Why the new energy vehicle charging APP is not easy to use
Today, new energy vehicles can be seen everywhere on busy roads.
The latest new car sales data shows that the proportion of new energy vehicles in my country will increase from 1/8 in 2021 to 1/4 in 2022, that is to say, there will be 1 new energy vehicle in every 4 vehicles in new car sales.
Correspondingly, there are more and more public charging piles built no matter in the community, around the business district or beside the road, and mobile phone programs that facilitate citizens to know the location and usage of charging piles have emerged as the times require.
However, many new energy vehicle owners report that it is still not easy to use public charging piles when they are away from home.
It is not uncommon for the app to show that there is an idle charging pile nearby, but follow the navigation to find it but come to nothing.
what 's wrong?
Is there a solution?
The reporter launched an investigation.
Encounter 1
APP shows that "the name is not worthy of the name"
Open the mobile phone map, WeChat charging applet or APP, search for nearby public charging stations, check where there are free charging piles, and then navigate to them. This is the basic operation for most new energy vehicle owners to find public charging piles.
Ms. Li, the owner of a new energy vehicle, recently drove her family to Hualian Tianshi Mingyuan Shopping Center in Tongzhou District. When she was approaching the mall, she found that the battery life was running low.
Ms. Li said that she rarely came here before and was not familiar with the surrounding charging facilities, so she opened the State Grid's "e-charging" app and searched, and found that there happened to be a public charging station next to the shopping mall. The two charging piles are in the "idle" state, and they are fast charging.
"It's so close, I just drove there without thinking about it." When she arrived at her destination, she found that all the charging parking spaces were full, and there was no "vacancy" at all.
"I wanted to make it convenient, but it turned out to be a waste of time."
According to the clues provided by Ms. Li, the reporter came to the public charging station in the parking lot of Beiyuan subway station.
The parking lot is a 4-story three-dimensional parking lot, and the charging piles are all located on the first floor.
There are a total of more than a dozen charging piles in the parking lot, most of which are posted with "suspended use" signs. There are only 5 charging piles available for use, and these charging parking spaces are full of vehicles.
At this time, the reporter opened the "e charging" APP, but found that there were still 2 "idle" on it.
If you look closely at the vehicles parked in the charging parking space, you will find that one of them is charging, two are fully charged, and the other two are occupied by uncharged vehicles.
In other words, the situation displayed on the APP does not match the actual situation of the charging parking space.
The reporter dialed the phone number reserved on the APP, and the operator said that he was the installer of the charging pile, not the management party. If the equipment is damaged, he can be contacted for repairs, but the problem mentioned by the reporter should be consulted with the parking lot management personnel.
The parking lot management personnel said that the phenomenon mentioned by the reporter is actually a problem of occupying space.
According to management personnel, the phenomenon of fuel vehicles occupying charging parking spaces and new energy vehicles fully charged but not moving has existed for many years. Although charging stations have posted multiple reminders that "move the car as soon as possible after charging" and "non-charging is strictly prohibited", the effect has been effective. little.
Encounter 2
The "hegemony" of fuel vehicles is still serious
Open the "Special Call" WeChat applet, and you can search for 10 public charging piles in No. 4 Courtyard, Sanjianfang Nanli, Chaoyang District. From the beginning of this year to February 23, the reporter checked the use of charging piles through the applet more than ten times. Status, every time I check, most charging piles are in the "idle" state.
But if you swipe the comment area on the applet, you will find that almost all of them are comments complaining about the serious space occupied by fuel vehicles. The earliest comment was in November 2022, which showed that "there are many charging piles, but all of them are covered by non-charging cars." Occupying the position, it becomes a free parking space, and it is difficult for the car that really needs to be charged to get close to the charging pile.”
Mr. Zhang, a citizen, had such an experience.
"The applet shows that there are several public charging stations nearby, but Sanjianfang Nanli No. 4 Courtyard has the most piles and the most vacancy." Mr. Zhang originally thought that there are so many vacant places, how can they be charged, At first, I was dumbfounded. All the "free" parking spaces on the applet were occupied by fuel vehicles, so I had no choice but to look for other charging stations.
The reporter followed Mr. Zhang to revisit the journey of "being cheated".
Open the applet and search for "Charging pile in No. 4 courtyard of Sanjianfang Nanli". After clicking to enter the page, you can see that only 2 of the 10 terminals are "charging", and the remaining 8 terminals are "idle".
"Many car owners, like me, usually rely on the prompts on the applet to find charging piles. It stands to reason that wherever there is 'free', it means that the charging piles are available, but this is not the case." Immediately afterwards, Mr. Zhang drove the reporter. to the charging station.
The charging station is full, and the 8 "free" parking spaces are parked with fuel vehicles, three-wheeled scooters and uncharged new energy vehicles.
"Look, it's the same as what I encountered last time." Mr. Zhang sighed, "The vehicle's dominance makes these charging applets useless."
Encounter 3
Finding charging parking spaces in the community is all about luck
Not only rely on the program on the mobile phone to find charging piles when going out, but many car owners also take out their mobile phones to take a look when they return to their own communities to charge.
Mr. Li, who lives in the Fuyan New Village Community in the housing area, always opens the map of his mobile phone when he gets off work, and checks from the top where there are free charging piles in the community.
