Sorry if this is a dumb question. I currently drive a hybrid and am looking to upgrade in the next 1- 2 years to either PHEV or full EV. In either scenario, I envision most of my charging will be done at home. However, if I go full EV, I will eventually need to charge in public.
I’ve read it varies from charging network to charging network, so I figure I’d ask EV owners what their experiences are like. I really don’t like the idea of relying on an app or monthly subscription or anything like that.
So, is a debit card more or less guaranteed to be accepted, and if so, are the rates significantly higher than some kind of membership option?
Edit: In the US if it matters.
I wound up in a rental for close to two months last fall. The Electrify America chargers took credit cards but charged more. It looked like you could also get an RFID card that identified you and billed to the account on file at the lower rate. I used another weird DC fast charge that was part of Shell’s network and related to Duke Energy that was app only, very annoying. I used a level 2 from ChargePoint and had to use the app. The cell service didn’t matter; it was deep in an underground garage with no signal. I had to go out to download the app, then came back in to initiate the charging session. It was annoying to do in the moment, but once the account was set up worked pretty easily, and it looks some of those apps work with other networks. I think it would be okay as long as I was signed up on a few networks, but I’d really rather be able to just tap my credit card and go, no signup needed. That was part of the IRA, but it’ll take time to roll out.
Yeah, I’m really hoping as more of the IRA-funded ones come online and build out, we’ll see more traditional payment options become the norm. I really don’t like the idea of an app for every charging network. That’s insane, IMO. Hopefully as EVs take off, there will be pushback from people on all the apps.
I’ve only rented an ev, but only about half the time they have successfully taken a cc. Either they were broken, or it was just missing.
A lot of them have apps, which is very annoying as a renter, but if you own the car it should be less of an issue.
Afaik you don’t actually need to purchase a subscription to use them.
Thanks! Good to know, even if disappointing. Broken I can understand (people are the worst, after all), but missing seems like like the operator chose not to add them.
Yeah, the apps are a non-starter for me. My dislike for them aside, I’m stuck with T-Mobile as my carrier. If a butterfly flaps its wings between my phone and the tower, I lose all service. lol. Not exactly something I want to rely on if I need to charge up.
You don’t need your phone to be operational for the app to work. It’s just like any of the smartphone app platforms… you have a card on file associated with the account. The car is recognized when you plug in to charge, then automatically charges the account when it is used for the amount of charge you take. You can set it up on your phone, in the car, or on a computer, but only need the car to charge.
Tesla is rolling out a subscription for $13.99 a month for up to 5 charging sessions per day, though. I’ve been traveling a lot and have been charging 3-4 times a day for 50-60$ total. It’ll be nice to save even more money with the sub, but that wouldn’t be worth it if you don’t travel a lot.
I’ve had mine for 4 years and, up until this year when I started traveling, I never used a public charger. Charging at home was always cheap and easy and I never drove more than 250 miles in a day. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how easy route planning automatically plans the most efficient route with stops to charge along the way. I had a bit of range anxiety when I started out, but that was mostly from my ignorance of how it would all work out. Lately I’ve been driving through the mountains in winter and haven’t had any problems.
Okay, that’s different and less awful than what I’ve heard about the app billing. If I can set up the account/payment method on thier website with my laptop and not have to have my phone involved or functional at all to charge, I could be on board with that. Thanks for that bit of info. Some of the stuff I’ve read may be a bit dated.
Definitely don’t think I’d benefit from a subscription like that unless my life situation changes, but interesting to know it’s out there if it does.
Thanks!
Yeah. I just found out about the subscription. It would have saved me money on my big cross country trips, but it costs about 10-20$ for a good 2/3s charge when I do need to hit a supercharge. On a thousand mile trip, I probably hit 6 of them, or so, so it makes sense… but I wouldn’t subscribe normally.
If you have a way to install a level 2 charger at your home, it’s a no-brainer. If you rent and have to find a place to charge, it’s a bit more hassle. All I know is I have had mine for 4 years and I’ll never go back.
