musings of the owner of a Tesla model S
I recently had reason to use EV charging service provider FLO for the very first time. This provider deserves several kinds of praise for its corporate goals. But its user-facing systems could have done better. Continue reading “EV charging service provider FLO could have done better”
It will be recalled (blog posting) that EVgo seems to have a lot of trouble carrying out the seemingly simple task of enrolling a new vehicle into its “autocharge” program. However badly it went in the earlier enrollment process described in that blog posting, it was far worse in a recent enrollment for an EV car rental. Continue reading “EVgo again fails to cover itself in glory”
On February 28, 2023 the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) picked CCS as the type of DC fast charging plug that would receive $7½ billion in federal funding. After that, every US car maker and every provider of DC fast charging services announced that they would migrate to NACS (Tesla-style, also called J3400) charging plugs. Now the FHWA has requested comments as to whether the $7½ billion should continue to get spent on CCS plugs, or whether the money should go to J3400 plugs. As of today, 62 comments have been filed, nearly all of which say that the correct answer is “J3400”. One of the comments has a far higher word count than any of the others, and you can see it here, archived here.
Hertz did not cover itself in glory in a recent EV rental. The roadside assistance was clueless, the Hertz EV Trip Planner gave false information about charging locations, the charge-level-upon-return policy was customer-hostile, and the car that Hertz actually gave me had a shorter driving range than the car I had reserved. Continue reading “Disappointing Hertz EV rental”
On June 20, 2023, Rivian announced (blog article) that Real Soon Now the owners of Rivian EVs would be able to charge at Tesla supercharging stations. Now, after a passage of more than eight months, there is progress.
Which vehicles does this apply to? The Rivian vehicles to which this applies to are the R1T pickup and R1S all-electric SUV. Each of these vehicles has a CCS1 charging port at the left front of the vehicle, behind the left front wheel. Each of these vehicles needs an adapter to be able to charge at a Tesla supercharging station. The adapter permits a Rivian EV with a CCS1 charging port to charge using a Tesla supercharger NACS (J3400) charging plug.
Avoiding incompatible Tesla superchargers. It turns out that only some Tesla superchargers can be used with this adapter for fast DC charging of Rivian EVs. The charging works only at (newer) V3 superchargers, and does not work at (older) V2 superchargers. (See this blog article that discusses the differences between V2 and V3 superchargers.) As a fun fact, one way that a person can figure out whether they are looking at a V2 or V3 supercharger is by looking at the charging plug.
| V2 supercharger | V3 supercharger | |
| works for Rivian EVs | no | yes |
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As of right now (March 2024) the number of V3 charging kiosks in the US is about 15,000. For the owner of a Rivian CCS1 EV, the use of this adapter approximately doubles the number of places where the owner can accomplish fast DC charging.
This brings to two the number of makes of non-Tesla CCS1 EVs that can charge at NACS Tesla supercharging stations (see canonical list).
Yes, every US car maker has by now joined the NACS club (blog article). This means that Real Soon Now, they will drop the legacy CCS1 charging port and switch over to the NACS (Tesla-style) charging port. The natural corresponding step will be to place the charging port at either the left rear corner of the car or at the right front corner of the car. This location permits normal parking in a parking space in a Tesla supercharging station.
But Real Soon Now has not yet happened. As of right now, every newly manufactured EV by any US car maker that is not Tesla has a CCS1 charging port. Where on the vehicle do these non-Tesla car makers choose to place the (CCS1) charging port? I invited readers to respond to a survey on this. The diagram at above right shows the results of the survey. Continue reading “Where are the charging ports in US electric cars?”
It turns out that there are better and worse ways to accomplish a seamless charging experience for fast DC charging of electric vehicles. There is “autocharge” which is older and more widely adopted, and less secure. EVgo uses “autocharge”. And there is “plug and charge” according to ISO 15118, which is much more secure, but is much newer and is not yet widely adopted. Continue reading “Autocharge versus “plug and charge””
I have a table where I am trying to keep track of progress in the US toward “plug and charge”. It is quite discouraging to see so many cells that fail to say “yes”. Having said this, I figured I should try out EVgo’s “plug and charge” system, which it calls “Autocharge+“. It did not go well. Continue reading “Trying to enroll in EVgo’s “plug and charge” system”
EVgo’s web page about its “Autocharge” system (which means “plug and charge”) lists sixteen supported car makes. They are denoted in bold face in the table below.
What I learned is that that list of sixteen supported car makes is incomplete. A Rivian owner told me that Rivian is able to do plug and charge with EVgo.
