All those unusable/broken charging stations...

[2025R1S]

I won’t sugar coat it; CCS charging sucks.

Tesla owners have the least friction in owning an EV. That is all their is to it. WIth adapters for CCS, J1772, CHAdeMO, and all the NEMA outlets; they can charge anywhere except a RAN charger.

Every other EV has more challenges, generally speaking. A simple day trip (250mi/round trip) is that much more difficult in a CCS vehicle, depending on your route. There are road trips that are entirely possible and reasonable with a Tesla, whereas in any CCS vehicle - its going to require that much more planning and patience (slow 62kW chargers, stations with lines - because only 1 or 2 chargers are working, etc).

It makes planning road trips with the family difficult. Travel patterns obviously will determine how difficult it is for you. But you need to have your expectations (and your families) properly set, or you will be rudely awoken when you are caught off guard by an 84 minute long charging session.

Now I agree that YouTube videos can be sensational and click-bait at times. But this is, IMO, a real problem that Kyle Connor and others are doing the public a service by trying to raise awareness to the inexcusable performance and reliability of CCS.

It is not hard to find a pissed off CCS vehicle owner at a charging station - who will go on camera and say they are willing to sell their Polestar or Mach-E because the charging experience is ridiculous. That is a real problem brands selling EV’s need to understand. A lot of brands are selling owners amazing products that are incredibly handicapped because of a charging network.

I would like to say the good news is that everyday more chargers are installed, but it isn’t hard to also point to countless locations that have had broken chargers since day 1, or chargers already malfunctioning after being operational less than 1 week. Is there an upward trend with respect to CCS reliability? Depends who you ask, and their travel patterns. There are going to be travel patterns that are not at all annoying, and even if 50% of the location is offline - 1 or 2 chargers with a 30 minute wait is better than no charger and a 110v outlet. But lets be real here, who wants to wait 30 minute to start charging?

IMO, CCS charging is half baked. No ones ever made any money with it. No business model depends on CCS charging succeeding. There aren’t any subsidies for operating the chargers, just installs. The chargers can lose money with every transaction due to demand charges, making it unappealing for site owners to even ensure reliability.. CCS chargers themselves are going through several design iterations. The replacement components for the (now) thousands of configurations available for CCS chargers are hard to find, so repairing broken stations can be next to impossible. Since brands are rapidly redesigning chargers, they don’t want to focus on making replacement parts for their discontinued models. Like with all newer technologies, there are beta testers. There are going to be winners and losers - less reliable brands and models. So when we see a fancy $500k Freewire station; we need to remind ourselves that these things haven’t been battle tested in all climates, or using a proven design. I think CCS manufacturers are still trying to figure out how to make reliable and fast CCS chargers. What they have put out so far has been extremely fragile, and when it breaks - God only knows when that station is coming back online. There are some higher profile CCS locations that do seem to require “baby sitting” to keep them online, but these are far and few. The apps all suck. You’ll have half a dozen apps in no time. The activation/payment authorization process is generally annoying. Rip off rates unless you subscribe to a plan, then reloading credits onto the plan, then remotely activating the charger in an area with poor cell service - not fun.

I can guarantee you will probably love your Rivian, and I can also guarantee you will hate charging it (at least until Tesla adds Magic Docks.). After years of ownership, you might come to the conclusion that the only one who has any idea what they are doing with charging is Tesla - and that is a perfectly normal conclusion. The charging experience is a big part of the ownership experience, and depending on travel patterns, your patience will be tested.

As my delivery day approaches, I am spending too much time on YouTube. I'm noticing a lot of reviews of people loving Rivian ownership except hating the travel charging situation with tons of anecdotal examples to prove it.

It's not limited to Electrify America, either. Maybe vandalism, underfunded maintenance (or shortage of tech labor), a difficult software technology to implement across the numerous EV brands, so something more inherently unreliable in the charging hardware itself? Maybe it's an illusion due to negative clickbait, but it seems like the infrastructure is a bit disappointing to Rivian owners who were expecting more after their 1-2 year wait.

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[2025R1S]

In 2yrs and 38k miles (22%, 8% “other” (CCS) of my charging has been at superchargers) with a Model 3, I’ve never seen a malfunctioning Supercharger.

I have been to (1) Supercharger location that was throttled due to local utility. I actually Had an alternative at that location - to use 1 of the ChargePoint 62kW stations was still functioning (1 was offline), and that single functioning station was in use by a Mach-E who was also getting only 50kW. I have found (2) broken Tesla Destination Chargers, and those were fixed within 2 weeks of me reporting the issue.

I will stop at CCS chargers when I don’t even need a charge. It can be an amusing event. You never know what you are going to see. There could be 4-5 vehicles waiting, a new car you’ve never seen, some dad going on a rant with Cadillac EV support, or a vehicle getting towed. This contrast in experiences is huge. You can go years without any hiccups in Tesla charging.

You have never found a single SuperCharger cabinet that was slow or not connecting?

