Of all the things to blog about in the days leading to Christmas, I am choosing to vent about electric charging stations. No, I’m not crazy enough to buy an electric car but we did end-up with a hybrid Jeep. It gets great mileage but works differently than my wife’s old Ford. This vehicle has the ability to plug in and charge the battery.
I think the difference between the Ford and Jeep hybrids is this; the Ford’s propulsion is electric and is augmented with essentially a gas generator while the Jeep is run by the gas engine which is helped by the electric battery.
Anyway, since we don’t have a garage, we have no place in Idaho to charge the Jeep. Plugging it into 120 VAC takes over 15 hours. The token charging station in our area does not have a compatible plug. This I am learning is a common problem.
Anyway, since we are visiting relatives at Christmas time, I thought we could try charging the battery at least once during the trip. At a stop in Oregon, we encountered three charging stations. Each station had two different plug ends. Yep, six different plug options. The second station was out of order. As a result, we couldn’t charge our Jeep. Station two, the one out of order, had the only correct plug. Strike One.
After we entered the once Golden State, we made our way to see an old high school friend. Said friend had previously owned two electric Chevy’s. His plug was on a 25-foot cord and fit the Jeep. During our visit, we got the battery up to 81 percent charged.
Once we arrived in the East Bay Area, we thought surely, we could find a charger here. We literally looked at about two dozen stations. The only ones we could find that fit our Jeep were out of order. Most of the others were attached to Teslas. Strikes two and three.
So, we have yet to get a full charge on the battery and as things stand now, we won’t on this trip. I only want to charge it once in a while to keep the battery in working order.
This points out the stupidity of forcing everyone into electric cars. Vehicle plugs are not standardized, the charging stations are often broken, and there’s just not enough to make the technology viable. My car doesn’t need to be charged in order to run but if the technology is available why can’t I use it?