Yesterday for the first time I managed to enroll my vehicle in EVgo’s plug and charge system. After that, I received a customer satisfaction survey from EVgo asking how this first charging session went. The first question is the make and model of the car that I charged. (The second question is the model year of the car.) The survey invited me to select the make and model from a drop-down list of 73 vehicle models. Doing a “view source” on the drop-down list revealed database codes that presumably get used internally in the analysis of the survey responses. The models and codes are listed in the table below.
It is interesting to speculate on why the database codes run in three distinct numerical sequences:
What’s striking is how different the drop-down list is from the table on the EVgo web page. The main thing is that the drop-down list from the satisfaction survey is much longer — the survey includes vehicle makes that are missing from the EVgo web page:
I welcome comments from readers who own any of the makes listed above, as to whether you have been able to enroll such an EV in EVgo’s Autocharge+ system.
Note that “Energica” is missing from the survey, despite being listed on the EVgo web page. What, you may ask, is “Energica”? It is a motorcycle.
| Make and model | database code |
| Audi e-tron | 723124418 |
| Audi e-tron GT | 723124419 |
| Audi e-tron Sportback | 723124420 |
| BMW Active E | 723124421 |
| BMW i3 | 723124422 |
| BMW i4 | 1265010945 |
| BMW i5 | 945699583 |
| BMW i7 | 723124423 |
| BMW iX | 723124424 |
| Cadillac Lyriq | 1265010946 |
| Chevrolet Blazer EV | 723124425 |
| Chevrolet Bolt EUV | 723124426 |
| Chevrolet Bolt EV | 723124427 |
| Chevrolet Spark EV | 723124428 |
| Energica Experia | |
| Energica Eva Ribelle | |
| Energica Ego | |
| Energica EsseEsse9 | |
| Fiat 500e | 1265010947 |
| Fisker Ocean | 723124429 |
| Ford E-Transit-350 Cargo | 723124430 |
| Ford F-150 Lightning | 723124431 |
| Ford Focus Electric | 723124432 |
| Ford Mustang Mach-E | 1265010949 |
| Genesis Electrified G80 | 723124433 |
| Genesis GV60 | 1265010948 |
| Genesis GV70 | 723124434 |
| GMC Hummer EV | 723124435 |
| Harley-Davison LiveWire | 723124436 |
| Honda Clarity EV | 723124437 |
| Honda Fit EV | 723124438 |
| Hyundai Ioniq 5 | 1265010950 |
| Hyundai Ioniq 6 | 723124439 |
| Hyundai Ioniq Electric | 723124440 |
| Hyundai Kona Electric | 723124441 |
| Jaguar I-Pace | 723124442 |
| Kia EV6 | 1265010951 |
| Kia EV9 | 723124443 |
| Kia Niro Electric | 723124444 |
| Kia Soul Electric | 1265010952 |
| Lexus RZ 450e | 843385879 |
| Lordstown Endurance | 723124445 |
| Lucid Air | 723124446 |
| Mazda MX-30 | 723124448 |
| Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive | 723124447 |
| Mercedes-Benz B250e | 1265010953 |
| Mercedes-Benz EQB | 1265010954 |
| Mercedes-Benz EQE | 723124449 |
| Mercedes-Benz EQS | 723124450 |
| MINI Cooper SE | 723124451 |
| MINI Electric | 723124452 |
| Mitsubishi i-MiEV | 723124453 |
| Nissan Ariya | 723124454 |
| Nissan Leaf | 723124455 |
| Nissan Leaf Plus | 723124456 |
| Polestar 2 | 723124457 |
| Porsche Taycan | 723124458 |
| Rivian R1S | 723124459 |
| Rivian R1T | 723124460 |
| Scion iQ EV | 723124461 |
| smart fortwo | 723124462 |
| Subaru Solterra | 723124463 |
| Tesla Model 3 | 723124464 |
| Tesla Model S | 723124465 |
| Tesla Model X | 723124466 |
| Tesla Model Y | 723124467 |
| Toyota bZ4x | 723124468 |
| Toyota RAV4 EV | 843385880 |
| VinFast VF8 | 723124469 |
| Volkswagen e-Golf | 723124470 |
| Volkswagen ID.4 | 723124471 |
| Volvo C40 Recharge | 723124472 |
| Volvo XC40 Recharge | 723124473 |
Let’s suppose you are going to fly to Dulles, rent an EV, and drive to Charlottesville, VA. How do three major EV-charging service providers compare for geographic coverage along this route? Continue reading “Comparing coverage of Electrify America and EVgo and Tesla”