Page 50 - Motor Trend (April 2020)
P. 50
SIDEBAR I Anecdotal recharging
The Electric Gas Station:
Sampling the infrastructure Tesla Model 3
hereas most automakers’ EVs are
part of a larger powertrain port-
Wfolio, Tesla only makes electrics.
That concentration pushed its engineers
into understanding that EVs need to be
thought of as a system, not merely as just
another car in the lineup.
With the charging infrastructure still in its
nascent stages, allow me to tell you about Kia Niro Nissan Leaf
the “systems” out there and what you
might experience. on the go. So we mapped our drive loop to How did the EV industry ever allow three
types of plugs to exist? Best is the thin-
The smart way to charge is during the sample a series of fast charging stations
cable, slim-plug Tesla. The rarer CHAdeMO,
day at work, when renewables are often clustered in Los Angeles’ South Bay area. still used by Nissan, needs to go.
being wasted, said our charging and infra- Will this loop prove applicable to your life?
structure expert Alec Brooks. He noted that Perhaps. Maybe not. But it highlights some another ramp finds 19 (gratis) Level 2 plugs
in one recent lunchtime hour, 74,000 EVs of the infrastructure flaws that still exist. for shoppers, two 50-kW CHAdeMO plugs,
could have been charged from California’s First stop was a lone 50-kW ChargePoint and one 50-kW CCS. A Kia Soul EV was
available but idled solar production. station in the parking lot of a Torrance cabled to one CCS, and we couldn’t get the
But not everyone has that luxury. Some public pool. It was dead. My bad: I should remaining 50-kW unit to work. Strike two.
people need to get around. And I wanted have checked my PlugShare app, which A quarter mile south is the new kid in
to see where things stand for fast charging had this station flagged for months. But town, a nest of Electrify America fast
what would you do while it’s charging? chargers in the mall’s parking lot. This is
Swim, I guess. There were eight other single the fast-expanding network infamously
chargers in a 5-mile radius (including funded by Volkswagen’s $2 billion punish-
another nonoperational one). But the ment for its dieselgate misdeeds. It’s sort
comments left by their prior users read of a mini Supercharger station with five
like the forum of the Yugo owner’s club. If I 150-kW CCSs and a 50-kW CHAdeMO.
were a first-time EV buyer, I would not be When I stopped to check it out a few days
encouraged. earlier, a couple in a Dodge Challenger
Next stop was a concrete grotto of EVgo pulled into one of the charger stalls, got
chargers on a lower level of a Del Amo out, and arm-in-arm headed toward Vegas
Fashion Center parking structure. Or so I Seafood Buffet. The woman looked back
thought. You slowly drive to its exact GPS and asked, “Isn’t that for the electric cars?”
spot—but nothing there. Duh, it’s still one The guy dismissed her: “It doesn’t matter.”
more level directly below me. Circling down He beeped its doors locked.
EVgo’s app (above) works
well and offers cheaper
charging than Electrify
America’s chargers.
Electrify America’s CHAdeMO cable was too short to plug
in the Leaf without parking at an angle. What the heck?
