Comment by amunozo
3 hours ago
You don't need a charging station for 99 per cent of your rides. You can charge daily at home and forget about recharging except when making a long trip.
If you usually make trips that are over the battery life, that's a different thing though. But most people don't have that problem.
That makes it even more realistic. I have the charger in my garage, I happened to need a charger to get home on my last trip (120 mile round trip, the car claimed 220 miles of charge but that didn't account for the cold winter), but I had to open an app and such just to use it. (at least I had the app and an account - but my credit card was expired so I had to type numbers to get it activated). I had to search for that charger - there was exactly one charger within 30 miles (only 7kw, but it gave me enough range to get home while I ate lunch).
Meanwhile I passed half a dozen gas stations. No app/account needed at any of them, just tap/swipe my credit card and fill.
Most people don't have the charging problem often, but when you make a mistake you sometimes will need it. The system doesn't work. There needs to be chargers all over, and they need to be quick/easy. I don't want to download an app for a charger I will likely never visit again in my life.
Under Biden we had laws requiring chargers to meet reliability requirements, use an open standard, take credit card payments without requiring an app, and build more in rural areas to close the coverage gap. Most of that has been scrapped by the current administration, going as far as removing chargers that were already installed.