As more electric cars hit the road, it’s time that automakers focus on developing public charging infrastructure to keep up with the rate at which they are building and selling electric vehicles. And most importantly, the public charging experience must be reliable.
“As things are today, almost every non-Tesla EV driver will sooner or later arrive at a charging station that’s dead, damaged, offline, or providing current at slower-than-advertised rates.”
Charging Station Reliability
Concern over broken EV stations and issues with station functionality continue to burden EV drivers. Seamlessness and reliability are two large problems for public DC fast charging and the inconsistencies of the charging experience have made the non-Tesla automakers reluctant to build out charging networks.
To address the reliability issue, the Plug and Charge protocol is one solution available to all EV makers. The station identifies your EV then bills you for the charge. “To date, we’ve experienced functional Plug and Charge through the Electrify America network in a Ford Mustang Mach-E, a Mercedes-Benz EQS, and a Porsche Taycan.” There are calls for Plug and Charge to make its way into more cars and charge networks.
More is needed to tackle these station issues for mass-EV adoption to occur. And Ford is taking the first step.
What is Ford doing about all of this?
Ford is monitoring EV charging sites, working to improve network reliability, and investigating unsuccessful charging attempts of its Mustang Mach-Es. In addition to scanning its vehicle data, Ford also set up a team last year called Charge Angels, EV drivers who travel to different sites to test the operation of charging stations. They also added the ability to report non-working stations to the FordPass app – Ford is currently the only maker to have this app capability.
There seems to be a race to profit for charging companies trying to get as many stations in the ground as possible. Though, as the article notes, this can’t be at the expense of basic maintenance. Though EV drivers are clearly putting up with inconveniences of nonfunctioning stations, there’s still a surge of weary potential EV buyers. And if these inconveniences continue, that number will rise. Ford’s work is important – network troubleshooting, site monitoring, and working with user feedback are all necessary steps for improving the EV public charging experience. So, will other automakers step up and follow their lead?