EV Chargers In The Middle Of A Field? – CleanTechnica

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Looking at Xitter (the X is pronounced ‘sh’ as in pin yin) recently, I came across an interesting post between disinformation posts blaming suffering in North Carolina on U.S. support for Ukraine. This was refreshing, of course, but it was also baffling.

I’m at the infamous chargers in a field in Des Moines, NM. A fine example of why @ChargePointnet‘s business model does not work. This site has been like this for over a year. I bet all the local people that pass by this think EVs are a joke.@itskyleconner @brandenflasch… pic.twitter.com/tKUCdleDHu

— ArtiePenguin1 (@MrArtiePenguin) September 30, 2024

Strangely, there are some ChargePoint chargers in northeast New Mexico that have been bafflingly placed in the middle of a field. There’s not only no power to them, but no way for a vehicle to approach them should they receive a transformer and a utility connection. There’s no parking lot, and not even a flat dirt lot. The ground is uneven, covered in weeds, and there are no amenities like bathrooms near them. The closest building is a Phillips 66, but it’s a ways off.

Strangely, the chargers have been sitting installed on that empty lot for a year, so there doesn’t seem to be much of a plan for building a proper parking lot with at least gravel or any plan for getting them powered on. The chargers appear to have been abandoned.

ArtiePenguin says that this indicates a problem with ChargePoint’s business model, and that’s probably true. ChargePoint wants the company’s good name and branding on the equipment and wants the equipment in their network/app, but doesn’t control much after selling the equipment.

Ultimately, since so little has been done, it would probably be better to simply remove the chargers from there and re-install them down the street at the gas station where there’d at least be a bathroom to use, drinks and snacks, etc.

Another thing I agree with him on is that this isn’t great for EV adoption. Local people seeing EV chargers strangely installed in an empty field aren’t going to think it’s a good sign for EVs. If anything, they’ll see it as a sign that nobody cares about EVs. It’s embarrassing for the whole industry for this kind of thing to be left hanging for a year in such a strange way.

Fortunately, Des Moines, New Mexico, does have two working EV chargers run by Francis Energy. It appears that NMDOT wanted to provide charging in the town, but gave up on it when Francis decided to put in faster EV chargers down the road. It just doesn’t make sense to leave the equipment sitting there instead of being put to use somewhere. If the machines aren’t going to be put to use in Des Moines, I’d say put them in Glenwood, NM, and open up US-180 to more EVs.

Another Bafflingly Inaccessible Charger Installation

According to the Village People, it’s fun to stay at the YMCA. That may be true, depending on what decade you live in and what kind of fun you’re looking for. But, at the Brentwood YMCA in Tennessee, things are decidedly un-fun for EV drivers:

It looks like this EVgo DCFC may have entered itself into running for Worst EV Charger Installation of 2024.

Located at the Brentwood YMCA in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Anyone know of a worse install? 😂 pic.twitter.com/Jp0mZxpSwI

— The Cybertruck Guy (@cybrtrkguy) September 23, 2024

In this case, the charger isn’t in an empty field, but it is on top of a mound of dirt, surrounded by grass, which is in turn surrounded by a curb. It’s probably possible to get a vehicle with clearance onto the area to get a charge, but there’s some risk of damaging sprinklers or getting stuck if you go too soon after a watering. A small tree has been planted in front of the charger, further cutting it off from the pavement nearby.

But, if you ever get to feeling worthless, keep the blue bollards in mind. It’s unlikely with all of the other obstacles involved that any EV will ever run into the charger!

How did this happen? Nobody’s quite sure. Some think that the charger was put in before the parking lot was built, and then the people making the parking lot landscaped around it. The right hand didn’t know what the left was doing. Others think that the parking lot was redesigned at some point, and now the charging station needs to be relocated. To figure out what happened, I looked at Google Earth to see if older imagery showed the lot before any changes.

It turns out that the redesign theory was true. It really doesn’t make any sense what they did here, as the parking lot was reduced by several spaces in the redesign for no discernible reason. Hopefully EVgo and the local YMCA figure out how to make things fun for EV drivers again soon!

Abandoned EV Chargers Are Nothing New

For various reasons, EV chargers have been abandoned over time. Until sometime recently, the original EV1-era MagneCharge stations (paddle chargers) sat abandoned in a few places in California. The vehicles that charged at them had been crushed or themselves abandoned over time, leaving no users. A 2011 program aimed to update some of them to J1772 plugs, but I know of at least one that survived all of this time and might still work if someone with one of the rare remaining paddle charger cars drove up.

Modern EV chargers sometimes get abandoned, too. For example, there’s a charging station at the south end of Petrified Forest National Park that the owners (the NPS-contracted concessioner for the park) haven’t wanted to repair. It has been this way since at least 2019, if not earlier. I’ve also seen abandoned charging stations at an Arco AMPM gas station in Tucson, at a Bowlin’s travel center near Picacho Peak, Arizona, and several broken Blink stations that the Housing Authority in El Paso thought was a good idea for low income housing when EVs cost $40,000 and up. Another thing I’ve seen multiple times are abandoned CHAdeMO stations at Nissan dealers that didn’t want to pay to upkeep them.

As technology improves, we’ll probably see many 50 kW stations that people don’t want to use anymore suffer the same fate, but for now it’s typically repair costs or a charging company going under that leads to abandoned chargers and not technological shifts.

What about you? Have you seen any truly bizarre abandoned or poorly placed EV charging stations? Be sure to tell us all about them in the comments or on social media.

Featured image by ArtiePenguin1 on X/Twitter. Used with permission.