W
hereas most automakers’ EVs are
part of a larger powertrain port-
folio, Tesla only makes electrics.
That concentration pushed its engineers
into understanding that EVs need to be
thought of as a system, not merely as just
another car in the lineup.
With the charging infrastructure still in its
nascent stages, allow me to tell you about
the “systems” out there and what you
might experience.
The smart way to charge is during the
day at work, when renewables are often
being wasted, said our charging and infra-
structure expert Alec Brooks. He noted that
in one recent lunchtime hour, 74,000 EVs
could have been charged from California’s
available but idled solar production.
But not everyone has that luxury. Some
people need to get around. And I wanted
to see where things stand for fast chargingon the go. So we mapped our drive loop to
sample a series of fast charging stations
clustered in Los Angeles’ South Bay area.
Will this loop prove applicable to your life?
Perhaps. Maybe not. But it highlights some
of the infrastructure flaws that still exist.
First stop was a lone 50-kW ChargePoint
station in the parking lot of a Torrance
public pool. It was dead. My bad: I should
have checked my PlugShare app, which
had this station flagged for months. But
what would you do while it’s charging?
Swim, I guess. There were eight other single
chargers in a 5-mile radius (including
another nonoperational one). But the
comments left by their prior users read
like the forum of the Yugo owner’s club. If I
were a first-time EV buyer, I would not be
encouraged.
Next stop was a concrete grotto of EVgo
chargers on a lower level of a Del Amo
Fashion Center parking structure. Or so I
thought. You slowly drive to its exact GPS
spot—but nothing there. Duh, it’s still one
more level directly below me. Circling downanother ramp finds 19 (gratis) Level 2 plugs
for shoppers, two 50-kW CHAdeMO plugs,
and one 50-kW CCS. A Kia Soul EV was
cabled to one CCS, and we couldn’t get the
remaining 50-kW unit to work. Strike two.
A quarter mile south is the new kid in
town, a nest of Electrify America fast
chargers in the mall’s parking lot. This is
the fast-expanding network infamously
funded by Volkswagen’s $2 billion punish-
ment for its dieselgate misdeeds. It’s sort
of a mini Supercharger station with five
150-kW CCSs and a 50-kW CHAdeMO.
When I stopped to check it out a few days
earlier, a couple in a Dodge Challenger
pulled into one of the charger stalls, got
out, and arm-in-arm headed toward Vegas
Seafood Buffet. The woman looked back
and asked, “Isn’t that for the electric cars?”
The guy dismissed her: “It doesn’t matter.”
He beeped its doors locked.The Electric Gas Station:
Sampling the infrastructure
How did the EV industry ever allow three
types of plugs to exist? Best is the thin-
cable, slim-plug Tesla. The rarer CHAdeMO,
still used by Nissan, needs to go.Kia Niro Nissan LeafTesla Model 3Electrify America’s CHAdeMO cable was too short to plug
in the Leaf without parking at an angle. What the heck?EVgo’s app (above) works
well and offers cheaper
charging than Electrify
America’s chargers.SIDEBAR I Anecdotal recharging