Easily the biggest selling point for Tesla vehicles is the Supercharger network. At this point, Teslas aren’t that much better than their EV competitors from legacy automakers, if they’re better at all. Plus, build quality issues, build delays, and an overall lack of real-world car features make most EV competitors better all around cars.
However, the Supercharger network is easily the best charging network across the board; quantity, accessibility, charge speed, ease-of-use, and overall quality of experience. Unfortunately, the Supercharger network is only available to Tesla owners, so every other EV owner needs to use often a combination of other networks. Which leads me to ask: which is the best non-Supercharger charging network?
I don’t own an electric vehicle and I haven’t had the chance to test enough electric vehicles that I’ve become familiar with different charging networks. I’ve experienced a few, only once or twice each time, and I’ve done my research on forums and EV-based subreddits to get an idea of how customers feel about some of the networks. What I think would be helpful is for any EV owners who frequent this site to discuss their own experiences with EV charging networks, such as Electrify America, EV Go, ChargePoint and the countless others.
Electrify America, the network backed by the Volkswagen Group, is the one I’m personally most familiar with and it’s worked okay during my few experiences with it but there are certainly issues with user interface and functionality. Especially if you listen to the countless stories of EA chargers flat-out not working and wasting hours of customers’ time.
At the moment, BMW is offering two entirely new electric vehicles; the BMW iX and BMW i4; which are likely going to be the first electric vehicles for a lot of customers. To help assist any new EV customers that have questions and concerns about the charging networks they’ll potentially lose, share any of your experiences, both good and bad.
