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If you're driving an EV you've no doubt run into at least a handful of out-of-service fast-charging locations. Some notoriously more than others.
This can be very inconvenient, especially if you're on a long trip (where most electric car drivers actually use DC charging) and have to quickly find an alternative, pray you'll make it to the next one (which can be hundreds of kilometres away) or wait in line for a working unit with everyone else.
It's not just bad luck. Charging station reliability is a known issue in the industry, according to Evie co-founder, Paul Fox, who spoke with CarsGuide at the Fully Charged LIVE electric vehicle expo in Sydney recently.
"Reliability is not where it should be" he said, "It's an issue in Europe, it's an issue in the US. We're looking at a global problem, and it's not confined to just one manufacturer."
"There are things which are influencing the problem. Obviously, there are ongoing microprocessor issues, and COVID brought shipping parts to a halt." he said.
"Part of it is also market maturity, in many ways we're still in early days in the industry. When it comes to the differences between providers, that's about parts holdings. Do you have the ability to respond when a charger is down? Do you have replacement parts on hand?
"We are an owner-operator, that's the key difference in our model - we do the maintenance, we have the spares on hand, we won't build things we think aren't in good locations."
He explained many rivals were running into issues with chargers in their networks as they manage chargers built by other companies, which may consist of a diverse set of hardware.
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There's good news on the horizon though, with Fox explaining supply issues were starting to "ease up"
"A lot of our technicians are from the telecom sector, where they measure reliability [of equipment] in the nines, you know: 99.99 per cent uptime. We're still years away from that. We need to apply processes and ideas [from other industries] to help get there, but it will also depend on the maturity of the parts vendors" he explained.
As though to prove how widespread this issue is in markets further down the EV path than ours, the federal government in the United States is even instituting standards for charging infrastructure funded with taxpayer dollars. These standards will include reliability, which will need to be 97 per cent, as well as standardised payment and access methods for chargers.
One of the most expansive charging networks in the country alongside Chargefox and Tesla, Evie is experiencing a rapid rise to prominence, and is a major beneficiary of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) which helps to co-fund charging locations with the goal of creating an east-coast superhighway.
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Fox says he has been surprised by the level of success the company has experienced thus far.
"We're really surprised by overall demand on our network" Fox said, "I think that's because we assumed there would be more competition by now, so it's hard to say how much of that is just a lack of rivalry.
"It's funny, we actually see new shipments of EVs arrive in our data, because one of the first things people do when they take delivery of an electric car is try out a DC charger, so there's this big spike in demand.
"It's starting to get harder to see, because demand is coming up so fast. Holiday periods are very strong. But we have to remember that some of the data we're seeing in our network is still in the early adopter phase, so it's not necessarily reflective of a developed market."
In terms of adding more chargers to the network, things are progressing well for Evie, but Fox pointed out that the company often faces a bottleneck with grid operators even connecting chargers.
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"There's currently roughly an 18-month lead time from approved funding until we get the charger built. A lot of that time is just waiting to get the grid to agree to connect us."
He said the brand currently has half a dozen new charging locations stuck in this predicament.
And what could others do to help? Fox has some thoughts: "The networks need to introduce tariffs which make sense for electric vehicle chargers. We end up on tariff schemes which are meant for industrial businesses. Other parts of the world have special tariffs designed for DC charging, why don't we? They could help make this even bigger."
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