I will never again rent an EV and I have no idea how people deal with this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m an EV owner. You picked the wrong type of charger. There are essentially three types: 1. The very slow type they you can plug in at home into a standard outlet. These can take like 20 hours for a full charge. 2 Public chargers that are slow. Might take 10-12 hours for a full charge. These can be installed at home but need a special outlet usually by an electrician. The outlet looks like a dryer outlet. 3 Fast chargers that can charge in about an hour.

Almost all public charging apps let’s you search for one of the latter two types and filter by type. You just need to know which kind you’re looking for. The fast ones are generally called “DC Fast” chargers.

Thanks for the tip - there are very few of these where I am, but some, so will try that! Still a total PITA to have to charge for what I'm assuming is at least 15 min?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You were supposed to go to a supercharger
With speeds of 200+

I researched it and this car isn't compatible without an adapter and firmware update which I'm assuming wasn't done by the rental car company

[Anonymous]

Ugh! I’m sorry OP. We own an EV and love it, but that’s because we know how to use it and when we plan to drive somewhere far we look for chargers.
I would be pissed if I were you

[Anonymous]

I own an EV (and a plug-in hybrid) and really like both. But I would still not rent an EV at this point unless (1) the EV was fully charged at time of rental; (2) I knew exactly where I'd be able to charge in my rental location and (3) the rental agency did not require full charge at return.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an EV owner. You picked the wrong type of charger. There are essentially three types: 1. The very slow type they you can plug in at home into a standard outlet. These can take like 20 hours for a full charge. 2 Public chargers that are slow. Might take 10-12 hours for a full charge. These can be installed at home but need a special outlet usually by an electrician. The outlet looks like a dryer outlet. 3 Fast chargers that can charge in about an hour.

Almost all public charging apps let’s you search for one of the latter two types and filter by type. You just need to know which kind you’re looking for. The fast ones are generally called “DC Fast” chargers.

Thanks for the tip - there are very few of these where I am, but some, so will try that! Still a total PITA to have to charge for what I'm assuming is at least 15 min?

We have one Tesla, one diesel car and one regular. It’s easier to find a Tesla charger on a road trip than a diesel pump in some places. I also don’t recall being in and out of a gas station in much less than 15 mins, and I certainly need to stop and get food or use the bathroom for more than 15 mins on a roadtrip. At home I just plug out charger in every few nights and it’s fully charged when I want to go again. Our range is 330 so I only need that every few days. Finally, we have Tesla solar panels and power walls so not only is it free to charge, I also run part of our house on solar and never have to deal with a power outage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an EV owner. You picked the wrong type of charger. There are essentially three types: 1. The very slow type they you can plug in at home into a standard outlet. These can take like 20 hours for a full charge. 2 Public chargers that are slow. Might take 10-12 hours for a full charge. These can be installed at home but need a special outlet usually by an electrician. The outlet looks like a dryer outlet. 3 Fast chargers that can charge in about an hour.

Almost all public charging apps let’s you search for one of the latter two types and filter by type. You just need to know which kind you’re looking for. The fast ones are generally called “DC Fast” chargers.

Thanks for the tip - there are very few of these where I am, but some, so will try that! Still a total PITA to have to charge for what I'm assuming is at least 15 min?

How frustrating and confusing! We were offered one in Italy and I couldn't say no fast enough - but I would have thought it would be fine here since I see chargers all the time. I had no idea about any of the charging types either and I'm sorry you were thrown into the deep end!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an EV owner. You picked the wrong type of charger. There are essentially three types: 1. The very slow type they you can plug in at home into a standard outlet. These can take like 20 hours for a full charge. 2 Public chargers that are slow. Might take 10-12 hours for a full charge. These can be installed at home but need a special outlet usually by an electrician. The outlet looks like a dryer outlet. 3 Fast chargers that can charge in about an hour.

Almost all public charging apps let’s you search for one of the latter two types and filter by type. You just need to know which kind you’re looking for. The fast ones are generally called “DC Fast” chargers.

Thanks for the tip - there are very few of these where I am, but some, so will try that! Still a total PITA to have to charge for what I'm assuming is at least 15 min?

