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The liberal utopia of San Francisco is reportedly experiencing some problems with its public electric vehicle charging stations. A new study reveals that one in four charging stations does not work.
David Rempel of the University of California at Berkeley argues the area is attempting to shift to electric vehicles as quickly as possible, but the infrastructure is not yet ready.
The study did not include Tesla vehicle charging stations because only drivers who own Tesla vehicles can use those stations.
“In order to achieve a rapid transition to electric vehicle driving, a highly reliable and easy to use charging infrastructure is critical to building confidence as consumers shift from using familiar gas vehicles to unfamiliar electric vehicles (EV),” the study reads.
“This study evaluated the functionality of the charging system for 657 EVSE (electric vehicle service equipment) CCS connectors (combined charging system) on all 181 open, public DCFC (direct current fast chargers) charging stations in the Greater Bay Area.”
“An EVSE was evaluated as functional if it charged an EV for 2 minutes or was charging an EV at the time the station was evaluated,” it continued.
“Overall, 72.5% of the 657 EVSEs were functional. The cable was too short to reach the EV inlet for 4.9% of the EVSEs. Causes of 22.7% of EVSEs that were non-functioning were unresponsive or unavailable screens, payment system failures, charge initiation failures, network failures, or broken connectors.”
In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that California would ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles starting in 2035, hoping to make an impact on climate change — though the state’s emissions are a tiny fraction of rising global emissions, which are driven largely by China today.