Public EV charging is not so easy

TO THE EDITOR:

Regarding "The road to convenient EV charging" ("Daily Drive," autonews.com, Oct. 30): I live in Southern California and have been in the automotive service business 40 years. For 15 years, I have owned hybrid (early Honda Insight), electric (Fiat 500e) and plug-in hybrid (Chevy Volt) vehicles and have sampled hydrogen offerings (Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity).

I am an urban resident, I charge at home, and I drive 30 to 50 miles a day. I never take my electric car outside our county.

I use a Level 1 charger because the installation cost for Level 2 at my house equals more than 30,000 miles of energy.

One of the best benefits of an electric is not having to go to a gas station regularly. I have used Volta, a service that provides free charging outside grocery stores, but 50 percent of the time, their app indicates chargers are open, yet they are not. Other stations have less than 50 percent of chargers working or compatible with my car. In five years, I have never done any successful charging at a pay charge station around my area (for many reasons).

One of the worst things about charging options today is the insistence that an owner must join and disclose their personal and vehicle information to get a charge. This is not the case with internal combustion vehicles — we can come and go without having to share who we are or where we are going. I've not noticed anyone in the media mentioning this.

MICHAEL ROEDER, Owner, Autonomy, San Diego Autonomy is an automotive consultancy.