Blocked access scuttled our hopes to use
EVgo’s Level 3 charger. Having multiple
units at a location (à la Electrify America)
improves your odds of finding one open.Electrify America’s app lets you activate
a charger with a few taps, a touch of your
phone, or—sometimes—a credit card. Teslas
can use CHAdeMO plus via an adapter.While Alec and I set about charging
the Niro at a CCS, Alan was struggling
to maneuver the Leaf next to the CHAd.
After multiple false starts using my credit
card, my bank called to ask about strange,
repeated activity. “It’s, it’s ... OK,” I defused
them. Finally, the charger worked. But
despite multiple repositionings, the
CHAdeMO’s cable couldn’t reach the
receptacle at the Nissan’s nose. Astound-
ingly, Electrify America goofed on the cable
length needed by the car that will be its
prime client. Alec also noted how thick
and awkward these cables are to wrangle
compared to Tesla’s. We finally nosed the
Leaf in at an awkward angle.
Later, I stopped to fully fill the Niro at
a 350-kW station, arriving with about 40
percent of charge and leaving with a $38
bill (about a dollar per kW-hr, roughly four
times our home charging cost). Huh? They
billed per minute of charging (even though
the rate slows dramatically near full), and
adding to the complexity, there were four
different price tiers ranging from $0.25
to $0.99 per minute, depending on your
charging rate. As of Januar y 1, California
has banned this for new units starting
in 2023, requiring stations to charge per
kW-hr dispensed (just like gasoline).
Ironically, this applies to Superchargers,
which may now have to add silly redundant
displays outside of the car.
As for recharging the Tesla, as Auto-
pilot sliced our Model 3 through the gentle
curves heading north through Redondo
Beach, I tapped the Supercharger icon on
the Model 3’s screen. Three destinations
appeared, with graphics showing how
many chargers were at each and how
many of those were currently available.
Picking one, Autopilot routed me to it, and
as I neared, I began to hear the battery
being automatically preconditioned to
quicken the charging when I got there.
Charging at these is seamless and
simple—just plug in. The system recognizes
your car and automatically bills your credit
card while the cost and kW-hr are calcu-
lated on the car’s screen. Bored? There
are games to play on the car’s big central
screen (including a driving sim that lets you
use the car’s steering wheel and pedals).
Recently, Netflix has been added as a
streaming option. The only problem is that
when we got there, a long line had already
formed. Notice a trend starting?
Later, Alan and I returned to the mall’s
Electrify America station to record some
real-world numbers that don’t require an
electrical engineering degree to compre-
hend: How long does it take to add 100 and
150 miles of range to the Niro and Leaf at
their respective chargers (each starting at
need-to-charge-now 20 miles to empty)?
We wanted to cut through the mathe-
matical noise of the Niro’s charger being
150 kW but the car only accepting 77, the
Leaf’s charger (at this location) being 50
kW and the car maxing at 100. We plugged
them in and started writing numbers. The
Niro added 100 miles after 25 minutes; the
Leaf needed five minutes longer. Getting
to 150 miles took the Kia 32 minutes, the
Nissan 45. A separate measure at a Tesla
V2 Supercharger (there are slower 72-kW
chargers, too, that don’t share power
between adjacent cars) saw 11 and 21
minutes to 100 and 150 miles.
As we were doing this, a diminutive
young guy in a Toyota Prius Prime pulled
into the Electrify lot, eventually activated
one of the chargers, and started to wrestle
the cable to the car’s port. Huh? That car
doesn’t accept fast charging; it won’t even
accept that plug. But he kept stabbing the
plug at the Prius, pausing, and then looking
around for help.
From a distance, I started to half wave,
mouthing, “That isn’t going to work.”
But I paused. Suddenly I was David
Attenborough observing a leopard stalk
an impala. Don’t interfere with nature. Just
watch it play out. Outside of the curated
world of Tesla, nature still isn’t a simple—or
pretty—sight.
But as you can see from our Hyunai Kona
EV test we conducted only a couple months
later (see page 54), the charging network is
evolving and improving rapidly. KRAPRIL 2020 MOTORTREND.COM 51