No news is good news: that’s really the story of why I haven’t posted in a long time. The Mini and I have been cruising along, doing our daily commute and small sojourns here and there. It is serving me well. But there have not been any major developments (or issues) with my Mini or with charging infrastructure that would merit a full blog post. Here are two small things though:

Mercedes HPC

I used a Mercedes High Powered Charger for the first time the other day. It was at a Buc-ees, which are the only places I have seen them so far. It was quite nice and there were a good number of stalls to choose from. They have card readers and support Plug and Charge but I don’t think they are very clear on what app to use if you want to initiate that way. Instead of their own app, they use the Chargepoint app. That was somewhat surprising to me, but since I use the Chargepoint app regularly, I appreciate that Mercedes doesn’t require you to download a new app. However, I think they should make it clearer which app they use for anyone trying to find their chargers and initiate through an app rather than CC or Plug and Charge.

Interestingly, I was charging next to a Hummer EV and I chatted with the driver a bit. He liked the car alright but was griping about how long it took to charge. From our brief conversation it sounded like he did not charge at home and was perhaps not aware of the Hummer’s max DC charge speed or how to get it because he talked about spending hours at the charger. I can imagine that would be a difficult car to live with under those circumstances. As EVs become cheaper and more widely available I do not expect everyone who buys one to be well versed in the nuances of charging, etc. but it’s shocking to think of someone dropping $100k on a vehicle they don’t fully understand.

NACS Adapter and Supercharger Access

Where is it? That’s really all I have to say. We got that notice at the end of last year hyping it up. It did not promise a time within 2025 that we would get access but it is strange to me that they sent that notice out so early and have given no updates since then. I am less interested in the Supercharger network these days but there are some instances where the option would be nice. I suppose we’ll just have a keep waiting…