so i've recently tried 2 public charging stations (my first experiences).

i was downtown where i live and had about 30% charge left, which was still plenty to get home (est. 75mi. range and to home was about 17mi).

i've been thinking for a while what would i do if i happened to be in same situation with say 5% left after a busy day or work trips.

my town, as most of central florida except orlando, is pretty weak for public charging. not an issue for me normally though as i charge at home.

there's a parking garage right downtown with 2 (yes just 2) level 2 (chargepoint) chargers (i.e., probably 7kw which is worse than at my house, lol). i've tried a few times to use them but they're ALWAYS in use. thankfully the car shows availability, like 0/2 (meaning 0 of 2 available) so i don't bother driving over there.

so back to my 30% scenario, not a crisis, but i wanted to see... of course the 2 chargepoint ones were occupied. the hyundai dealer i got the car from told me when i got it that they have 'fast' charging i could use at any time. so i thought ok, it's 6pm but i'll give it a go... it's very close to my office.

i get there pull into the service port and ask a worker where the charging station is, and he politely shows me so i drive over there, and after some driving contortions to get into a parking spot where the charger cable would reach the car i got it done. turns out this one is also chargepoint, also 2 chargers, but faster than the parking garage one. not sure how much power it can put out, but i hooked it up, used the app, and found out i had to pay for it there (i thought it was a hyundai courtesy charger or something, oh well, lol). i added a few %, paid my $2.50 or whatever after about 10 minutes of charging at 26kw, and left. what i learned: if i needed that in the future for more than a bit of charging, i'd better be prepared for a long wait, although i'd only need to add 10% to get home. for a 77kwh battery, that's roughly 8kwh, so roughly about 1/3 of an hour @ 26kw or 20 minutes... ok that's not bad - seemed slower than that. obviously if i intended to go on a longer trip i'd be there an hour or more.

fast forward to today... i needed to drive to tampa, which is about 120mi. from where i am. i can supposedly get 250-275 on a full charge so in theory could do the round trip, but wasn't going to leave it that tight given that i would be doing some driving in tampa also.

i found an EA charging place about 100mi. from home, about 20mi. to destination, so figured that would work well to get recharged before tampa visit so i could head home after. it was supposed to have several 'hyper fast' (350kw) chargers, so IF THEY WORKED i figured the visit wouldn't take very long.

the EA app on carplay said only 3 of 8 chargers were in use.

tl;dr - after charging at home to 100% i arrived at EA place with 57% remaining. i charged from 57% to 80% (almost 22kwh) in 10m40s for free at about 150kw.

this pic isn't mine but is of the place, and i pulled in first where the ID4 on the left is here:



it showed 'only' 150kw i think it was, but i quickly realized it wasn't working. not a good start. i pulled around to another to the right, which said it was 350kw.
i opened the app on my phone, tried to scan the phone into the charger, but that didn't work either. not good, but the charger then said look up the charger in the app (put in the charger location id if needed) and go from there. turns out i didn't need to do that, the app found where i was automatically and i could then just pick 'charger-5' (where i was parked) and slide left to right to begin charging, and it worked!

another guy was helping me (he had a rented hyundai kona i think) and we were excited once it worked, ha.

anyway, good experience. i might stop on the way out of tampa for a top up.

 

Cool, you got your first fast charging experience. If you are signed into the EA app, you should just be able to tap the NFC reader.

I've never seen them laid out like that. Maybe I'm seeing it wrong, but it looks like you either back in or pull in forward depending on where your charging port is located. Doesn't seem very optimally laid out, kind of like gas pumps. I'm assuming that you can have two people in each row so no one gets stuck

 

as i mentioned, the nfc reader didn't work but their workaround was simple and smooth thankfully.

it was confusing initially but it's pretty simple and i think pretty efficient.

 

Glad to hear your public charging experience wasn’t so bad. Good idea to try it out when you are not in dire need of a charge so you know how it works next time.
As for EA chargers, NFC never worked for me. I always plug in first, launch the app, then initiate the charging from the app (iOS).

 

So one good thing about how Ford handles this is Plug and Charge, you just need to plug in the charger and everything is handled for you. No need to authorize on any app etc, it's essentially identical to how Tesla handles charging. On the downside, Ford hasn't properly implemented memberships etc so if you have say an EA Pass Plus you won't get the member rate with Plug and Charge, you'd have to use the EA app (or just hold your phone by the NFC reader and it handles it all from there).

 

It's the new frontier 😁👍

 

Being old and not tech savvy, I read these stories about public charging and just shake my head - what a fricking hassle!

 

Tesla supercharging is easier and quicker than using a gas pump. Nothing technical about it. Just plug it in and walk away. No credit cards, no card readers, easy to handle charging cable. Which is why all the other automakers are making deals with Tesla



Oh yeah, and it's cheaper than gas. Way, way cheaper

 

My biggest reservation is one can pump 300+ miles faster than a person can charge 300+ miles even if that is even possible given true EV range especially at highway speed.

 

Yep, if that's important to you, this is not the time to go all-in on a BEV.

 

May sound weird but I have more patience on charging in town but when I’m on a roadtrip, I’m ready and anxious to get to wherever I’m going.

 

I mean I've agreed with you multiple times that you shouldn't get an EV. I'll say it again... you shouldn't get an EV

 

I’m closer to owning one than one may think. It would be in town/around city use only.

I’ve seen the trend of hybrid owners especially PHEV owners next vehicle is to full EV. I plan my trips in town to not use gas in my PHEV if possible. Today I was loaded down 3 adults and 2 kids (one in a car seat) plus cargo area full of bday decorations, presents, and balloons to where I had to strategically place things just to close the hatch hoping I didn’t pop any balloons and crush any cupcakes. Would’ve been a lot easier to just take the LX.

 

If you are just driving around town and charging at home, then it's a no brainer

 

Good story above @bitkahuna .

I guess that's my fear I'll have to tackle some day, where to charge and how.

Not enough charge, broken chargers, etc.

But you went out and did it and it's getting less scary for us noobs like me after hearing all the success stories.
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