Petro-Canada completed their coast-to-coast electric vehicle (EV) charging network generally known as the Electrical Freeway in late 2019. Since then the community has been plagued with reliability issues, with homeowners incessantly reporting chargers being damaged and out of service.
The corporate has heard the suggestions from prospects and in an open letter acknowledged the Electrical Freeway’s poor reliability, explaining a few of the causes behind why it has been such a foul expertise for a lot of EV homeowners.
Within the letter, which was printed on Electrical Autonomy, Petro-Canada says they knew launching a nationwide EV charging community wasn’t going to be simple as they have been “first in a [developing] market” and an “early adopter of latest expertise.”
The corporate explains that issues with the expertise have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which impacted provide chains limiting the supply of components. Once they did have the components, Petro-Canada says journey restrictions made it tough to get technicians to restore the EV chargers.
Regardless of the challenges they are saying are dedicated to enhancing the reliability of their community.
“Our instant priorities give attention to refining the reliability of our chargers — together with {hardware} and digital capabilities — and enhancing communications with EV drivers. This may enhance the community right now and put together us for enlargement as we add new stops to Canada’s Electrical Freeway,” Petro-Canada stated.
Petro-Canada has their work minimize out for them, and one of many first issues the corporate might do is replace their web site to precisely report the variety of stations at the moment open and out there to EV homeowners.
A evaluate of Plugshare reveals that over 20% of their stations are at the moment out of order, however in line with Petro-Canada’s personal web site, all of them are open with no indications that any are down or dealing with points.
Their cell app, which might be much more vital to have up-to-date info for EV homeowners on the transfer, doesn’t even present that they’ve any EV charging stations, not to mention which of them are open or below restore.
You’ll be able to learn the complete letter over at Electric Autonomy.