My new EV came with a $500 EVgo credit. It's hard to use that credit around Berkeley: On the one hand, it's clear that there are tons of drivers with credits like mine. On the other, the availability of public chargers is insufficient to meet the demand. As an experiment, I drove over to Whole Foods even though both chargers were shown as Busy on the EVgo app. I lucked out because the car at JANE was close to finishing. The driver backed out just as I was set to pull in, and I began my session with JANE. JANE worked as advertised even though I never got their pronouns (it/it?). I charged for almost a full hour and upped my range only by around 150 miles. This was a disappointment because I've been wondering whether it's possible to drive long distances, stopping off periodically for a fast charge. I was hoping for a full charge from close to zero in something like 30 minutes. It turns out that a 50kW charger is not what I need. After my charge, I got a survey from EVgo that asked about my time with JANE: "Thanks for plugging in at Whole Foods Berkeley - Telegraph with Jane. We want to make sure you have a great charging experience, so we're hoping you'll share your thoughts about your last charge with us." Usually I ignore surveys, but I made sure to fill out this one -- to let EVgo know that I am not a happy customer. I groaned when I saw the photos that EVgo uploaded to this Yelp page. The mountains in the background don't look like Berkeley. The happy humans in the photos don't remind me of the frustrated EV drivers that I saw lurking around Whole Foods. We definitely need more and better infrastructure. You might want to read the Washington Post article https://wapo.st/3RnXAen -- "A mishmash of broken chargers are endangering the electric vehicle transition -- just as it's getting started." read more