I’ve never not been able to charge at a super charger but frequently have had to wait. That being said, I have seen many Super Chargers with cabinets down or with slow charging.

I once pulled up to the Super Charger in Indio CA and they had the entire site down for maintenance for 3 hours.

 

[NashvilleR1S]

I had a guy pull up in a mercedes EQE that they had given him as a repair loaner. He had to get to work and didnt know how to charge. We tried the 100kw and the 350kw chargers and neither worked for him. Felt bad as my R1S hummed along charging just fine...

Then had a couple pull up in another R1S who also had no idea how to charge! They were attempting to plug into the 100kw charger and I went over and explained why 350 is what they wanted.

Seems like the main issue with charging is education at the moment.

 

[Rivianation]

Home charging and commuting to work was the main focus of EVs in the early days. Tesla saw the need for long distance travel so they built out a great network. They invented and perfected long range efficient EV'ing so naturally they will be better at it now.

The problem for Rivian is their vehicles are marketed as adventure vehicles not commuters, so they need a reliable charging situation to exist for them to thrive. They seem to have put RAN on the back burner because their focus is elsewhere. If they wait too long, and continue to focus only on building cars, there will be even more pissed of Rivian owners out there.

 

[2025R1S]

I don’t know how automotive companies expect non-technical people to use CCS. Tesla takes away the frustrations of payment authorization and such. The apps don’t make it easier for CCS drivers.

Like I wouldn’t give my aunt or grandma a CCS vehicle and expect her to be able to figure out how to take it to Florida.

The navigation software can be lackluster in CCS vehicles - routing you to slower or offline chargers. If you put a destination of Florida in a Tesla, it’s just going to take you there - and you’ll be on 250kW chargers the whole way.

NACS was born out of necessity. Whereas CCS was born for what purpose, to compete with Tesla? It just feels like CCS is regressive design that could be replaced with NACS and frankly no one would complain but SAE (providing Tesla doesn’t try and extract a crazy royalty from OEM’s incorporating it).

With more CCS charger installs, it is getting easier to own a CCS vehicle. But that ownership experience shouldn’t require troubleshooting as much as it does.

I had a guy pull up in a mercedes EQE that they had given him as a repair loaner. He had to get to work and didnt know how to charge. We tried the 100kw and the 350kw chargers and neither worked for him. Felt bad as my R1S hummed along charging just fine...

Then had a couple pull up in another R1S who also had no idea how to charge! They were attempting to plug into the 100kw charger and I went over and explained why 350 is what they wanted.

Seems like the main issue with charging is education at the moment.

 

[2025R1S]

RAN is capital intensive and there are only so many Rivian’s on the road. Rivian can’t tie up an unnecessarily large percentage of their cash in a charging network that isn’t making them any money.

Home charging and commuting to work was the main focus of EVs in the early days. Tesla saw the need for long distance travel so they built out a great network. They invented and perfected long range efficient EV'ing so naturally they will be better at it now.

The problem for Rivian is their vehicles are marketed as adventure vehicles not commuters, so they need a reliable charging situation to exist for them to thrive. They seem to have put RAN on the back burner because their focus is elsewhere. If they wait too long, and continue to focus only on building cars, there will be even more pissed of Rivian owners out there.

 

[Autolycus]

I don’t know how automotive companies expect non-technical people to use CCS. Tesla takes away the frustrations of payment authorization and such. The apps don’t make it easier for CCS drivers.

Like I wouldn’t give my aunt or grandma a CCS vehicle and expect her to be able to figure out how to take it to Florida.

The navigation software can be lackluster in CCS vehicles - routing you to slower or offline chargers. If you put a destination of Florida in a Tesla, it’s just going to take you there - and you’ll be on 250kW chargers the whole way.

NACS was born out of necessity. Whereas CCS was born for what purpose, to compete with Tesla? It just feels like CCS is regressive design that could be replaced with NACS and frankly no one would complain but SAE (providing Tesla doesn’t try and extract a crazy royalty from OEM’s incorporating it).

With more CCS charger installs, it is getting easier to own a CCS vehicle. But that ownership experience shouldn’t require troubleshooting as much as it does.

You continue to amaze me with new bad takes on charging. CCS developed to compete with Tesla?! Continuing to act like there’s a single “NACS” charger anywhere on earth?! Talking like CCS is anything more than a connector and a mandate that users of that connector implement communications standards?

The problems with CCS are not inherent in anything about CCS. Period. Tesla has a huge advantage that they control all of the hardware and software on both sides of every charging session. This is exactly like Macs never having problems with hardware and firmware compatibility while other PCs do regularly. It’s not actually that there’s a flawed design with non-Apple computers — indeed for years Macs were literally using identical hardware to many non-Apple PCs. Apple just controlled everything so it was easier to make sure it all worked together.

Also, there are now several business models that rely on CCS working, but they’re very new to get investment. EA is no longer just VW’s settlement money. It has received significant new investments well beyond that initial funding. EVgo is receiving new investments. Many others are also investing in charging networks. They aren’t doing that to lose money and fail. They need their chargers to work reliably so they can make money.

