properly. Wow, since Yahoo featured this video, I am getting loads of messages!

[nicoferrari]

Having to bend the cable in the perfect way so that your car chargers just like I had to do with my old phone charger is just hilarious.

[zollotech]

Exactly this. We need it to be as simple as gas not to mention the 150kw supercharger etiquette with every other changer vs V3 250kw. Then all the different ones with electrify America and on and on. It needs to be simple and just work for everyone without knowing charging speeds, adapter differences, etc

[suprPHREAK]

Too many charging companies, with too many separate apps. A plaza near me installed some new chargers, from a new company, requiring a new app and account. It has to be like gas: show up, plug in, tap to pay.

[LearningFast]

Imagine if the hose at a gas station sprung a leak. They would instantly fix it before it became an issue. With these chargers they just let them sit broken forever before anyone even attempts to fix it.

[ZacharySchulz]

This is spot on. Most of my family members would have one issue with charging electric car and never do it again until there were zero gas cars.

[adamfrost]

As Google Maps is adding more EV features into app, they should add a star rating system for chargers and include that data in route recommendations. The charger manufacturers could also look at that data to help determine which chargers really need something fixed.

[jumpinjason]

This is literally killing the electric car industry. I have had an electric car for a year now and regret it; no charger of my own, rely on public charging and I’d say 75% of chargers are broken or not working properly. (Western Canada) Each charger works differently, no standardization. It’s a nightmare.

My situation may be unique in that I am not a home owner and have to rely exclusively on public chargers. It also makes finding a place to live more challenging because I have to factor in proximity to a working public charger.

[illusivedestroyer]

I think this is one of those points that deserves a main channel video that not a lot of people would consider at a first glance and how the charging experience is similar to how phones used to charge with a billion different connectors, some that were really finicky and some that needed adapters to work with other phones

[MRIWILLPLAY]

I used to work for a car charging company in the UK and the whole industry is a mess. Basically a bunch of large companies trying to install as many charge points as possible that will break after about 2 years because the products haven't properly been tested. Our customer service desk was full of people complaining the app didn't work, the charger won't start charging or the charger is stuck in the car.

[ravon]

i’ve had the same experience with non-tesla chargers and like 70% of the time it’s such a convoluted process. they gotta fix the charging infrastructure asap!!

[charles-antoineaudet]

So I work in a Volkswagen dealership and I’m in charge of the delivery. When I deliver an ID.4, I literally have to put in double the time to explain to older people how this whole charging thing works, it’s a nightmare for them to learn to work with the apps and everything needed to charge the car when they are not home. I get many calls from them after the delivery for questions around the charging process. I can totally relate to your thoughts on this

[Spyder]

This should've been for the main channel. The infrastructure around charging stations is something that really needs to be discussed in depth.

[markallen]

I just bought a Tesla Model Y. I’m in my 70s and I live in the Palm Springs area with many others born long ago. the problems you describe are not just a generational thing. Lots of people my age have Teslas and other EVs. But every single one of my peers I talked to knows about the chaos of non-Tesla charging. All of us have the wherewithal to install level 2 chargers at home. And, we all have time to deal with the problems of charging. My children (who are in their 20s-40s) see EVs as being too much of a hassle due to the charging issues. They are short on wherewithal or time or both. As you said, this is killing EVs not because you can’t deal with the problem but because dealing with the overhead of charging is simply not worth it for busy people.

[hbcold]

Thank you for taking the time to talk about this issue. For the record, I would really appreciate it if you dive deep into all the "boring" aspects of electric car ownership. Charging, maintenance, buying versus leasing, app locked features, etc. Really anything and everything that's outside the norm for those of us used to traditional vehicles.

[slick-riq]

I did a 3000 mile road trip in my Rivian. Once we left California, it started getting dicey, especially as we went into some rural towns. 100% of the non Tesla/Rivian charging locations had units that were down. Then once we reached British Columbia, high speed chargers were completely nonexistent (in Vancouver on top of that).

So charging from home is great, if you have a Tesla and stick to the interstates you’ll be ok…. Otherwise the infrastructure still has a long way to go before EVs can be more than a round trip commute car. Which is justifiable for 99% use cases. Just need to also have a gas powered long range vehicle as well.

[erionniii]

This happened to my father in 2021. He leased a Polestar, and he loved it to bits, he was always excited to take me for a ride or show it off to his friends. He drove it all the time around the city, but he's also the type of person who loves doing 1 day road trips, driving 200 miles in a day sometimes. Obviously he had planned for charging along the way, but 9 times out of 10 a charger was broken, or the charging speed was horribly slow. And after 2 months he got fed up with the thing. Even though he loved it so much, he ended up rolling over the lease to a gas Volvo...

[nikolamirchev]

The finicky charging where you need to twist the cable really reminds me of the time when everyone had wired headphones and at some point the sound cuts, so you start twisting the wire around your phone to find a working “angle”.
Let’s hope soon there will be a solution!

[benjisandk]

In Europe EU has just made a law that forces every charger provider to put a credit card reader on the charging station so that you can pay directly that way without any app.

[joaquins]

Absolutely spot on. I have pulled up to an "Electrify America" charging station that showed all 4 chargers available and none worked. People had put sticky notes on it to say "Don't work". Or you pull up to a charging station and when you go to plug in, the screen comes out of hibernation to say the charger is unavailable. It is frustrating, especially when you plan a longer trip and chargers show as available but really are not. My EV is just for around town now since my home charger runs off solar and is dependable vs the public chargers. For longer trips I just use the old fashion gas car since that infrastructure is solid.