Exactly this. We need it to be as simple as gas not to mention the 150kw supercharger etiquette with every other changer vs V3 250kw. Then all the different ones with electrify America and on and on. It needs to be simple and just work for everyone without knowing charging speeds, adapter differences, etc

This is nothing new with technology. Remember when flip then smart phones were taking off? Each had an individual charger specific to the brand. As time went on we normalized chargers. The transition and time it takes to get sorted out sucks, but it does get figured out.

Because every gas pump is the same... oh... wait

If it gets to be as simple as Gas or Diesel, Lightning or USBC etc, then most people will be able to understand and either use adapters or easily find one of the two that work for their system, but until then we’re in the middle of the proprietary wars. Hopefully we can learn from the early smartphone cable debacle

I agree. I think HD, 4k, etc are a good analogy. I think people roughly understand that if they have a 4k TV they can watch 4k content without have a larger standards discussion. If we could simplify to DC fast, DC fast+, DC ultra fast (or whatever), then we could much more simply understand, e.g. my Bolt is DC fast, so I don't need the DC ultra fast charger.

Tesla's superchargers are even simpler than gas pumps, but yeah, I do agree that for majority adoption it needs to be so simple that it's almost impossible to do it wrong, I think. There's no way around diverse charging speeds since there's good economical and practical reasons to have different ones. But making a simple standard of colors and symbols to indicate the speeds would be a good start. Before we get a standardized plug, I think there should be clear signs telling the connector type and common things to do. The payment is the biggest issue though - it should all be standard credit cards or automatic payment from car communication.

Could you imagine if at every gas petrol station there were different sized “proprietary” nozzles for you to fill up. People would need adaptors. It would literally stop many people from buying cars. Which is definitely hurting the electric car right now. Having to set up accounts to pay for parking while charging and paying for charging with everyone having a different app. It’s crazy. Got to be a simpler way. We’ll get there eventually.

Tesla is slowly allowing their stations to be used by Non-Tesla's. The stations have an adapter on the cable already, but if you are able to use an adapter on any type from any station, that would be a game changer. THey also have to do something with the stations that are broken and putting on the apps they are.

THANK YOU! It warms my heart and soothes my soul to hear someone younger than me admit this. I consider myself a highly Tech proficient 65 yr old, and I have given up trying to plan on charging anywhere else but home. After owning a plug-in hybrid for about a year, I drive it in HEV most of the time. As much as I love driving in electric, I can’t recommend anyone get an all electric car for now or the near future. There are so many ways that I would have to change my life to accommodate the car and when you get to a certain age you realize that every minute is precious and I do not have the time or energy accommodate shabby engineering. I honestly feel like ev charging companies are just taking tax dollars and making back room deals to get stations up but don’t care at all if they actually work and rarely maintain them. Politicians talk all day about spending money on infrastructure but unless you enforce a basic standard it will never be mainstream. And I am just not into enriching the richest guy in the world to inflate his already voluminous ego.

Good take!

Two things need to happen for sure… Better charging infrastructure and maintenance, and lower cost. Cuz like….. if I am able get a hybrid someday, I don’t want that hybrid nature to be ignored for its entire lifetime usage. I’d want one of those, because the gas powered part would help during the winter, while the electric powered part would help during summer. Even with how much more green electric cars are, those parts just end up becoming useless in terms of gas powered cars…. Because the infrastructure is bad. So we either improve everything to do with electric/hybrid cars…. Or make useful and reliable biofuel cars, so the use of normal fuel doesn’t build up and Impact the environment when everyone can afford a car again.

That the truth that all the eco warriors seem to ignore... Full EV 's are not practical for mass usage just yet. It's all marketing scam at this point.

Owning a tesla is like driving a cell phone. Owning & driving a car shouldn't be so complicated. All that tech is too complicated for simply driving a car & using basic features.

​@MARVIN 48☆ Its very much not complicated

I enjoy your videos. You are calm, not doing bunch of jump-cuts and "what's up guyzzz!!!!" stuff. Very informative and easy to watch -- good job.

Hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...not the "what's up guyzzz!!!!"...thank you, that's annoying AF when most youtubers say it... MKHB does say it most times, but calmly

I couldn't put my finger on what I liked about these videos, and I think you nailed it. WHAT'S UP GUYZZZ IT'S YO BOY HILLBILLY HERE COMIN AT YA WITH A BOOMER THAT CAN'T WORK HER CHARGER, AFTER THIS WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR!!

I am a usually carfree musician who occasionally rents a car for a gig that's a little further out. One day I showed up to Avis and they said they only had an electric car with a partial charge available, and not knowing how to find charging, I went elsewhere, but did some research that night. The next time it happened, I accepted the EV, only to find that several of the charging stations on the apps I found were either not working, decommissioned (without being updated in the app), or in lots/garages that are not accessible 24/7. I also remember having some kind of issue getting a Chargepoint account set up, as well as the machine not reading my Tap to Pay. Overall a frustrating experience, although I think by now I have it figured out enough for next time. Like you, I am willing to go the extra mile to figure these things out, and I am excited about EVs for sustainability reasons (though I do prefer simply being carfree in a walkable city!). But for regular people who are used to the seamless experience of pumping gas, I could see it being a huge turnoff. With that being said, I'm sure early consumer experiences with gas stations were a mess too!

Best statement I heard before buying my EV is, “EV’s are for homeowners” Don’t buy one if you can’t charge it at home!

i’ve had the same experience with non-tesla chargers and like 70% of the time it’s such a convoluted process. they gotta fix the charging infrastructure asap!!

Who? Who has to change the charging infrastructure? That’s the problem.

