Monday, December 11, 2017

EV Charging - DC Fast Charging Stations... Why People Won't Adopt Electric Cars Soon Enough

I have been driving electric cars for a while. It started with the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid EV, and now my day to day commuting car is a Nissan LEAF SL with Chademo DC quick charge. 

I often encounter confused people at the DC quick charging stations.  It's not their fault, I don't think any of them are dumb people, and I have had my share of frustrations too.  There is a lot of differences from one DC charger to the next. Some only work on a smartphone app that you may or may not be familiar with. Some of those apps use NFC tap, some QR codes, some ask you to punch in a charger ID number, some just ask you to find where you are on a Google map.  Some chargers take credit cards but the process is usually several steps longer than it should be, some require payment to be made at a separate kiosk somewhere nearby. 

Why? I don't know. I guess charger manufacturers have never bought gas before. Someone needs to make one that operates on the same workflow as a standard gas pump (the pay at the pump kind of course).  Just swipe your credit card (or dip the chip and punch in the PIN) add on the option to tap a membership card or NFC phone etc. to get a discount just like with the Esso PayPass and make big f@%king buttons for Chademo and SAE/CCS ala the high and low octane and diesel buttons on a gas pump... basically just clone an Esso pump.

Actually, screw the CHAdeMO and CCS buttons just start negotiation on both cords and power up whichever cord you get a reply back from the car on. The user doesn't need to select that, the machine can figure it out all on it's own. It could be... SHOULD be... easier than pumping gas.

You can still have it send stats to the phone if you tapped for payment and give membership discounts. Other than the live update charging stats Esso and many other gas Co.s already have this down pat. They've already done the 80 years of user interface research so that the EV charger folks don't have to but for some reason every company thinks they need to reinvent the wheel.

EV Charger folks, YOU are the ones who are going to be holding back adoption of electric cars the most. You could make it really simple, but somehow none of you have yet (save Tesla, who only serve Tesla drivers. 

....Psst Tesla, I have an idea for you guys too. Since you seem to be keen on making yourselves into an energy company who just happen to make cars... make a smart adapter to go from Tesla Supercharger to CHAdeMO or CCS combo. When you plug the adapter in have it provide the VIN ID to the Supercharger to set who's account to bill it to, and translate the Tesla negotiation protocol to CHAdeMO or CCS. Sure it'll be an expensive gizmo to have in the trunk of my LEAF, but since no one else is building DCFC stations in some of the places I'd like to have them, I'd gladly pay for that adapter.