I have a motorcycle that isn’t ev and feel like it’s such an inconvenience to have to go somewhere to fill it up, rather than having it ready to go when I am.
Even within the US it varies massively from state to state and even city to city.
I’m in Southern Cal and have access to a ton of DC fast chargers, and the ones near me either accept credit card or app or little keychain RFID/QR token/fob/thing. However, almost none of the level 2 public chargers accept credit cards, either app only or fob thing. When I rented an EV in Florida, the only charger I could find that actually worked at all required an app to work.
In short, a debit card is definitely not guaranteed to be accepted unless you find one that still allows the keyfob/credit card-sized wallet card. You need to drive around to local chargers in your neighborhood to check them out.
In short, a debit card is definitely not guaranteed to be accepted unless you find one that still allows the keyfob/credit card-sized wallet card. You need to drive around to local chargers in your neighborhood to check them out.
Thanks for the insight! That’s kind of exactly what I was afraid of. Call me a dinosaur, but I have very few apps, and every one of them is a convenience and not a requirement in my day-to-day life. I do not see my stance on that changing, and do not want to depend on any app for any purpose, especially one as important as refueling my car.
I think I’m going to end up getting a PHEV and kicking the can down the road, so to speak.
Fwiw, consider your exact needs and uses. I have yet to use a public level 2, and only a couple of DC fast chargers. It might be easy enough to locate a DCFC that accepts cards when the need arises, but you will lose the convenience and price of a level 2. But even in that case, the cost savings of a BEV overall probably more than cover it
Yeah, my use case has changed considerably in the last 5 years, and trying to think ahead another 5 is giving me a headache.
I used to drive 120 miles per day, minimum. Then I bought a house closer to work and would only drive 120 miles per month. A year after that, I was offered the option to work full time remote, so now I may drive 120 miles every 3 months. But I don’t have any guarantee I won’t be forced back into the office on a whim or have to relocate, so trying to imagine my situation 5 years from now is a bit challenging.
That’s why, after seeing some answers here and my aversion to relying on apps, I’m leaning toward a PHEV for my next upgrade and giving the charging networks more time to standardize and build out over the next half decade.
With such low mileage, can I ask why you’re looking to buy a new vehicle at all? That’s low enough that it’s actually significantly cheaper to just take Lyft everywhere. I understand wanting to have a car, but at that point it seems like an enormous waste of money to buy new.
Not trying to start a /c/fuckcars thread here, lol, but…
The low mileage I drive now is my current situation, but I can’t guarantee it’s going to stay that way. I also prefer to not have to wait on taxis, Uber, Lyft, car rentals, etc and “just go” at my convenience. I live in the suburbs, so everything is still out of walking range and would be a trek even on a bike. Plus, sometimes it’s nice to just get in and go for a drive (I live in a crappy red state, but we have beautiful scenery haha).
I’m looking to go full EV, eventually, so I can put solar panels on my garage to keep it topped off and cover my usual low-mileage day-to-day driving (supplemented with utility power when needed).
Now I’m leaning toward a PHEV in the short run since my state taxes hybrids and EVs like crazy, and a PHEV would cover my day-to-day driving in EV mode while being in the same “tax” bracket as my current hybrid. A full EV would have a larger yearly fee.
Don’t misunderstand, I certainly understand the desire to have a car. What I’m asking is why you are looking to replace the one you have.
BTW, in my shitty red state (Ohio), those fees are applied when you renew your registration. If you renew for 5 years (the max) right before purchase and then transfer that registration, you can avoid 5 years of those extra fees. May or may not help in your situation.
Mostly because I’ve been wanting to go EV for a while now. This car has been and continues to be amazing, but when the time comes to replace it, I want to have my research done and have something in mind. Public charging experience was one of my outstanding research questions for EV ownership. I said 1-2 years in the post, but it’s probably more like 2-3 years out if I’m being realistic (unless something catastrophic/unexpected happens to this car).