 

[NC-Rivian]

All good points by everyone here. I do want to add, though, that for us Rivian-nerds where we are well-educated in the space, many of us have had a Tesla or other EV prior, and we follow along closely with everything EV related...there's a much bigger majority of folks who are not.

Anecdotally, my mother and her partner (both near 70) live in Las Vegas, happily retired. We all planned a get-together in LA to meet my cousins, and they decided to take a stab driving a Tesla Model 3 from LV to LA after sitting in our Model 3 for a few days. Even with the Supercharger network, it was still a struggle for them to understand the "ecosystem" that is EV charging (where do I put my credit card, how do I know where the SCs are, the cord doesn't reach (pulled in hood-first), why does it take so long, I don't trust the numbers, other Boomer questions, etc).

And good luck telling them to "install PlugShare", because that means I, the son, have to install PlugShare on their phone, create an account, explain to them how it works, provide IT support indefinitely, and reset their password every 6 months when they inevitably forget it.

The charging infrastructure "works", but it is very very far from "working well" for the masses.

I’m a boomer and I resemble those remarks.

 

[2025R1S]

There are great experiences to be had - like an EVGo 350kW station with Autocharge+ enabled 800v vehicle. But there are some truly terrible experiences that are a result of this freedom CCS has provided. There aren’t enough parties trying to make a great experience like that, and even companies intentionally not offering it (100 mi range EV’s, 50kW or 90kW limited fast charging), and even companies trying to offer it but failing for one reason or another.
The good news is things are improving with number of CCS chargers, number of companies investing in chargers, lots of promise - I totally agree. But if you were a CCS EV owner in 2022, or 2023 - and trying to use your EV for day trips or road trips - you are dealing with the early adopter drama and pain. It could easily be argued that the owners of EV’s putting themselves in those scenarios are just poorly informed or naively setting themselves up for a bad time.

You continue to amaze me with new bad takes on charging. CCS developed to compete with Tesla?! Continuing to act like there’s a single “NACS” charger anywhere on earth?! Talking like CCS is anything more than a connector and a mandate that users of that connector implement communications standards?

The problems with CCS are not inherent in anything about CCS. Period. Tesla has a huge advantage that they control all of the hardware and software on both sides of every charging session. This is exactly like Macs never having problems with hardware and firmware compatibility while other PCs do regularly. It’s not actually that there’s a flawed design with non-Apple computers — indeed for years Macs were literally using identical hardware to many non-Apple PCs. Apple just controlled everything so it was easier to make sure it all worked together.

Also, there are now several business models that rely on CCS working, but they’re very new to get investment. EA is no longer just VW’s settlement money. It has received significant new investments well beyond that initial funding. EVgo is receiving new investments. Many others are also investing in charging networks. They aren’t doing that to lose money and fail. They need their chargers to work reliably so they can make money.

 

[Autolycus]

There are great experiences to be had - like an EVGo 350kW station with Autocharge+ enabled 800v vehicle. But there are some truly terrible experiences that are a result of this freedom CCS has provided. There aren’t enough parties trying to make a great experience like that, and even companies intentionally not offering it (100 mi range EV’s, 50kW or 90kW limited fast charging), and even companies trying to offer it but failing for one reason or another.
The good news is things are improving with number of CCS chargers, number of companies investing in chargers, lots of promise - I totally agree. But if you were a CCS EV owner in 2022, or 2023 - and trying to use your EV for day trips or road trips - you are dealing with the early adopter drama and pain. It could easily be argued that the owners of EV’s putting themselves in those scenarios are just poorly informed or naively setting themselves up for a bad time.

Your bad take isn't that there are a lot of crappy CCS chargers out there or that drivers need to be better. I agree with all of that. It's the way you frame it as some sort of inherent flaw with CCS. That's not it. Aside from the size of the connector, there is nothing about CCS that is inferior to Tesla's connector and protocols. Tesla will have problems with non-Tesla vehicles as it opens up the Supercharger network. They will figure those problems out over time, just like EA, EVgo, and others will eventually figure out the inter-connectivity problems that exist with any new open network. Heck, I remember the days when different brands of ethernet cards/controllers didn't often play nice with each other. Those days are long past and we pretty much never worry about it.

 

[Ioman]

As my delivery day approaches, I am spending too much time on YouTube. I'm noticing a lot of reviews of people loving Rivian ownership except hating the travel charging situation with tons of anecdotal examples to prove it.

It's not limited to Electrify America, either. Maybe vandalism, underfunded maintenance (or shortage of tech labor), a difficult software technology to implement across the numerous EV brands, so something more inherently unreliable in the charging hardware itself? Maybe it's an illusion due to negative clickbait, but it seems like the infrastructure is a bit disappointing to Rivian owners who were expecting more after their 1-2 year wait.

Not an illusion. There are a ton of broken and vandalized stations. Makes it very frustrating.

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