@Mattia Monticelli regulation, make plug n play (or something close to it) mandatory and roaming between providers mandatory at a fair price. the industry will then figure out the best solution.

@Mattia Monticelli governments have standardized tons of things. building codes so everyones doesn't use random fucking parts for homes, internet standard protocols, etc. it's a matter of time like everything else when the problems arise that standardization will be pushed by government bodies.

@T K We´re talking about global standards, concerning a multi-billion-international-industry. It took 50 years to apply standards to electrical systems worldwide, and that was back in the days when things developed much, much less rapid. Forget about governments setting standards which also would take away the possibillity of development and technological advance in the field of charging, as it would cement a certain...well...standard and keep it from changing. The only possible transition from petrol to electric cars is a disruptive one, locking out a big part of our population from individual mobility. Unfortunatelly this probably is what to do, considering global warming and it´s devastating effects on people all around the globe.

I work on planning for the transmission grid, and you should really do an interview with somebody who works on these issues in your area. They're a lot thornier than most consumers, even enthusiast consumers, believe.

P

Sure, engineering is hard. Building computers and operating systems is way complicated too. But his whole point in this video is that the customer shouldn't need to care about that. Fortunately there is good news happening "as we speak". Check his video on the first experience with Tesla chargers being opened up to non-Tesla vehicles. There are some people who know how to make this work.

@Paul Mielke Also Biden is ramping up charging infrastructure, hoping to ease the charging problems.

if only you knew if only you knew

There is a book called, "The Design of Everyday Things." It essentially points out that many engineers don't design things with the end user in mind and of those that do, they don't know how. What usually determines how quickly a new technology becomes mainstream is how quickly those who know how to figure how to use it *_AND_* how to explain it simply to others start adopting the tech and providing feedback to the creator of said tech.

100% agreed. Add to that that every fuel station has a roof, is brightly lit... at least here in Germany, most of the public charging ports are in the middle of nowhere, no roof, no lights, no snacks, not even a litter bin. You're usually quite a bit away from anything else, fully exposed to the elements...

Thats because in Germany your in the middle of nowhere just driving from place to place. At least anyplace I have been there.

Same here in the states. They’re all in the back of giant parking lots

@Chris H average American generalizing a whole country based on his experience

@BananaJuice Are you saying that driving from city to city you don't drive in the middle of nowhere? THank you for the geography lesson.

That's exactly how I feel when I need to charge my Zero at a charge point.

I’ve been driving for 40 years now. One thing I love to do is pay attention to everyone else's experiences good and bad. This has always pointed me in the right direction when it comes to purchasing anything. When it comes to cars there are certain brands that keep coming out on top and others that are consistently in the shop. EV’s in its current state have a lot of issues to sort out. This is a great video pointing out a problem I have heard about among many others. I think in 10 years things will be better but as of today I would not invest in pure EV just yet. I would go with a Hybrid, or a Prime until the EV camp stabilizes itself. However, if you are the early adaptor type and have a lot of time and patience, please absorb all those pains so that the rest of us can have a better experience in the future.

Yeah. I would not hold your breath. Did you know that in 1900 over one third of cars were electric? 90% of NYC taxis were electric and electric cars outsold all other types of cars. There are a lot of very good reasons why the combustion engine became the dominant system. The problems back then were the same problems we experience now: slow evolution and limitations of technology, infrastructure, convenience, basic physics, etc. I really love the idea of electric cars, but in almost 200 years we have not solved any of the limitations that plague electric cars.

What do you think are the best hybrids/prime cars in the market so far

@Berner Veliz Toyota started the Prime in 2016 with the Prius. The Prime is now available on the Rav4. So far they have been very reliable.

@Ricardo Rodriguez nothing to overthink… Tesla! Easy!!

I completely agree with you Marques. We recently bought an EV for work and I have to admit, I've found the charging thing to quite confusing. I like to thing I'm across "technology", but the last few weeks has seen a LOT of catching up on this industry on my behalf.

I live and work in Japan and the first thing I notice when I visit Canada or the US is how things that are broken don't get fixed right away. So many things are "out of order" and there is a lack of pride in making sure things are working properly. Wow, since Yahoo featured this video, I am getting loads of messages!

only difference is japan is 50x smaller than america with fraction of population and almost no cultural identities.

@Throw Away multiple differences. In US you have a govt that's fighting with each other half of the time, the country split in half and there's so much problems. But in Asian countries, we do what is necessary for the ppl

@Throw Away lol. USA has No Pride in their environment in the cities except for their love for the concept of the American freedom. Everything is different, the size is just one reason out of probably 50000 things that make japan have more pride in making things work well

Nobody uses all the chargers all the time and its not profitable. They will fix it when none of them are working.

@Václav Pisk if americans were more careful with things and had respect for items being put to use by the general public like they do in other countries they wouldn’t break in the first place. In japan or any other good country, the guy on the opposite side wouldn’t even have used her charger because it wouldn’t be designated for that car bay.

OMG spot on with the explaining to older people. suffice it to say I have a lot of experience trying to explain things to older consumers, including ev charging, and the entire process needs to be massively simplified. also, until that can happen, there needs to be some kind of accountability with dealerships too... the amount of people who undoubtedly have bought evs only to have to return them due to lack of public charging infrastructure... I'm sure it's crazy :\

I agree it's far too complicated and requires too much planning ahead for most people. If you have somewhere to charge at home, and you charge up every two or three days depending on how much you drive its simple enough, but as soon as you go on a road trip it gets too unpredictable. You should be able to swipe your credit card, plug in and go. You should not need an account with every network. The charging is also too unreliable. Too often chargers are offline, or randomly disconnect while charging.   I looked seriously at a model 3 three years ago and decided against it. I have been monitoring cars that come out and I am genuinely excited about some of them but the charging networks are still a mess three years later. I dont think it has improved at all in three years. Until it does I am really not interested.

