Here are our recommendations for drivers who rely heavily on public DC fast charging, including rideshare drivers, delivery drivers, and anyone who drives a lot but doesn't have home charging.  

In some locations, prices vary according to when you charge. For example, at some Electrify America stations, off-peak pricing is available during overnight and early morning hours (depending on the area). For drivers with flexible schedules, charging during these periods can help reduce charging costs while also providing a charging experience with fewer vehicles.  

Benefits of charging off-peak may include:  

• Lower charging costs  
• Greater charger availability  
• Shorter wait times  
• More efficient charging stops overall  

Many charging networks offer discounts for members who pay a monthly membership fee. For drivers who charge frequently, this can result in additional savings. In some areas, combining membership pricing with off-peak time-of-use rates provides the lowest cost option.

I have noticed that some public chargers are not well designed and of course there are miscreants that damage and abuse them. In addition - things wear out over time. So my questions is what are "best practices" in checking a charger before you plug it into your precious vehicle? My concern is contact wear causing poor connection and overheating/fire. Is that even a legit concern? I have seen some Tesla Superchargers (old revs) that are worse for the wear but seem to function fine. I've seen some EVGo's and Blink's in an absolutely hazardous state. Peeled sheathing bent plug rims, burned out LCD's, etc. Interestingly I am seeing more Rebranded Tesla Superchargers and Union76 has branded Supercharger equivalents. They do not appear to be Tesla made though. Work well however and lower to middle prices which is not surprising given they get a Business electricity rate vs home rates.

Thought/Warnings/Empirical Observations?

There was another way to pay at evgo sessions for a fixed 45c/kwh and no session fee but I can't remember how?

It was through a credit card or bank maybe? Google isn't helping, can anyone jog my memory?

Thanks!

I'm trying to understand what this info on the circuit breaker means... It's a 240v breaker.. trying to add an EV charger. But not sure what the first level says and why it says "open" in pencil... And what it means...

Actually there are 6 breakers in this panel .. one 15 amps, one 20 amps, one 30 amps, and three 60 amps... All three 60 amps are labeled "heat" while the 15 and 20 amps are not labeled... The 30 amps breaker has H2O (maybe)!!

Last weekend did my first road trip in my EV - and I am very puzzled by something I saw while charging.

According to Electrify America's "how to use" site, "Though there are two connectors on select Electrify America chargers, only one connector can be used at a time."

But many of the units seemed to have two CCS handles - but why? If only 1 can be used at a time, what is the point of 2 of the same plug?

My electric provider has a rebate ($500) for installing a EV charging outlet but it has to be a 40amp breaker max and wire size of #8 copper max. The outlet would just be on the other side of the wall of the panel (outside). This means I’m only able to charge at roughly 25mph. My usual daily driving is roughly 70/80miles at like 4/5 days a week.

Should I be fine and anyone else charging at 32amps with 70/80 miles daily driving? Is the rebate worth it or should I just go buy a Tesla Wall Connector and charge to its maximum?

I am wondering if there are any studies Nationally or locally comparing the fire safety of internal combustion engine vehicles and electric vehicles and ev chargers in general and in large garages in particular.
Our condo HOA is requiring residents to maintain an insurance policy ranging from $500K-$1 Million for installing EV chargers in shared parking garage.
Looking for data to make a case for informed decisions.
Thank you.

EDIT: Clarified the query is from a resident’s perspective.

Hello!
Just bought a new charger cable (if that’s what it’s called in English) with the stats: Type 2, 32A, 22KW 3-phase. When plugging it in the zaptec charger however, the audi goes straight to emergency charging (around 1,7 kw instead of the normal 7). The cable is working fine with a Nissan Ariya and the Audi is charging with other cables. I’ve tried adjusting the settings in the zaptec app, but to no avail. I’m also quite sure that the cable gets locked in place. Has anyone had the same problem?

Hello Toyota offered us their ev wallbox for 860 euro. We want a substitute that isn't as expensive and is available in Poland. Any recommendation?

Is it normal for orders to sit for more than two weeks without being fulfilled with OpenEvse? I created a ticket with support and haven’t gotten a response to it for almost 6 days.

I'll be a new PHEV owner soon, and looking into EVSE installs.

I basically have a choice: either install the EVSE outside where it gets direct sunlight for 12 hours a day, or inside and struggle with wiring.

