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Comment by turtlebits | Hacker News Reader

I blame Electrify America for tanking the viability of EV road trips with their abysmal reliability.

I know of several people who sold their EVs to buy Teslas for the fact that they couldn't take them on long trips.

I bought a Tesla dongle that goes CCS -> NACS in order to use it at Electrify America or EVgo stations, and it's largely been a waste of money. EA stations are usually broken or otherwise frustrating. I tried using one near San Diego a few weeks ago; there was one spot and one cable open. Great! I plugged the cable into the dongle and the dongle into the Tesla, but I couldn't start the charge. A woman who was charging nearby said that, if someone else has already started a charge with the other cable from the same machine, I can't start a charge. WTF? Isn't that why they install two cables?

I tried calling EA's support line and gave up after a few minutes on hold.

EVgo works the same way. They have chademo and ccs cables and only one works at a time.

Chademo is also dying and I think only Nissan continues to use it on HALF their ev line up (only the leaf which is an awesome car otherwise). Kia soul did use it but I think they moved to ccs

Was EA using CCS?

Cuz it would’ve been nice to have more options than superchargers. But the SC network is so good now, road trips are a breeze.

Yes, everyone except Tesla was using CCS. They still are, but might switch by 2025 or whatever. I suspect they’ll have both connectors for awhile, similar to have some DCFC had a CCS and Chademo.

At most EA stations one of them still has chademo. EVgo also still has it.

Chademo is a failed connector in the US that basically only exists for two reasons:

* Nissan leafs still stubbornly only use Chademo for fast charging. Even for the 2024 model!

* Before the CCS1 -> NACS adapter that Tesla made, the only option for Teslas to fast charge was to use the (very expensive) Chademo -> NACS adapter.

It is irrelevant and essentially does not matter or exist.

VW was incentivized to meet their ordered Dieselgate obligations, not build a reliable fast charging network. Incentives -> outcome.

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