There also doesn't seem to be much focus on the total cost of charging either. Would be good to see regular updates on your charging experience and the associated costs.

Thank you for speaking on this! This forever proves my point and goal to educate people, especially people who are unfamiliar with EVs as we make the transition to electric. It’s no fun if the user experience to charge their car is frustrating.

One of the best videos from this channel. This is real stuff. I am an Ioniq 6 owner and I'm slowly figuring out the local chargers just work around 50% of the time. Sometimes charging handles are cracked, tiny things like switches are broken or loose. Sometimes the chargers are out of sufficient juice or are in conservation mode. Yeah we definitely need routine maintenance for public chargers that's for sure.

This is 100% right. Imagine if each manufacturer needed a different gas nozzle.

I mean Tesla is the only one with a different plug in the US. So it’s like gas vs diesel and people manage that pretty well.

Lightning vs MicroUSB vs MiniUSB vs Type-C 5w vs Type-C 10w vs Type-C 20w vs Type-C 30w vs Type-C 45w vs Type-C 60W vs VooQ

bot

@kyoko703 Exactly, Tesla is a "tech company" and its products have similar problems to something like a laptop.

But tech types have been praying to Phoney Stark for the last decade. And let's just ignore that some of these chargers sell electricity at insane rates close to a tank of gas.

I had a similar experience today. A person had rented at Tesla and pulled up to a Level 3 Electrified America charger and he was completely lost. Unfortunately the car didn’t have any adapters. There is an educational part portion that comes with EVs and dealerships and rental services are doing a disservice to the industry by not giving a tutorial on charging etiquette, how-to, common issues.

We have been debating whether or not to get an electric car and we appreciate this frank video very much. I think we're still going to go for it, but it's helpful to go through with it with our eyes open about the potential frustrations we're going to face.

I think these are all valid points. Of course the charging infrastructure needs to get better and of course the maintenance of these charging stations need to be better. I have rented a couple of EVs while traveling and all I can say is that it was easy peezy for me. Yes, a couple of ports didn't work but other than that, I don't see much of a difference (I have pulled up to gas pumps with the little yellow cover on them). The big thing that people need to realize is that despite all of the marketing from companies, we are still in the Early Adopter phase of this new technology. I think we are still a good 5 years away from the Early Majority phase were more of the masses will adopt. I think the infrastructure will be much better and more reliable by then. Plus, most of the people I know with EVs do at least 95% of their charging at home. If you are worried about road trips, maybe EVs aren't for you right now since it is still the early adopter stage.

I am glad you posted this video, I watch so many car videos being a gear head and from my research I refuse to by an electric car until the charging infrastructure is solid. I just purchased a new car 3 weeks ago and I never considered electric because I don't want to deal with the charging issues.

Nailed it! Exactly the reason I have not pulled the plug on EVs! I just don’t have time to deal with this kind of issues. I’ll let you early adopters deal with these issues and jump in when y’all figure them out for us.

MKBHD has really grown into a remarkable well balanced voice for the masses.

Tesla not converting to the industry standard is and will continue to be an even greater problem. Yes there was reason originally, but to not convert over now is simply stubbornness.

@Brett Sherman CCS1 is awkward and flawed.

I still remembered when he kept saying the retro nintendo console Virtual Boy was augmented reality, and couldn’t pronounce Nvidia right.

@Brett Sherman They changed to the standard in Europe (the standard that got designed by german manufacturers after Teslas standard). But the real problem is something else. Don’t blame the only company that is doing something. Blame the ones that do nothing. All the other manufacturers put close to zero dollar in the charging infrastructure. VW was forced to build Electrify America and the rest is payed by the tax payer. Only Tesla is using their own money to make E-Mobility work. But yet people sh*t on them without thinking for a second.

@Zedus 1982 The Tesla charger is superior, but unfortunately they didn’t open it up to other manufacturers so it forced the development of CCS. An inferior universal standard always beats a superior proprietary one.

I agree 1000%. I’ve had an EV for 4 years and have dealt with down chargers with dangerously low batteries. I’ve had full stations. I’ve had tons of issues. Things are getting better tho.

I think this is why PHEV is still the sweet spot with the current infrastructure. I'd love to go full EV, but these types of issues (and tbf they're probably the exception to the rule) still push me towards a plug in hybrid for now. Will be looking hard at the 2023 Prius Prime!

Psh I'd love to NOT go full EV. I'd love PHEV because most options would allow me to go to work and back on electric only and use gas for further...but, word is they are trying to eliminate PHEV completely and push EV only. Forget all that. I'll just keep driving my little Jetta that gets 30-45 mpg and be totally fine buying gas.

@Mike Stanek In California and I think Virginia now, 2035 there will be no more gas stations all electric per current regulations and guidelines.

Jeep Wrangler 4xe!!!

I agree. That is why my wife and I will never get rid of our RAV4 Prime.....best of both worlds. Just wish they made them with a fast charging capabilities. The size of battery that comes on the car (18.7kW) would take all of 5 to 10 mins. to charge.

Charging stations for electric cars is just as important as gas stations are to gas cars. One of the biggest hurtles I have when looking at electric cars is the charging infrastructure needed to keep those cars on the road. Now I know that charging will grow and get better with time. But at the moment, it's not yet convenient as it is to go to a gas station. When it is, the switch to electric will be much easier and convenient for fence sitters like myself.

I think it is clear that governments, industry, and regulators need to get together to make some industry standards around electric vehicles and charging. They need to standardize things like the cables, so no one needs adapters and set a build quality standard for the chargers. Even things like what part of the car the charging port is on should be standardized.

