from Hacker News

Charger outages leave northern Ontario EV drivers stranded

by james_pm on 7/7/23, 2:32 PM with 74 comments

• by voisin on 7/7/23, 4:41 PM

  I’ve had the misfortune of driving through northern Ontario five times in the last four years and I am embarrassed that it is a vital link in our country. The distances between Sault Ste Marie and Thunder Bay and then Thunder Bay and Kenora or Winnipeg are devoid of any form of amenity, have terrible cell reception, and are poorly maintained in winter despite the traffic. If poor weather hits you can easily add 25-40% to your already long 8-9 hour drive, and have no option to split the drive. The few motels that exist in the podunk villages on the way are often boarded up out of season, and the temperatures get so low in the winter that sleeping in the car to break up the drive could literally be a matter of freezing to death.

• by jeffbee on 7/7/23, 3:23 PM

  In Oakland, California there is a DC fast charger that has been showing the Windows Update screen all year. These networks do not seem to have the operational know-how to keep the systems running.

• by justrealist on 7/7/23, 3:37 PM

  This is why GM and Ford were so eager to jump on NACS. All the charger networks other than Tesla's Supercharger are a clown show. Why hitch your horse to them?

  I hope that changes and there's competition, but right now I would never even consider trying a non-Tesla charger. I've literally never found one that works properly, and 100% of the times I've used a Supercharger it was effortless.

• by martinald on 7/7/23, 3:28 PM

  I'm surprised that the chargers aren't more of a target for theft (or maybe there are already). They have enormous copper cables which could be fairly easily stolen? Especially in our of view highway rest stops.

• by cs702 on 7/7/23, 5:07 PM

  More precisely, charger outages have left non-Tesla EV drivers stranded.

  Tesla chargers have had no outages, so Tesla EV drivers are A-OK.

• by toomuchtodo on 7/7/23, 3:20 PM

  > CCS and CHAdeMO fast chargers in Marathon, White River and Wawa were down for most of June; the Ivy location in White River has been out of service since mid-April.

  > Tesla chargers in the region were still working, according to reports on the forum PlugShare, where drivers update each other on charger status, but they are not currently compatible with non-Tesla vehicles.

  > "June was a rough month for this area," said Real Deschatelets, a volunteer with the Electric Vehicle Association of Northern Ontario (EVANO).

• by Jemm on 7/7/23, 7:06 PM

  Ontario, where most of the millions of immigrants wind up. Zero money spent building infrastructure, most of the province is uninhabitable or even reachable by anything other than sea planes or ski planes.