We have an EV and I personally don't mind the 15 to 20 minutes it takes to DC fast-charge it on a road trip. But it's insane that the rental agency (a) gave you a car that was anything less than 80 percent charged (and honestly, they could charge it to 100 percent if a rental is expected, it wouldn't harm the battery); (b) didn't tell you anything about charging it; and (c) didn't at least tell you which apps to get to find chargers near you. This situation was avoidable and is really the rental agency's fault, but it definitely sucks for customers and your reaction is entirely understandable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You were supposed to go to a supercharger
With speeds of 200+

You can't use a Supercharger with most non-Tesla cars, but the rental company should have explained all that.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry you had a bad experience.

I LOVE my EV and will never, ever go back to a gas car. And we've driven it on long trips.

BTW it takes 30-45 minutes to fully charge ours to 100%. Sounds like you charged it at a slow level 1 charger. I'm sure that was frustrating.

This was a commercial charger so no idea how it was so slow. I'm at commercial charger #2 so we'll see if it's any better. The chargers aren't marked in any way that I understand to tell oh its fast or slow.

I could see how an EV, when always at home each day is fine, but on the road that's impossible to predict having one available for several hours.

It sounds like you have been using AC chargers. For fast charging, you need to use DC charging. What kind of car is it?

It's a KIA

Okay, look for chargers from Electrify America, EVgo, Chargepoint (but only DC), or Blink. These all have DC fast chargers that can probably charge your car in 30 minutes or less. Don't charge above 80% because from 80 to 100 the cars charge very slowly. It is better to charge multiple times if necessary rather than going above 80%.

Coming back to report that, nope, second charger is only doing about the same. 5 hours = 60 miles of range. So I'm estimating if "empty" it would take 12 hours to fully charge.

Sorry I didn't see this until now and it's probably too late. It appears that you have only been trying AC chargers. You really need to find a DC fast charger. Not a Tesla Supercharger, because those won't work. But, any other DC fast charger. These will have speeds of at least 54 kw and more like 150 or 350. They can charge from 20% to 80% in a half hour or so. The connector will be about twice the size of the ones you have probably been using.

[Anonymous]

Bad combination of totally un knowledgeable consumer and a rental car company that is shady. If it’s true that a KiA can’t use a super charger, that’s really not functional for most purposes. If you were on a trip that is short of time, it was the wrong call for you to agree to something that you weren’t knowledgeable about.
Hybrids are probably more suitable for rental purposes.
We’re on our third hybrid but also own a Tesla. At the moment, I have a strong orefeeence for Tesla as an EV even though I hate Musk, just because the Tesla network of superchargers is really incredible. I think in another few years that will change, but at the moment it’s definitely easier to use a Tesla on road trips than other EVs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bad combination of totally un knowledgeable consumer and a rental car company that is shady. If it’s true that a KiA can’t use a super charger, that’s really not functional for most purposes. If you were on a trip that is short of time, it was the wrong call for you to agree to something that you weren’t knowledgeable about.
Hybrids are probably more suitable for rental purposes.
We’re on our third hybrid but also own a Tesla. At the moment, I have a strong orefeeence for Tesla as an EV even though I hate Musk, just because the Tesla network of superchargers is really incredible. I think in another few years that will change, but at the moment it’s definitely easier to use a Tesla on road trips than other EVs.

People replying to this thread should definitely specify if they have Teslas or b)Other

[Anonymous]

OP, where are you?
Is it a semi rural area like a mountain retreat?
Some places just don't have EV infrastructure, because locals don't buy EVs.

[Anonymous]

OP, almost all Walmarts and Sams Clubs have high speed chargers. In a lot of semi-rural areas they'll be the only reliable charges around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bad combination of totally un knowledgeable consumer and a rental car company that is shady. If it’s true that a KiA can’t use a super charger, that’s really not functional for most purposes. If you were on a trip that is short of time, it was the wrong call for you to agree to something that you weren’t knowledgeable about.
Hybrids are probably more suitable for rental purposes.
We’re on our third hybrid but also own a Tesla. At the moment, I have a strong orefeeence for Tesla as an EV even though I hate Musk, just because the Tesla network of superchargers is really incredible. I think in another few years that will change, but at the moment it’s definitely easier to use a Tesla on road trips than other EVs.

It's perfectly functional to use a Kia or other non-Tesla EV for most purposes (we have a non-Tesla EV), because there are other DC fast-charging options besides the Tesla Superchargers. But it's 100 percent on the car rental company to make that clear to customers. I don't blame OP at all here; there's no reason they should have had to have previous knowledge about EVs, the company should have told them what they needed to know.

[Anonymous]

Isn't it ironic that Tesla needs to be charged with DC????