I really enjoyed this video! I don't own an electric car or even have a car, but what mkbhd talked about is really an important issue that needs to be addressed by electric car manufacturers! Electric car charging should be simplified and made as simple as just going to the fuel station and feeling up your car with fuel and also put an end to the finicky jerky and Jimmy it adaptors! I believe all electric cars should have the same charging nozzles just like all Android phones! And I think it's even better if a government policy is put in place to make this happen even faster! This is serious guys! Pls!

This is spot on. Most of my family members would have one issue with charging electric car and never do it again until there were zero gas cars.

No issues with Tesla charging here

Waiting for regulated chargers similar to the type c standard

This is my dad, 10000%.

@John Liu Tesla is easier as long as you're using Superchargers. It's confusing beyond that for many.

There will always gas cars electric catching fire can't put taking 8000 gallons to put out then catching fire later again in the tow yards.

I plan on moving to a larger city soon and the thought crossed my mind of eventually having an EV. However, I decided it would really depend on the infrastructure at that time. As the infrastructure stands, I can't see myself getting one. I'm in Canada where towns are farther apart. I wish it would make sense for me, but it just doesn't at the moment.

For the Tesla, it seems to me like this kind of problem is easily mitigated by always charging at home. When you get home for any reason, plug it in. Even my old Chevy Volt can do that. But I totally agree that the different charging stations/companies/adapters have made a mess here. My hope is that, like most things, this will be resolved by the market in the coming years.

Spot on, the charging experience needs so much more work. Often difficult to get public charge, the number of chargers has grown but it in no way has kept up with the growth of EV's in the UK

I'm interested in an EV and learning about how they work, and what's available. The lack of charging stations and information about charging is one thing that deters me right now. I don't want a hassle in a car. Thank you for this insight! I also love how the most replay part of the video is of the huge bird!

I've been an EV owner now for just under a year and I really have to agree with you MB! I'm so glad that my 2022 Ford F-150 Lariat ER came with a charging dispenser so figuring that out wasn't an issue. Also, when I bought my truck and lived in Central in NJ, there was a large Electrify America location not too far from my house so that I could take advantage of an occasional free charge from EA as well as the initial free charging on the Blue Oval network. Seriously, that lady's son needs to be admonished for stressing his mom out like that and not making sure she knew where to go and what to do for charging!

Having to bend the cable in the perfect way so that your car chargers just like I had to do with my old phone charger is just hilarious.

Lol that’s I was thinking

Same here, I got really frustrated and bought a new cable

Never in all of my life have I heard of that happening to a petrol pump.

"Assume the Fox viewing position."

I’m a new EV owner and I’ve had multiple problems with the charging infrastructure and basically I’ve decided that as long as you’re in the range radius of the car you’re good. Outside of that range and the you will start having issues. All of the charging companies have basically seized upon that free government money and have left most of their charging stations in disrepair.

Thank you early adopters for your research and testing. Please let the rest of us know when electric cars are actually ready for purchase

The combination of this and lower range makes it tough to make the swap from gas to EV. If I’m going to need to recharge regularly for anything more than basic daily driving then I need the confidence in easily found working chargers, just like I know I can find a gas station. This becomes even more important for people living outside major cities and in more rural/small town areas. The EV industry needs to invest in this if they seriously want the general public to adopt their cars.

Yeah as an EV owner, I agree. Things will get better. Early adoption is tough. I'm fortunate that I charge in my garage but eventually have to use a public charger and this would be very frustrating.

I totally agree with what he says in this video. The public charging experience is slowly getting better. EVgo has introduced a payment system option that works just like Tesla chargers. You just plug the car in and it starts charging and will automatically charge the credit card linked to that car. No app needed. There is still a lot of work to do on public chargers to make them easy to use and more robust so they don't break down so often.

I love it that you and Stradman are bringing attention to this issue at the same time. That's definitely the next big obstacle for EVs to get to mass adoption.

The entire country of Canada has around 150 Tesla superchargers. If you don’t own a house with a charger at home, you probably don’t own a tesla because the logistics are ridiculous.

Ever heard of Out of Spec Reviews? Stradman just jumped on the bandwagon.

@Kyle Hubb no i have not

they have been the biggest problem with electric the whole time though

Absolutely agree with this. I'm tech savvy and should be fine with an EV. But due to the terrible infrastructure issue, it's the main reason why I opted for a new Hybrid over an EV. I like to go on road trips, but I do not want to deal with the hunt for charging station, seeing if the station is functioning, and wait for the car to fill up.

And why does not anyone talk about the RANGE !!! Only a what - couple hundred miles, and you have to find a working charger and stop to charge.... What about that???? So, you have Primitive at best, Charging, Charging Stations, the most abymissmal Range for Batteries, an awful long time, to do the Charging, IF you can find one that works, and works on YOUR EV..... If you ever have to take a few thousand mile drive - one way - and then repeat, the - other way - will this not take many more DAYS to do it ??? Heck yes it will!!!! So your 1 week vacation is really perhaps a 2 week vacation, counting all the stops, charging, waiting for charging, finding charging... I would hate that... No, sorry, the greedy, money grabbers are only pushing out more EV's because they are the popular thing today and that is it... They care not a whit about the "infrastructure", and hope they never see you again... No thanks... :)

​@Fran Dancobecause most people don't travel like that. And when you occasionally want too just rent a regular car. This ain't rocket science. You're like those dudes driving pick up trucks who use the truck bed maybe twice a year 😆

Standardization is really important. Tesla's standard just makes sense for so many reasons, and hopefully other EV manufacturers will adopt it, and offer to retrofit those that have CCS chargers. No charging stations perform better than Tesla Superchargers.