That’s how WV does it too, but I can only renew for 2 years at a time. I’ll keep that in mind and see if something like it is possible. Good tip!
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This is the appropriate amount of annoyed. There isn’t enough competition yet for these charging companies to care about user experience.
I’ve only ever used Superchargers (I have a PHEV, but there’s no need to charge that away from home). The Supercharger just talks directly to the car and handles it through your Tesla account/app. Once most cars are using the NACS connector in a year or two, I assume this will be how it works for them too.
App-based billing? No thanks. lol
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I can grudgingly understand Tesla’s network may be app based and tied to their infrastructure, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I’m leaning toward going PHEV in hopes that the EA and more “generic” charging stations get built out in the mean time and that they support more traditional payments (at least I’m not insisting on writing a check lol).
Plus, I live in a yeehaw state that has hefty hybrid and EV “taxes” added to the yearly registration fees. I currently drive a hybrid, and the extra fees I pay are the same whether it’s a PHEV or traditional hybrid. A PHEV would definitely give me more bang for my buck; a full EV would cost even more in fees.
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Good to know. The more I research BEVs, the more I realize how much I don’t know. lol
Most of the PHEVs I’ve looked at top out around 50 or so miles of EV range, and that pretty much covers all of my day to day driving with some to spare. For extended trips, I don’t see myself topping off the HV battery unless I’m lodging overnight or something.
So just a heads up, a lot (most? almost all?) of PHEVs can’t do fast charging with CCS/NACS
Does that mean they can’t charge at all from those, or they just charge slower? Thinking of like if a hotel had a charging station, for example.
Glad I posted this because I was just assuming the charge stations worked like gas pumps and I’d just swipe, wait a bit, and go. Apparently not lol.
I’m sure you’ve seen the figures that the average American drives ~40 miles a day. That’s where the ~50 mile range PHEV battery comes from.
The question is what happens when you need to go further than that. On early EVs (like the GM EV-1), the answer was honestly to just find another car. That limited its appeal to just being a commuter/second car.
PHEVs answered that by including a gas drivetrain, although some now are just a gas generator. BEVs answered that by including a giant battery and enabling fast charging (as a concept, not necessarily as a product)
This is going to be a bit long. If you want a better explanation, here is an excellent (albeit a little outdated) video on the subject: https://youtu.be/Iyp_X3mwE1w
BEVs are a little more complicated, but not that much. There’s 3 main levels of charging to be aware of.
Level 1- 120v AC charging. Connect to a standard (and hopefully isolated) wall outlet. Your charging cable delivers this straight to your car, which then converts it to DC to charge the battery. Also known as trickle charging, it adds about 3 miles of range for every hour spent charging. It is almost never seen outside of home charging.
Level 2- 208/240v AC charging. Similar to the above, except you either have a 240v outlet or the charging cable) station is hardwired directly. Specs vary, but common configs are 5-10 times (7-12 kW) as fast as level 1. Still delivers AC directly to your car. This is also what you see at hotels, parking garages, etc where you are not going to be sitting there waiting on it. The required infrastructure is only some heavy-duty AC electrical cables and a way to bill you. Levels 1 and 2 use the J-1772 connector. Tesla calls theirs Destination Chargers.
Level 3- DC Fast Charging. This is an interesting idea- why limit yourself to the (relatively) puny charger you have onboard the vehicle? Or bypassing the normal limits of how thick a cable must be? These chargers, using the Combined Charging System (CCS) standard have an extra set of very thick pins that connect directly to the battery system. They deliver as much as 350 kW (depending on car model/capabilities) of DC power, straight into the battery system. They also have water-cooled cables to deliver that much power without an unwieldy cable. These are what you see at truck stops and places where people are going to be waiting for the charge to complete. Tesla calls theirs Superchargers.
