PORTLAND, Maine — The number of electric vehicle chargers for public use has increased exponentially over the past 10 years. That trend has been accelerating particularly fast since 2018.
However, many EV users have found in practice that DC fast chargers aren't always working reliably when they are needed for road trips that exceed the typical 250- to 300-mile range of today's electric vehicles.
NEWS CENTER Maine meteorologist Keith Carson has owned an electric vehicle for several years and set out to randomly test several DC fast-chargers in southern Maine.
The goal was simple: Show up to different chargers, plug in, and see if they work. If they do work, what is their charging speed and ease of use?
The result was a combination of error messages, broken equipment, and occupied charging stalls.
The first stop was an EVgo station on High Street in Portland. The first charger Keith tried to plug into gave him an error message, simply stating: "Charging unsuccessful."
After using the other handle on the same charger, the vehicle began to charge and at a very high rate of speed that would have completed the charging in about 20 minutes.
The second stop was another EVgo station on Forest Avenue in Portland. This was a single stall charging station, and it was occupied.
In that same parking lot was a bank of 12 Telsa Superchargers, which were totally functional and unoccupied. But most electric vehicles cannot charge at Telsa stations.
The third stop was an Electrify America charging station in Scarborough.
Three of the four chargers at this location were marked broken, but Keith was able to plug into the single operating charger and charge at a high rate of speed. However, any other EV that showed up during that time period would have been unable to charge.