Nailed it. I currently have an i3 and X5-40e. Finding a reliable charger that I have an account for can be a challenge. I currently have about 5 different charging station accounts. Problems I see are:: broken chargers. Insufficient number of chargers and far too many different companies that simply do not accept credit cards for payment. We love our i3 and use it as often as possible. For long trip however, we use the X5 and plug it in when we can. Until the industry addresses charger availability/reliability I will probably stick with one hybrid plug-in to avoid range/charging anxiety. Great video!

You're spot on! and this is why I think that the "green car" turn around they promessed by 2035 or something is gonna fail! Cars are great but everything to support them is way behind and gonna take collosal amount of investments and effort to bring it to a user friendly status... For my part, it's gonna take a long time before I buy an electric car... for the same reasons.. Very good video!

In general, my experiences have been very good only using the Tesla net work. You are right, some of the free charging stations have given me problems, and you basically have to just give up. Even though my experiences with Tesla charging have been nearly flawless, they haven’t been completely flawless. The few times that I have had issues, it’s not clear if you should continue to try to make the charging station work or if you should just move on. No one wants to have to try to connect with support to figure out what the issue might be there should be more transparency around, any issues that arise. Tesla cars are probably smart enough to report any problems back to the mothership but who knows if that’s really the case. Yes, charging networks are going to use us to report problems, then they should offer a finders fee if you report an issue or if your car reports a charging error. They really should let you know when you pull in not to use a certain station or if someone has disconnected early recently. I love the Tesla’s now remind you not to park next to someone if at all possible but there can be a lot of improvement, such as guiding you to a specific stall, if they know someone is almost done, charging or, if your session fails, and you obviously need more charge, you should get priority to move to another stall that is going to become vacant. Basically, when you arrive, your car should let you know exactly where to park and what to do if there is a problem.

I'm one of those rare EV owners that has zero ability to charge at home. I rely 100 percent on public chargers. This video is really important and I agree 100 percent.

Why get electric car if you can’t charge? No gas station on your island you live on? Sht

@Alexander Babin I just fell in love with the way it drives 😂

This, but the other way around. For me, I always charge at home and have a bigger car for road trips so I am much less impacted than many others, but even for me, I agree that this is an important and not much discussed issue.

I don't think your situation is that rare.

@jimv1983 Yeah, for example company cars as a benefit but no option to fit a charging station at home, i.e. due to your landlord or because it doesn't pay off to install one for that purpose.

I agree with your comments and suggestions. This is new technology and needs infrastructure. Like 100 years ago, it was not like there was a gas stations every mile. So this is a start and yes it will happen. In fact recently Tesla has agreed to open their network to other EV cards. This is called evolution. The Inflation Reduction Act has huge amounts of money assigned to charging infrastructure.

The other side of that, which they don't tell you, is that the outside temperature also effects your charging capabilities as well as your battery life. Living someplace that has freezing temps in the winter with typically cut your "run time" by more than half. Also, a lot of chargers out there don't work right in the cold. Extreme heat is also bad for charging, & reduces "run time."

This is 100% accurate. As an EV evangelist to my friends and family (and Telsa model 3 owner), I've been making this argument/point for a year now. I have lots of people ask me my opinion on these other various non-Telsa EVs and I always have to explain to them that, while the car may be very good, I just can't recommend any of them to non-techie owners IF they plan on using that vehicle for road trips or if they can't charge at home. Since the public charging infrastructure is not yet a viable (profitable) business model, there's very little incentive for those companies to maintain their charging stations and, because of that, as much as half of them can be offline at any time. And since they aren't integrated in real time to other EVs, you have no way of knowing if they work or not until you get there, plug in, and it fails. This may be changing as Tesla opens up in nearly rock solid Supercharger network to other EVs, but with the cable length issue, that remains to be seen. I really hope that there's some sort of uptime/maintenance SLA attached to the federal funding that is about to be deployed for the national charger buildout here. I'd hate to see companies get money to deploy a huge network and then have them broken and offline half the time a year down the road.

Even if you have a Tesla with all the superchargers owning an EV still sucks if you can't charge at home. Superchargers are painfully slow compared to getting gas. Superchargers are almost never in a convenient and fast to get in and out of locations like gas stations. They most often seem to be in the far back corner of busy shopping centers. Range on EVs is far lower than gas cars so you have to stop to charge more often. If I were to switch from my hybrid to a Model 3 I'd go from making a 10 minute detour to get gas every 7 days to making a 40 minute detour every other day. No thanks. Superchargers are also very expensive to use. I live in California. With California gas prices it costs me about $0.14/miles for fuel. A Model 3 using a supercharger in California costs about $0.16/mile.

Thank you for posting this. My very first charging experience was with a Mercedes loaner vehicle. They didn’t have the cable available for me to just charge it at home and by the time I got home I saw that I was going to need to charge so I went to several charging stations in my area All of which were broken. Having range anxiety with my first encounter of using a fully electric vehicle was not great. I’m 100% with you on your point of the charging infrastructure needs to be fixed to keep up with the amount of electric cars that are currently being sold.

Completely agree, the charging experience is as important as the car itself. This is the biggest downside to EV ownership. I live in NJ with plenty of chargers around. But when I take longer trips, I need to plan VERY carefully about where my charging stops are along the way. I've run into multiple situations where chargers were broken or just not working. To make matters worse, most manufacturers offer free charging for x amount of time (which sounds like a good thing). Volkswagen, for example, offers 3 years free at Electrify America stations. The result is a lot of drivers who live close to Electrify America stations use the free service instead of charging at home, resulting in longer lines for the chargers that work. It needs to be much more simple and much more available.

