[In response to a newsletter article that someone I know from local activities and EV shows forwarded]

Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2023 10:01:50
To: <a-colleague@back-home>
Subject: Re: FW: The dream of interoperable EV chargers

I just arrived down in FL to hang out with family.  Charging was mostly okay
on the way down, and I mostly managed to avoid Electrify America, but once I
got into FL and started going to more EA locations things really went downhill.
Apparenly all of EA's support infrastructure has gone TU, where you call the
800 number and anything you try to do in the menus goes to a recording about
"your call cannot be completed at this time".  Their stuff is breaking right
and left and not getting fixed, and support to even try and report these
things is unreachable.  So the quote

_   "A fragmented business landscape is to blame for many of the problems
_    that plague EV charging."

seems especially relevant right now, as sales of EVs may be outstripping the
availability of public charging for folks doing roadtrips or unable to charge
at home.

EA, as you probably know, is Volkswagen's "penance" for Dieselgate, and it's
felt like everyone there has this resentful attitude about it from the very
beginning.  By now they may have fulfilled most of that $2B obligation to
"build a charging network", but apparently nobody stipulated that they had to
actually *manage* it competently as part of what became critical infrastructure.
Someone really needs to get the FTC and such after them, they're really helping
turn buyers away from EVs and harm the industry because of all the frustration.
Here's more contemporary evidence that came out right after this trip.

I wound up going to a "7charge" location instead of continuing to try one EA
site after another, and that worked acceptably enough.

Petrol fuel sales have a fragmented business landscape too, but at least
there's enough of it and it seems to run smoothly enough [other than during
really monumental problems like storms and getting screwed by foreign
interests] that we don't see too much scarcity.  But in today's divisive
landscape, there are going to be brawls and shootings at DC fast-chargers
if things get much worse than what I'm hearing about these days.

Besides the CCS vs. NACS flap, there's the issue that NEVI-compliant networks
need to have alternate payment methods instead of stupid junkware apps they try
to force everyone to download.  Many people can't use those at all, and only
get angry when some schlump keeps saying "you have to use our app".  That crap
has to STOP, like yesterday.  Especially with Tesla.  They should ALL be
required to install generic payment terminals and also make both Autocharge
*and* Plug-n-Charge work, including for the older vehicles.  The only barrier
here is a bit of software in the chargers, and yet they refuse to even work
on it toward a more universally accessible/compatible solution.  EVgo, for
example, was too incompetent to manually enroll my vehicle's MAC address into
their backend database to enable me for Autocharge.  They took *months* of
jerking me around with false promises before finally refusing to even try.

That's my "customer service" rant for the morning.  Between EA and some weird
issues with my mom's bank recently, I'm really working on my "rip businesses
a new one" chops.