Note: All names, places and people in this article have been omitted to protect the innocent from the wrath of the guilty—and because it could happen almost anywhere, on any given day, across Australia.
I hate hybrids. Actually, I hated them until two days ago.
I had become complacent, driving around my little coastal town and to other towns nearby, content in the knowledge that the energy powering my battery EV was almost free and non-polluting, delivered fresh daily from my rooftop.
I confess I was a bit judgy of friends who hadn’t bought a full EV when they changed cars. Their usual refrain was, “Next time”. Not for them the warm inner glow of the righteous and risk-tolerant early adopter.
Then I decided to travel further afield, to the nearest capital city—a distance of nearly 500 kilometres on a major highway. I’ve been charging EVs for the last four years, including on this same route, so I thought I knew what to expect.
But no. Having passed two towns with supposedly fast chargers, both of which stubbornly refuse to talk to my car, ever (although they are fine with most other EVs), I pulled off the highway to charge at a two bay, two charger station attached to an old petrol station.
In the past this one had being relatively reliable, even though the last two owners who had checked in on Plugshare reported being unable to charge on either unit.
And so it was on Sunday. I tried with the app. I tried with the RFID card. I tried again. I waited impatiently. I jiggled the plug. But “Computer [charger] said nooo.…” on both chargers. Actually they were both cruel bastards; they keep saying “Payment accepted, starting charge…” over and over again, before spitting out “Charging completed. Please return the plug.”
A woman pulled up in her EV. She was dismayed to hear my tale. I encouraged her to try anyway, to no avail. With more confidence than me in human nature, she called the company responsible. She rang them back after being disconnected. She waited while they said they would reboot the units.
Eventually she gave up and, with not enough charge to make it to the town about 100 km further north that she was heading for, she was forced to backtrack half an hour to try a little old single 50kW unit.
I hope she made it. If it wasn’t her decision to buy an EV in the first place, though, I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere near the family dinner table that night.
Nothing unusual or notable about this so far. But while we were thinking around with plugs and phones and cards and apps, up comes another EV. Out hops a jovial and knowledgeable gentlemen who tried, also unsuccessfully, to help. I recognised him, and we chatted briefly. He was dismayed because they were in a hurry and had a long drive ahead of them. I’m not sure what they ended up doing, but I hope they also made it.
I’m not naming him because he has promised to publicise his own unhappy experience of the still poor quantity and quality of EV charging stations in Australia. And because he is not the story. It’s not about charger range, it’s about trust. Please read on.
I had enough charge to make it 100 or so kilometres to the next charging station on the perimeter of a huge, newish highway centre that was doing a roaring trade keeping fossil burners running and their passengers full of junk food and empty of bladder. There I was forced to share the measly single 50kW unit with another car, so it was not much better than some AC destination chargers.
My patience exhausted, the next one I tried was a single unit already occupied by a Tesla, in spite of there, being a supercharger station less than 10 km away. So on I drove…
I’m not here to complain about there not being enough reliable chargers, though. What really shocked me was that the company behind the first charging station continued to show it as being available after being informed about the site malfunctioning two days earlier—and even after our collective experience on Sunday. All is fine and dandy, except that it is not, as now seven owners in a row have attested on Plugshare.
Nobody expects these companies to be making a killing out of their charging stations at this point. Early adopters have been a patient and tolerant lot as we wait for the bags to be ironed out. But if these companies are going to repeatedly accept government grants and also deal with the public, they should be held accountable for their failure, year after year, to put the interests of their customers first.
I can’t understand why the ACCC hasn’t held them to account for directing drivers to charging stations which they have been repeatedly told do not work. If that isn’t misleading and deceptive conduct, I don’t know what is.
Instead, in my experience, when their backs are to the wall they resort to blame-shifting. It’s a hardware issue, and we can’t get parts. It’s an electricity network issue, and we have to wait till they get back to us. The 4G phone signal to that site is poor. Or everybody’s favourite, operator error: just wait a while, read the instructions, and try again. And again.
Let’s hope it doesn’t take a failed rush to a hospital, or escape from a bushfire, or some other emergency to get them to take the interests of their customers seriously. Start by telling us the truth. Really, it’s not that hard once you get used to it.
Transparency is a pillar of trust, and trust is the glue that holds democratic societies together. According to the old cliche of marketing and PR, trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. In the world of EVs, some companies seem to have trouble getting even to the first step.
As I sat in my car in the sun last Sunday to make sure it wouldn’t be ICEd or scratched or disconnected while it drew a (not) stonking 25kW from the grid and watched while the rest of the motoring world sped by, I thought, hybrids? Not for me, and certainly not for the planet, but yeah, I get that.
And now to some fine print:
- In the hours between the writing and the publication of this article, the charging network involved finally—after four days—acknowledged that the offending site was actually “unavailable “. That lasted about two hours, before they once again claimed that all four chargers were available and capable of delivering up to 350kW. Trust them? Yeah, but nah…
- I have mostly kept Tesla out of this, but it is by no means immune to concerns regarding trust, hype and service delivery. That’s another story.