This should've been for the main channel. The infrastructure around charging stations is something that really needs to be discussed in depth.

I agree, EV makers are glad to take your money for their vehicles, and let the consumer deal with the charging grid issues. But would love an in—depth video about the issues with the existing USA power grid problems.

@shawnpodraza do they not also do that with gas stations? when’s the last time you saw a gas station operated and owned by Ford?

​@Jimmy Two Times did you just really really want to type something but couldn't think of anything good lol

@Karim Temple rather than trying to be witty, how about you offer a counterpoint?

@Jimmy Two Times you asked a question, so I guess the "counterpoint" would be the answer. The answer is no, they do not also do that with gas stations. Gas pump interfaces are standardized and open. Having to recite basic facts is sad and tiresome, so please in the future be kind to others by saying interesting things.

Thinking of gas stations and the different experiences you get, around 100 years after they became common, I reckon we have a long way to go. Why governments did not push for charging standards sooner is beyond me.

What I would love to see in the near future is a Tesla/EA, Chargepoint etc. charging station that looks like a gas station and they have about a dozen stations and you plug in and you get 30 mins. Also, I think they need to design the parking spaces for all versions of cars (Rivian's in the front, Lightenings in the front side, teslas's in the rear etc). I had to do parking gymnastics a few weeks ago at a EA rast charger at a Walmart. The car that was parked next to me had to park that way to get to the cable. Maybe there can be a standard that all charging ports be in the front or back on the left side and then the companies can design parking accordingly......off my soapbox!

Yeah, that would frustrate me, especially if you're in an area you're not familiar with and there's no one around to help you.. It would be great if these chargers were at a charger station where there's a convenience store and someone that's there to make sure each charger works and they can assist when the customer has an issue. Plus, they could have a restaurant so people could sit and eat for an hour.

Great clip about charging. While our MS were in and out from the body shop for almost a year after been rear ended we have purchased a Mach E. The charging infrastructure of EA and Charge Point and others, and the issues with charge port made me not to buy other car than a Tesla. I rather deal with the service experience and issues than use other EVs where OEM pushes the whole charging issue as someone else problem don't bother us....

Yet another reason I'm not ready for an electric car. I commend you on sharing your real world experiences. Glad I found this channel. I only knew of the other.

Imagine if the hose at a gas station sprung a leak. They would instantly fix it before it became an issue. With these chargers they just let them sit broken forever before anyone even attempts to fix it.

And bad electrical connection means a real fire hazard, even more on those high voltage chargers

Tho the hose is a simpler fix, this is a good point. Solution may be to have the charging stations manned instead of unmanned. Management by people that have an investment in the station. But are they getting enough clients for the cost to benefit ratio

@Platinum242 You mean robots not "manned" right? lol

@zazudeguru he’s a Democrat. They’d want them paid $40/hr, full benefits and a union so they could FO and never get fired. Oh, and then charging would be more expensive than gas. 🤣

Absolutely true, this is the case in the UK too. We have a growing number of cars but not enough working chargers or spots to charge, if not addressed quickly enough the entire thing could slow sales down in the next few years. Ideally have a fossil car for long range and electric for shorter journeys. The EV situation will improve as time goes by but realistically we are looking at another 5-10 years at least before things start improving.

Yes this is true, especially here in Australia where the charging infrastructure is in its infancy. But as time goes by things will get better, once investors realize they can make money from charging stations they will be everywhere. Thanks for bothering to make a video about this. Cheers.

So we know in Europe Apple is being forced to switch over to USB C. I think there should be something similar with electric cars. Have some sort of "open source" organization that determines certain specs and have laws that enforce EV makers to adhere to these standards. However, the EV makers should also be part of this organization so that they can help create new concepts and keep pushing the technology forward while maintaining a standard.

All the EV car companies should come together and come up with a single type of universal adapter for all the vehicles and improve the charging infrastructure grid to avoid this type of complications.

I own the MINI SE I bought it a year ago. I bought it even knowing that the infrastructure in Texas is horrible, and I charge on a level one at home every night. The infrastructure needs to and has to improve but one thing for sure is the lack of patience in general and consideration and even care we give in the US like one of your other peeps commented from Japan. I do see improvement from just one year and hope things will only get better as the gasoline companies I feel are only gauging the American consumer because of the lack of options.

Totally correct! The jump the American car brands are making to all electric seems to be far too early for how behind the charging experience is.

Subscribed. I will probably get an EV despite the challenges. Your channel helps me set realistic expectations. I am retired and love the excitement and convenience of cordless tech.

Some very good points! If the regulators would do something to increase the number of charging stations AND come up with charging standards, we wouldn't need such big batteries. A tank of gasoline weighs around 80 pounds, but the equivalent electric battery to provide the same range weighs around 1000 pounds. That's a lot of weight to haul around. If there were a network of charging stations everywhere, the batteries could be made a lot smaller and lighter. This would not only increase the mileage per kilowatt-hour, but it would also make electric cars much cheaper to manufacture as the battery is still a huge cost.

That’s something to think about. When contemplating taking a long trip in my 2017 Model S, it’s the reliability of the Tesla superchargers and the support on the road I have to think about.

In my opinion the biggest problem is how I can't easily change the battery, and how much it costs to have a repair shop to do it if 1 cell goes bad. I would like to try a lightning truck, but I've had an f-350 for years and have fixed many various things with it, spark plugs, shifter cable, and an electric cable that my dog decided he needed to chew through to get a squirrel, to name a few, but all those parts were cheap and just took time to do, I thought changing a cell would be easy when before looking it up, like remove the skirt, shield, coolant and electrical cable from the certain cell block, unbolt the block, and replace, but no, it's all a large platform and everything comes down at once.