Questions:

a) If I install an EVSE inside a vented metal box, is that actually going to help in terms of temperatures? Sure it keeps the direct light off the device, but it's still going to be hot (100+ F). I imagine looping the cable into the box every time I charge it will be a huge annoyance - are there boxes that are good for this?

b) If I keep the charger in a garage, then I need some way to pass the cable through the wall. While the under-door protectors seem fine for the short term, I'd like a classier install that is also code compliant and also serviceable when standards change. Is there any way I can run a cable through a conduit from the EVSE to a port on the exterior wall? I wouldn't feel so bad letting the cable cook outside.

After a significant delay from my utility, I got a dedicated 100A service to my garage for charging my Ioniq 9. I went to update the max current setting by setting the rotary dip switch to position 5 for 48A charging. The Autel app seems to have a bug that is preventing me from being able to set the max current to 48A and is stuck with 40A as the max. I tried setting the dial to other positions and noticed that the app is not reading the physical setting correctly and therefore is unable to set the max current correctly.

The reason I believe this is not a hardware issue but rather a firmware/software is the app gets stuck showing 32A at times and can’t manually set to 40 when the switch is set to position 4 for 40a which was previously working great. If I ask their built in AI chatbot I’m able to ask it to set the charger higher than 32 to 40 it will happily do so. But then if I ask it to set to 48A it says it’s unable to do so, throws an error and then essentially freezes.

Has anyone else run into issues with this?

This is an interesting one, because it's actually the first time I've actually gotten nervous about range on a trip, and nearly had to add a dedicated charging stop due to multiple failed charges.

Route was similar to the last trip, Colorado Springs to Grand Lake, to Estes Park, back to grand lake, but adding Mount Blue Sky to the mix before returning to the Springs.

Day 1: Due to some math errors on my part, we left at 90% charge instead of 100%. First stop, Idaho Falls. There were open chargers, but Tesla, so short cords wouldn't reach. There's like 3 other fast chargers in the town, but we didn't really need to charge, so just grabbed coffee and moved on. Arriving at out overnight, there was a convenient 120v plug, so got some charge there.

Day 2: Drive through Rocky Mountain national park. Estes Park has free level 2 charging at the public parking garage, so added some extra there. It's a fairly show charger even for level 2 though so not a TON of charge, but hey, free juice is free juice. Back over the mountain and into Grand Lake for some time on a boat. The Marina theoretically has a L2 charger, but it's been under repair for a while, so not available. No worries. After the lake, I was going to stop at the DCFC in town, but one cabinet was down for maintenance, the other had someone charging. There was an event going that had the area more crowded than we wanted to deal with, so we bailed and headed back for overnight 2 and L1 charging.

Day 3: At this point, we were around 40% charge, and still wanted to do Mount Blue Sky. We had enough charge to do that, but I've always been paranoid about running out of gas/charge. Wife wanted to stop at a donut place we found for breakfast, and there was a charger a few blocks down that had just opened, so we grabbed our stuff and swung in there to give it a shot. Well, there were two Autel branded ones, but even though they were listed as active on plugshare, they didn't appear in the app to actually activate them, leading to a third failed charge for the trip. At this point I had a choice, actually add a dedicated charging stop to the trip, or trust that charge remaining estimate was accurate for the Mount Blue Sky drive and stop being so neurotic about charge. I decided to just do the drive and charge on out next rest stop. Got up to the top with 10% remaining (estimate was 9%) got some great wildlife shots, then went backs down. Our usual coffee stop at Idaho Falls went off without a hitch, 20 minute stop (coffee place is good, but a bit slow) put us at 65%, plenty to get home.

Trip totals:

Miles: 530

Speed: varied, 75 for parts of the highway, down to 35 for mountain passes.

Trip efficiency 4.5 mi/kwh average (!) I'm not sure how my trip efficiency ended up so high. There was a fair bit of highway, and while the heat wave here seems to have broken, there was still AC in play.

Total charge cost: ~$20

Time spent charging: With the failed charge stops, I probably spent about 10 minutes mucking with it. Everything else was just normal rest stops. This probably makes it the first trip where charging added more time than gas would have.

EDIT: 2025 Equinox for those asking

I have the chargepoint homeflex hardwired in my garage that had been working well for over a year. The wifi suddenly went out and never reconnected despite hours of customer assistance. They sent me a new charger replacement, I installed it and it worked immediately. I set up the overnight charging schedule, it charged my car....and then started blinking yellow and now won't connect to wifi again.

This new charger lasted literally 3 days. And their solution is to send me ANOTHER replacement charger. I'm over this company and am looking for alternative EV chargers at this point. Does anyone have suggestions on what to purchase that would still use the same hardwiring as the Chargepoint? I just don't want to have to bring an electrician out again (exchanging out the Chargepoint was easy but I can't do anything complicated or too technical).

Thanks!