I’ve never had to wait to charge, Supercharger sites are usually very over built in terms of capacity.

This is why Tesla formerly implemented idle charges and is currently implementing congestion charges for users charging beyond 90%, and congestion warnings that automatically reset cars to 80% (but can then be reset by users) at high-utilization chargers.

It’s also why outages like “2/4 plugs are broken at this location” (which is shockingly common at some brands of chargers) isn’t acceptable.

Finally, a system that detects when a charger is full and automatically directs users to another nearby charger is very helpful, especially given the scenario that sometimes there are multiple nearby chargers, but one gets more popular than others due to location.

Tesla manages all of these.

I’m not sure why Tesla is the only one who can do this right, however, it’s a bit baffling.

Why do I have 7 comments but 0 upvotes. Is this community not interested in discussing issues ev’s face and how to solve them?

It’s something I have experienced, yes, but only once did I give up and come back later. This was before I had reliable access to chargers at work, though. During those several times where I actually waited for chargers to open up, I just hung out in my car, on Netflix or playing my Steam Deck.

As for what can be done, your options are somewhat limited. You can hope your local government installs more chargers, but that seems like a long shot. You can try charging at off-peak hours. It’s not ideal, but fewer people seem to be charging around midnight. Do you not have access to home charging? See if your work has plans to install some L2s.

Also, as the tech advances, charging times should go down, so this will hopefully work itself out.

This is why more chargers are being built… it was part of the infrastructure bill from a few years ago.

I suspect that long waits for charging has become more of an issue this year. A combination of federal and state incentives have helped boost EV sales considerably. The charging infrastructure (non Tesla) was mediocre at best before the surge and now it likely gets better servicing and less chance of down units but still not enough stations to meet demand. I suspect that both the number of stations and their locations/layouts will improve. We are just in a painful junction right now

In certain places yes. I forget who did the video but they summed up the problem - lots of folks with “free charging for n years” are camping out at chargers the moment they get below 80%. Doesn’t matter if you’re on fumes, they might need that full charge to pick up their kids 5 miles from home. /s but not really

(The excuse I was given when I just wanted in for 10 minutes and their car was at 92%)

That said this isn’t every place and if you know your route it may be no big deal. I was coming back from a trip and would have liked to use the above DCFC, but also knew there were nearby free L2 chargers and I was in for a meal & coffee anyhow. I figured I’d spend about 1.5-2 hours in the area, I just had to get over a small mountain pass and some 25-ish more miles. I was pretty sure I could make it regardless of charging as I knew the route, I just don’t like pulling into my garage with < 5% unless I have to.

If you catch it right time at right place you can make anything seem like what you’re pushing. I’m seeing a lot of anti ev news

I rarely run into this, even charging on Chademo

My local EA is probably less than 5 minutes away. I have at times grabbed my kindle late late at night and gone to charge and been in and out in 20 minutes with nobody around. Generally it’s not much of a long wait anyway (and there’s a Culver’s nearby to grab a bite) but if I cared to avoid crowds I’d do that more often.

I’ve seen it at the Tesla Supercharger on the west side of Houston on Westheimer Road. Even though there are probably a dozen stations the line still backs up.

I’ve said it a dozen times, really reconsider buying an EV if you can’t charge overnight or can’t charge at work.

The solution is buy a Tesla. In 2025 it should be better for non Tesla’s.

On the way home Sunday, not only were 2 of the 8 stalls at EA nonfunctional, but the remaining 6 were degraded, so I got 7kw out of the sole “working” 350 and 46kw out of a “working” 150. The best I saw on any of them was 88kw. This was a bank of 6 150s and 2 350s.

I charged just enough to get home. Even for EA, this was particularly bad.

Only place I had a wait charging was a busy bank holiday Monday in the UK but these were at motorway services. If you went away from them it was pretty empty

I drove from Indiana to Florida in my Tesla SR+ last month and never had to wait at any chargers. Heck I’d say they were more empty than full. I bet it’s a drastically different experience on the West Coast tho.