The charging infrastructure is becoming a huge talking point by a lot of youtubers. I realized this after owning Tesla’s for years and then got a Bolt for daily commuting. I tried to roadtrip my Bolt less than 500kms and it was not enjoyable. I really can only suggest one brand to friends.

Yeah tesla or bust if you want to leave town

@Adam Tentis Myopic

@Adam Tentis or BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Porsche, Kia, Hyundai... This really depends on where you live

@XLoaferY , No. Until all those other brands can use all of Tesla’s charging stations or directly match it with their own Tesla is the only real option. Specially since Tesla’s can also use all other public charging options along with their own robust and convenient charging network. You cannot possibly fully understand this advantage if you’ve never owned a Tesla.

I rent Tesla's quite a bit with Turo, and I always map out my super charging network before renting. Because I know how unreliable the rest of the network is outside of Tesla, I have not yet tried any other EV. Hopefully one day we invest in this infrastructure enough to make ALL EV brands worth driving.

Well, after my first time commenting on one of your other videos, where you helped the guy in the other truck, YouTube is offering your videos to me now. 👍 Yes, I definitely subscribed. The problem in the cable that you showed was broken wires inside. One problem I am seeing in various parts of California is, people driving gas powered cars are parking in electric vehicle charging stations because they are closer to the store. Police are not doing anything about it. There are no signs posted for fines like you would see for Handicapped parking slots.

I have an EV for the past 5 years and have been dealing with similar experiences so I decided the next vehicle I am getting for now is PHEV because of the shotty current infrastructure right now. I am still keeping my current EV and still using it a lot in areas I know I can make it back home to charge at home but I have been noticing more and more that the EV stations are wearing down and having issues. This is not good for those who are stuck in a situation of low power and having to go to station to station looking for a working chargers that work.

Another thing that's overlooked with electric vehicles is their weight. Often times they are hundreds or thousands of pounds heavier than similarly sized cars. That adds up to a lot more wear on roads. Not to mention extra wear on tires and suspension components.

This is where Tesla really has a competitive advantage because at least you can trust the superchargers. Can’t say the same about other public chargers

It would honestly be so cool if you would do a "State of electric vehicle charging infrastructure" (working title) video once a year just to provide some historic context as to how the infrastructure is progressing over the year. The video probably wouldn't do that great, but I still think it would be cool.

I would watch that.

out of spec reviews has a video just out as he had a twitter pole going on peoples charging experience and this video is the results.

Good idea!

Zaydan Alfariz That's unfortunately true.

Thank you for bringing awareness to this kinds of issues. Tech should be easy to learn and do. There’s no need to make technology so hard.

Totally agree, my 79 year old mom loves her 2022 Model Y performance, but she would struggle at the chargers if I had not set up the account and we also have a Tesla Home Charger Installed with 33m/hr charge. She used to race autocross and its like she loves driving again, now i just have to worry about her getting speeding tickets...lol. Great subject!!!

This is exactly what I was staying after I rented a polestar. My wife loved the car but there aren’t enough chargers in the Phoenix area. Most of the time the chargers near us where being used or broken. The best use case for EVs are to have a charger at home and use it for short trips. It beats an ICE car every time. However, as Americans we love road trips and there is a huge limiting factor for EVs due to the limited charging availability. It will take decades but we will get there. We will have to standardize the charging ports and batteries. Making them easy to charge and swap if needed. For now if u don’t have a level 2 charger at home, owning an EV is very inconvenient

Had a few bad experiences with the infrastructure in specific geo areas, however as an early adopter this forms a part of the journey in my mind 👍🏾.

Glad to hear you try to use a non Tesla charger once in a while. These chargers need to be used occasionally and reported if they are not working properly. Tesla owners seem to have the most EV charging experience and can identify problems that need to be addressed by other charger providers.

This happened to my father in 2021. He leased a Polestar, and he loved it to bits, he was always excited to take me for a ride or show it off to his friends. He drove it all the time around the city, but he's also the type of person who loves doing 1 day road trips, driving 200 miles in a day sometimes. Obviously he had planned for charging along the way, but 9 times out of 10 a charger was broken, or the charging speed was horribly slow. And after 2 months he got fed up with the thing. Even though he loved it so much, he ended up rolling over the lease to a gas Volvo...

200 miles in a day is a lot? Lol, that's a short trip in the Midwest US

That's unfortunate. I find Polestar's infotainment is one of the better ones out there (I've never driven a Tesla, but I understand that it's probably the best when it comes to navigation). If he couldn't figure out charging with built-in navigation and calculating the best charger to go to, it's probably still too complicated, or the charging networks still suck.

@itsme123669 right lol i do a 700 mile trip twice a year from Cincinnati to conneticut while only stopping for gas

He just wasn't ready for them yet, the electronic world is a bit hard to grasp if your not savvy with it. Maybe he should have charged at home when he's asleep. Like most EV owners do.

@Wayne Levett Did you even read the post? He did figure out what to do, but the chargers were broken or slow, and he can't charge at home on a road trip. If you think it's unlikely to find so many broken chargers, you are wrong. Unfortunately that's the reality in the US, unless you drive a Tesla.

I am so happy you put this information out there. This is valuable information for regular people like me who don't understand charging points.

