Imagine living in a world where the gas station has trouble providing gasoline. Every few times a driver fills up, something goes haywire — the gas doesn’t flow, or it flows fast for a while and then slows to a trickle. Other times, the credit card payment is mysteriously rejected or the screen is blank. If the consumer wants a helping hand, too bad. In this world, the gas station has no human, and the only option is a 1-800 number. The gas pumps are alone in the middle of a big parking lot.
Swap the word “gasoline” for “electricity,” and this is a realistic description of what happens every day at electric-vehicle charging stations across the United States. The high-tech, high-speed highway fueling system that America is building to power its EVs and replace the gas station is riddled with glitches that are proving difficult to stamp out. Individually, they are hiccups, but collectively, their consequences could be profound.
“It adds to the non-EV driver’s view of the world that EV charging is painful,” said Bill Ferro, a software expert and founder of EVSession, an EV charger analytics firm. “People feeling that it’s a risk to buy an EV because the fast-charging infrastructure stinks is going to slow down EV adoption.”
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