In the eternal debate about electric cars yes, electric cars no, the topic of charging, especially fast ones, is often ignored. For two reasons: superfast charging stations are rare. And cars that can “suck” a lot of energy are very expensive and therefore even rarer. In fact non-existent. So only we journalists use them both every now and then. But we rarely write about it. Credit where credit therefore goes to my colleague Gian Luca Pellegrini, director of Quattroruote, who put his hands in the trap by tackling the very complicated topic.
Similar things have happened to us too and for every request for clarification we have always had different answers. And once it’s the temperature’s fault, once it’s the less than perfect condition of the charging station, other times we suspect the car, other times it’s the car’s charging level or the fact that another car is charging in superfast next to us. In any case we have never seen the declared 150 kW. It’s just that very little is said about this problem. But in the 1960s, if a car manufacturer declared that its car did 180 and instead stopped at 170, it was hanged. The same thing happened in the nineties for consumption. And then in the 2000s for emissions. And today with the charging speeds? Nobody says anything, okay.
There are various ways to talk about these topics: surveys, technical analyses, research. But the most effective remains the old, dear and ancient job of a reporter. That is, telling what you see. Scalfari said “editors write”. And Pellegrini simply did this. Redacted. Told. Reported what happened to him. A report finished on the futile Linkedin which we report here in full. With the image report of its refill. Enjoy the reading.
Yesterday, therefore, I went to charge my electric car – which has a pretty big battery – at the a2a charging station near my house, which has two Quicks and a Fast. The Quicks are busy. I’m going on the Fast. But it doesn’t leave. He tells me he doesn’t recognize the card, it doesn’t appear on the app. Alright. I’ll be back later, this time having checked on the app to see if a Quick has become available. Effectively. I attack. I’m going home. After 40 minutes, the message arrives that charging is complete. Impossible. In fact, the charging hadn’t started (but they preferred to notify me calmly, when I was already having dinner). I’ll be back. Cut. I hang up. It doesn’t start, neither from one socket nor the other. I go to Fast, hoping that it has decided to work. He has decided. Brief calculation: it’s nine in the evening, I have to charge 70 kWh or so, I can manage (no pun intended) before going to rest the sleep of the righteous.
Well. As you can see from the receipt, charging finished at 2.33am: five and a half hours for 74 kWh of electricity. It means that the actual power delivered by the column is enormously lower than the nominal one.
Consideration #1. Why do I have to pay the Fast tariff – €0.86/kWh (in this case I paid according to consumption) – if the charging speed is half of that declared?
Consideration #2. If the charging speed is halved, so is the usage rate. In this case, and I self-report, my car occupied the stall for 12 hours, denying others the right to use it (at certain times passive parking is paid for: not here, perhaps because it was Saturday).
Consideration #3. The amazing data from the manufacturers on charging speed are completely unlikely.
Consideration #4. Could it be that the great slowdown in electric vehicles is also due to the inconsistency of the charging experience, which has become evident now that users are multiplying (more than plug ins, it must be said, because usually those who have a BEV create their own ecosystem)?
Ps In Milan the charging stations are constantly occupied by Zity charging stations (which have Polistil batteries and are always flat). Couldn’t professional use be regulated?
Ps 2 The evening before, other problems with an Atlante charging station in Buccinasco, managed using the Be Charge app. Charging does not start. I try again, but at this point the app thinks I’m charging and tells me that two top-ups at the same time are not accepted. After 10 minutes I gave up. Dear energy providers, you must make these apps work perfectly. And in fact I travel around with cards, burned by many terrible experiences.
#Fast #refills #Pellegrini #FormulaPassion.it