I'm living in Germany and was planning to get an EV as my next car. And this is ONE and THE ONLY concern I have. I can't install a charger at home or at the office (because it's Germany, nothing is easily achievable here). And here actually you have plenty of chargers in the big cities, and even roadside parking places designed for EVs with chargers and so on, but as you get off big cities you basically get nothing. Most of them in the area where I live are just 22kW chargers which will take a while to charge an EV. So Tesla looks the most attractive, given the nice charging infrastructure they offer alongside the car itself, which people may not realize, but that is crucial to have. Especially the easiness of use. Because here with every different charging company you need their app, account, and payment method and this keeps getting annoying. I don't understand, why given the whole story with proprietary plugs on mobile phones which all in the end led to USB type C, car producers don't learn and don't work together to create a unique protocol of connection, charging and vehicle communication with other vehicles regardless of what manufacturer that vehicle is? Is that so complicated to do?

Here in Australia, the Government has mandated that all charge plugs be standardised for all cars to be the same, and that cars can even use other brand chargers including once proprietary tesla chargers, it's just being worked on now so the process isn't complete yet, but this probably should happen in every country going forward Although now many homes in Australia have solar (one of the highest uptakes in the world) and a home battery in many cases, so much of the charging is over night or through the day for free

You are so right. It is a serious issue not being addressed by non-Tesla car makers. Shame on them. My Tesla model 3LR avoids a lot of these problems.

I’m 👏🏾so 👏🏾glad 👏🏾 someone 👏🏾 said it. Story time: I recently (2weeks ago) rented out a very cute Renault Zoe. For context I live in the south of France. My sister was coming to visit and I wanted to take her all around town including crossing over to Spain (30min drive) and other touristic things. Like an idiot I thought that charging the car was going to be as easy as pouring petrol. BOY WAS I WRONG. Not only did very few charging stations actually work but I wasn’t able to tap or swipe my card directly in the machine to start charging. I had to download apps of every different charging point then subscribe. Each charging point then required a €50 deposit in order to start charging which would then be reimbursed at the end of the charge (Charge only cost +-7€) So if you plugged in and setup everything and that charging point didn’t work you would be 50€ short, move to the next one and have to go through the process again. (This happened often) On average it took us about 45 mins to figure out the charging everywhere we went! If you’re wondering… “why didn’t she just charge at home”?! I live in a “résidence” (apartment building) with no outdoor outlet to connect. So in summary,I still love the idea of electric cars but we need a regulated methods of charging euuk!

I work as a product designer for a company that creates both hardware & software solutions in the EV charging space - This is such an incredibly important video. We’re working day and night on figuring out how to support our App users through the physical and software constraints in the industry - but the fact is that it’s all going to take some to figure itself out. Gas industry has had decades of testing and trials to a point now that we don’t think twice about getting gas. Good design is invisible! But we’re at it, I promise you that! Thanks again Marques!

Thank you

I'm curious, Rhea. If we can pay for gas, food, bar tabs, etc. by simply swiping a card, why can't that be done with EV chargers? (Especially just copying the gas model). We don't need apps, RFID, or any of that. I see it as over-engineering, or just trying to unnecessarily force people to download and use apps so that the company can make money off them later or prop up their # of app users. Where am I wrong? (I must be or someone would already be doing what I'm saying.)

Your first issue is starting with an app. Why should the user need a smartphone to interact with your charger? Gas industry just focussed on getting liquid into the car. Initially handled by a service station attendant and then later by self serve. No apps or other things needed, just roll up put the filler in, fill up and then pay. electric should be no less simple. Plug in, fillup and pay.

Or rather old design is what most people have learned long time ago.

This is so true....I had so many discussions with people about the positives about EV's but then get the response about the charging infrastructure. There's no denying that. Thats a huge problem.

What you describe in this video is part of a recurring theme encountered elsewhere (e.g.: "Scan & Go" apps that require way too many steps to set up, and then end up working less reliably than a hand-held scanner designed to scan bar codes), where the new tech "solution" is far less easy & convenient than the one it's supposed to replace.

I got my Kia Niro 2 years ago and I was quite pleased with the charging situation on the motorway in the UK. Now is absolutely crazy. The number of the chargers didn't change but everywhere you stop now there are at least two other cars waiting to carge. It is absolutely crazy how much anxiety you go through if you have a plane to catch. Not fun at all. Luckily I don't have any issues with the range in town

I recently rented a Tesla on vacation to try out the electric car experience. I fully expected it to be a huge pain, but it was easier than I thought and I spent much less time charging than I thought I would. I ran into the stupid charge point not working problem in a parking garage. I thought it would be convenient to charge while shopping and it of course wasn't working. The super chargers were fast and easy to deal with. I had no acess to charging at the hotel, but a 10 min super charge every other day was fine for 80 miles of driving each day.

A lot of these charging stations that don't function are usually out of diesel fuel that is used on a diesel generator that is used to charge your car at the high charge rates that the grid cannot provide.

As Google Maps is adding more EV features into app, they should add a star rating system for chargers and include that data in route recommendations. The charger manufacturers could also look at that data to help determine which chargers really need something fixed.

just add a type c adapter to a car.

2:57 he just exposed a scammer was charging his car with this lady's charger. Its an age old petrol bowser scam

@jane blogs except. it wasnt charging soooo no

Some people need to take responsibility for learning about the products they use or car they drive. Being helpless like that they shouldnt be taking on new things to quickly.

You have a great point. I doubt places with chargers do any maintenance on their charger either. Maybe non Tesla chargers should just be a plug and you bring your own cable. Make them the standard 220V outlets.

So true! I still remember the first time I was given a PC at work with Window 2.1 and without any training I minimized the screen and didn't know what to do to get it back and called tech support! So I understand the technology to the neophyte challenges!

Many thanks for telling us this story and bringing honesty to an issue that most ppl that do not have an EV are aware off before buying one. 👍👍👍 BTW, looks like the bird may be tired and needs to recharge as well.⚡⚡⚡💥