The adoption of electric vehicles is on the rise. In 2024, an estimated 3.8 million EVs will be on the road. By 2030, just six short years later, that number is expected to reach 26.3 million. Despite that, the country’s car charging infrastructure is struggling, causing range anxiety among prospective buyers[1] and dissatisfaction among current drivers. We’ve all experienced the myriad ways that an EV charging port can break– from outright vandalism to card reader errors to network failures and beyond.It leads to drivers frantically pulling out google to search: EV station near me? But there’s a better way.
So, what do you do when you pull up in yourEV, and the electric car charger is not working? Hopefully, your EV isn’t riding near 0% charge (did you know it’s recommended you never let your vehicle drop below 20%[2] ?).Here are the next three things you should do before searching for another EV charging station nearby.
1. Look for a Customer Service Number
It can be tempting to just cut your losses and head to the next closest charging station, but it might be better to pause and look for a customer service number on the charging port. Unless the charging cable or port is visibly broken, it’s often possible that the charging station just needs to be rebooted, and a friendly customer service rep just one phone call away can remotely restart it. In this case, just a few minutes on the phone can have you up and running – and if you needed to drive to a new location to find another charging station, that time would’ve passed anyway.
2. Open the You.Car App and Report the Car Charger is Not Working
EV drivers are part of a community, and we rely on each other to gather information. Whether that’s on Reddit discussing the latest features of a new software update or in an app ranking the best EV charging stations nearby, every EV driver has the opportunity to make an impact in this relatively small and exclusive network of drivers.
If you come across a car charger that is not working and a call to the customer service line can’t fix the issue, do your fellow EV drivers a favor and hop on the You.Car app to log it. You.Car, the ultimate app for EV drivers, compiles this community intelligence to give drivers a real-time map of chargers in their location.Just think: if the driver before you had done that, you wouldn’t have wasted your time coming to this charging port to begin with.
In fact, go the extra step and rate and review all of the charging stations you stop at, not just the broken ones. This type of crowdsourced data ensures that EV drivers really know what to expect before pulling up to the station. If it charges slower than advertised, sits beside a particularly good coffee shop, or needs a little TLC… sign in to your You.Car account and let the world know.
3. Use You.Car to find EV Charging Stations Nearby
When all else fails,EV drivers just have to move on. If the customer service rep can’t reboot the station, there are no other open ports at that location, and you’ve already logged the problem in You.Car, then it’s time to open up the app’s navigation feature and find the next best option. You know it’s better than googling “ev station near me?” and hoping for the best.
Good news: you cansearch for nearby EV stations that meet your specific qualifications. If youneed a Tesla fastchargeryou can filter for that. If you need to shop for tonight’s dinner while youcharge, you can filter for grocery stores, too. Download You.Car to discoverthe complex filtering options available.
One day, we’ll live in a world where EV drivers can charge their vehicles on every corner, just like gas cars can fill up every few hundred feet in most towns across America. Maybe that will make EV road trips more popular .The charging infrastructure is one of the biggest things holding back EV adoption – but You.Car is here to help. Download the app. We’ll help you find EV charging stations nearby, filter based on your fav amenities, and makeEV ownership a bit simpler. Together, we can help the world go electric.