The reporter found that there are 4 districts in Fuyan New Village. There are public charging stations in District 2 and District 4. These two districts are closely adjacent and connected to each other. There is a big difference in height between the two districts. At the junction of the two districts is a step more than ten meters high. Only pedestrians can walk through the steps directly, and vehicles must go around the outside of the district.
In order to avoid detours, Mr. Li searches the two charging stations on the map every time to determine which charging station has space before driving there.
"The later you get off work, the lower the success rate of this method." Mr. Li said that he often came to the charging station in the fourth district according to the prompt, and found that all the places were occupied, so he had to go around to the second district. "If you are unlucky Even the vacancies in the second district were taken.”
The reporter saw at the scene that no matter the charging stations in the second district or the fourth district, there were signs saying "Please do not occupy the charging parking space", but the two charging stations occupied a lot of space. There are also new energy vehicles that have not been driven away after being fully charged.
In this regard, the property staff said that residents have repeatedly reported the problem of occupying seats, and the property has also stepped up inspections. If the owner is in a hurry to charge, the property can help move the car.
Ask the reason
The applet can only identify the state of the charging pile
After visiting, the reporter learned that no matter mobile phone navigation, WeChat charging applet or APP, there are generally situations where the data is inaccurate and the display does not match the actual situation, and these data deviations all point to the same reason-vehicle occupancy.
Why is the charging parking space occupied, but the system still shows "free"?
The reporter contacted the customer service personnel of several charging pile companies to seek answers, and the explanations were consistent: the data on the mobile phone program is not inaccurate. From the experience of car owners, the charging parking space and the charging equipment are often integrated, but the mobile phone program can only Connected with charging equipment, it does not yet have the function of being able to identify whether the parking space is occupied.
In the program viewed by the car owner, there are generally three states: idle, charging and failure, and some programs will also display "gun inserted".
Regardless of the status, it only shows the usage status of the charging pile, and it cannot reflect whether the parking space where the charging pile is located is occupied.
The customer service staff said that under normal circumstances, the service provided by the charging pile company is maintenance and repair, which cannot solve the problem of "inaccurate" data on mobile phone programs caused by vehicle occupation.
find a way
Intelligent ground lock relieves fuel vehicles from occupying space
Because the vehicle occupies space, the convenient functions of the charging applet are difficult to come in handy. This is a charging pain point for many new energy car owners.
But the problem is not hopeless.
In the parking lot on the third basement level of Xitieying store in Wanda Plaza, Fengtai District, the reporter found a row of public charging piles with ground locks.
Mr. Chen, the car owner who is charging, said that there are 10 public charging piles here, all of which are equipped with ground locks, but these ground locks are not installed privately, but smart ground locks installed by the charging pile company.
"The ground lock is usually upright, and the lock can only be locked after scanning the code, so there will be no problem of occupying space for fuel vehicles."
The staff of the installation company said that this upgraded charging equipment is designed to prevent fuel vehicles from occupying space.
There are two ways to open the smart ground lock. One is that the owner automatically locks the lock after scanning the code through WeChat, Alipay or a small program, and the other is that the camera automatically recognizes the new energy license plate number and locks it.
In this way, it can effectively make up for the problem that the status of charging parking spaces cannot be displayed on the mobile phone program.
The reporter found that the space occupied by the upgraded public charging stations is indeed much less.
But it is a pity that among the 10 charging equipment, half of the ground locks have been damaged. Within half an hour of the reporter's observation, two fuel vehicles parked in the charging parking spaces with damaged ground locks.
Citizens reported that the occupancy situation will be even more serious during peak passenger flow periods during holidays or weekends.
Can such charging facilities with smart ground locks be installed in other public areas such as residential areas and roadsides?
The staff of the installation company said that this technology is relatively mature, but the construction of public charging piles is generally completed by the cooperation between the installation company and the site provider. Whether it can be installed depends on the willingness of the site provider.
"For example, to build a public charging pile in a community, the property company generally provides the site, and we are responsible for the installation and maintenance. Therefore, to install this kind of charging pile in the community, it is necessary to obtain the consent of the property management and the owners." Our reporter Lu Yi Good article and photo
Reporter's Notes
Solving charging pain points requires "compound medicine"
The people's livelihood survey made the reporter gratified that although there are still various inconveniences in charging new energy vehicles and the old phenomenon of vehicle "hegemony" has not been effectively curbed, the pace of exploration to solve the pain points has never stopped. more and more.
Judging from the situation of the public charging station in the parking lot of Beiyuan Subway Station and the public charging station in Fuyan New Village Community, simply relying on the establishment of warning signs and the dissuasion of staff has little effect on the control of vehicle occupation; while Wanda Plaza Xitieying The equipment upgrade of the public charging station in the store does provide us with a way to solve the problem.
But if the service and maintenance are not kept up, the upgraded equipment will also lose its usefulness.
Therefore, removing the root cause of the "hegemony" of fuel vehicles requires "compound medicine", which not only relies on the continuous intelligence of facilities, but also requires the continuous refinement of service management measures.
Of course, we have also seen that behind the vehicle occupancy is the contradiction between parking resources and charging needs.
Therefore, the upgraded equipment is not suitable for all public places, and relevant parties still need to make judgments based on the actual situation, and prescribe the right prescription so that fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles can reasonably share public spaces.
"Beijing Daily" February 24, 2023, Page 9