Congratulations on your new electric vehicle (EV), lets talk next about what needs to be on your phone to make the most out of your new EV. You need these to access DC fast chargers which can greatly enhance your EVs utility. Most EVs nowadays can replenish 80% of their battery in as little as 30 minutes using a compatible DC fast charging station. But where exactly are these stations? How do you use them, and are they any good? There are apps out there that will help you answer all these questions and more, lets discuss some of them.
A neighbour recently got themselves an electric car. After congratulating them on joining the club, talk came to phone apps. The discussion here is mostly for those of you living in or near Toronto, ON, Canada. Most charging networks have a geographical focus, so the ones discussed here may not apply to those of you living overseas or in other provinces.
Briefly, in order to find and operate DC fast charging stations you are going to need some apps. There are a few exceptions, some charging providers have credit card readers on their charging stations, such as Petro-Canada. And some charging stations, primarily Tesla’s supercharging network, integrate the charging experience with your car, so all you do is plug in.
PlugShare, this app shows you where the charging stations are which makes them much easier to find. Its got an active community where people comment on a given charging station, which is awesome when you are trying to figure out if its any good. (More in this post). You need to configure Plugshare’s filters to show only charging stations for the car you are using. Most EVs can use J1772 for L2 charging either natively or with an adapter. There is more fauna for fast charging, most brands use the combined charging system (CCs), the NACS (north American charging standard, or Tesla), while the Nissan Leaf uses the Chademo plug.
Flo is a lovely charging network, whose stations are generally well maintained. There fast charging stations usually have a CCs plug and a Chademo plug. Speed is 50-100 kw, which is on the slow side for fast charging. Once you get the app set up and put some money in your account I suggest ordering the rfid card through the app. It makes life easier, when you get to the charging station.
Petro-Canada also has charging stations at some of their stations they can be faster but are a wee pricy at $25 an hr. Reasonably reliable. Its not unusual to find one out of the two charging stations unavailable so I would check the comment section in plugshare carefully. Most if not all of the Petro-Canada stations have a credit card reader so there is no need to download an app, simply tap your credit card, enter your phone number to receive text updates on your charging session and voila.
Ivy is Ontario Power Generation’s charging network. It is not the most reliable, but these are the ones you will find at Onroute rest-stops, hence they can be quite convenient. you need the app (or an rfid card which you get through the app) to use the charging stations at the Onroute stations.
Charge-Point, has reasonable coverage in Ontario. Its not my go-to usually, but sometimes the charge-point stations are exactly where you need them to be, for example the Blue Mountain parking area. Similar to Flo, you need to create an account and add some money onto it. Charge-Point has a very slick apple-wallet integration, which makes the RF-ID card unnecessary.
Shell-Recharge, following Petro-Canada’s lead, shell has set up charging at some of their gas stations. Similar to petro-canada, reliability is not the best, but it can be a convenient location, near a major highway. Unlike Petro-Canada, you will need the shell-recharge app with some money in your account.
Tesla has opened some of their stations to other EVs. To use you do need the Tesla app with some money in your account. Most of them are Tesla only but there are some supercharging stations that have a “magic-doc” with an integrated CCS adapter. I’d consult PlugShare to see what might be available there, if your car has a CCS port, this might be a viable option.
Electrify Canada, similar to its better known Amercian cousin (Electrify America), Electrify Canada has a few stations scattered around Ontario. Generally they have lots of dispensers, often very fast charging units, and reasonable prices. As a Nissan Leaf owner however, they only have at most one Chademo connector, thus I usually go elsewhere. But this might be an option for my neighbour’s CCS car.
Start by doing a little research on which network has charging stations near your frequent haunts. For my friend, there is a Flo station near their cottage, so I would start with Flo. Get the app, order the RF-ID card, then find a nearby Flo station, that you can use for practice, to make sure that when the time comes, you know what to do.
As discussed (here), the charging network is far from perfect. Id say, 65 % of the time, things work great right of the bat. 15% of the time, its a problem with the app, perhaps I need to add some money to my account, I’ve forgotten my password etc. 15% of the time there is a minor fluke with the charging station, I may need to restart the session, or try another stall. Then there is that dreaded 5% of the time, where I am basically SOL, and try as I might, I am basically not going to be able to charge at that location.
Given that, it takes a little planning to do EV road-trips these days, plan on having enough juice in the battery to get to the next charging station along your route in case there is a problem with this one. You may not need to travel far, Bellville for example has two Flo station, a third party operator station at a Tim Hortons and a few L2 stations.
Electric car adventures 