The Tesla connector was recently opened up to the world as the North American Charging Standard, or NACS. Many other manufacturers have already announced a switch to this. For the J-1772 connector (levels 1 and 2), this is basically the same thing in a different shape. It’s even electrically compatible, so a dumb adapter will work. But what’s different is that the charging pins are much, much bigger. It can handle a level 3 DCFC on the same pins, albeit with some additional circuitry to handle these different modes.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/Iyp_X3mwE1w
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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My current hybrid is in great shape, so no rush other than wanting more EV range and to get less screwed on the backwards fees I have to pay (hybrid and PHEV are same fee bracket). I’ve got a Ford Fusion Hybrid and was looking at simply upgrading to the Energi which is the PHEV version of it. (I absolutely regret not getting that model when I bought this one, but at the time, I didn’t have anywhere to charge it).
Barring something unexpected or catastrophic happening, I can definitely wait a few years and reassess. The ultimate goal is still a BEV, but I may need to wait a bit for things to standardize across the board (we’re getting there, though!).
Can’t charge at all. PHEVs don’t really need fast charging anyway.
I guess my point is that you don’t really DO anything. You don’t have to fire up an app and log in and shit. The charger talks to the car when you plug it in and it just goes. Not sure what your hang-up is with apps (no judgement here, but clearly there is one) but in this case it’s pretty seamless and a lot more convenient than some other custom payment apps.
Oh, yeah, I got that. But I’d read (either a long time ago or incorrectly) that it needed to be actively connected to the internet to authorize the payment (e.g. Google Wallet, etc).
Not sure what your hang-up is with apps
Lol. I’ve been a tech enthusiast all my life, but years ago I had my “turn it around, we’ve gone too far” moment with regard to apps. 99% of them could and should be websites and ask for every permission under the sun. Nah, just let me swipe my card and enter my PIN. Takes like 5 seconds.
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Pretty sure they said they will have access to the Supercharger network. I don’t see Tesla adding card readers to every supercharger. I think it’s far more likely that the cars will talk to the superchargers just like Teslas do.
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From here:
In-car charging apps
You might not think of it as an app, but the software inside your EV is perhaps the most fundamental charging app. Your EV’s in-car charging software shares many of the features of public and home EV charging apps, including the ability to find and navigate to public charging stations and manage charging from within your vehicle.
The interior of a modern car showing an app built-in the dashboard.Because it is built into your car, an in-car app often benefits from a direct data connection to your vehicle’s systems, allowing it to tailor recommendations based on real-time battery information. Beyond the built-in software, many EV manufacturers also offer companion smartphone apps to let you receive information and control charging remotely.
So that’s an option, though it doesn’t cover payment. Later in the same page:
Payment options
If you want to use your home charging app to also manage your public charging sessions, it’s essential to check what payment options are offered to avoid an unpleasant surprise when trying to charge.
Depending on the app and public charging network, you might be able to link your bank account and have payment taken directly or receive a monthly bill for all your charging.
Some apps can even allow you to pay for charging without an account using your credit or debit card. While more flexible, it’s worth remembering that pay-as-you-go tariffs can often be higher than members’ ones, so creating an account can be worth it if you use public charging frequently.
So an option here might be to get an old smartphone and load it with the apps over your home wifi, then hook them up to your credit/debit card or bank account. Put the phone in your glovebox or someplace when you’re taking a longer trip. When you need to charge the car, plug the smartphone into the phone charger in your car, turn it on, use wifi / Bluetooth / NFC to connect to the car charger, and have the appropriate app deduct from your bank account / credit / debit card, then turn it off again.
So an option here might be to get an old smartphone and load it with the apps over your home wifi, then hook them up to your credit/debit card or bank account. Put the phone in your glovebox or someplace when you’re taking a longer trip. When you need to charge the car, plug the smartphone into the phone charger in your car, turn it on, use wifi / Bluetooth / NFC to connect to the car charger, and have the appropriate app deduct from your bank account / credit / debit card, then turn it off again.
Thanks for the detailed reply, but yeah, lol, I’m not doing that. I really want to go full EV, but not that badly. I’m with the Boomers on this one. I already have a payment method with me that’s linked to my bank account, and it doesn’t require any of that hoopla.
