As I have indicated before, I have no option to plug in the car (2025 XSE Premium) where I currently live, so am dependent on charging stations. (besides occasionally getting a tiny bit of charge from the solar charging roof.) Therefore yesterday, totally out of charge, when I saw a charging station a couple blocks away from where I had a doctor appointment, I thought I would get some charge while at the doctor? It was an EvGo charging station. They had cables with two different kinds of connectors, both much larger than the one for my car. (Not the Tesla connector either.) So I could not charge there. This also happened recently when I wanted to charge at chargers within a Von's supermarket parking lot. Only one connector, similar to one of those at EvGo, too large to fit in my car. As I think the kind in our cars is the most common type of connector (not counting Tesla), why do some charging stations not have a cable that that will fit it? Seems they are losing business that way? (If many cars cannot use their station?) Can one obtain some kind of adapter that would enable one to use those different chargers? Thanks in advance. BTW, speaking of charging while shopping, etc., it is aggravating that Whole Foods (at least here in California) no longer have chargers in their parking lots! (Bezos kissing up to Trump?)
Your more than likely running into DC fast chargers in So. Cal.. IMHO; it's unwise to hook-up using an adapter to something you don't know what the output is. That's the reason they are different connectors; to prevent stupid stuff from happening. If it's a popular charging spot, there should be a J1772 connector somewhere. On my car and my driving style; I've calculated that paying more than $0.38 Kwh is the same as paying for gasoline. That calculation was done @ $4 a gallon of gasoline. In my experience, most charging stations charge way north of that and stack fees on top if it. This also doesn't take into account how long you'll need to hook-up - since these cars are slow chargers compared to other modern cars. Some will add a parking time fee that ticks off every 30 minutes. Your car, your wallet, do whatever you like....
public charging is complicated. you should see the confusion over on the chevy bolt forum. if you want to learn about public charging, you'll have to spend a lot of time with google, it's a steep learning curve
You are probably looking at CHAdeMO or CCS level 3 DC fast chargers. I don't think there is a lot of financial incentive to build out much more level 2 chargers. Plug-in hybrids are the only new cars that are limited to L2 public chargers and it is usually more economical and convenient for their owners to buy gas if they need to fuel outside of the home. The DC fast chargers generate more revanue becaue time is money. Even if the owner of the charging station could add J1772 connector to it, why would they? It would probably cause them to lose money. For a plug-in hybrid to even bother charging, the price would have to be less than $0.40 per kWh. Imagine a Prius Prime taking a spot for 1 hour just to spend $1.32 when 3 modern EVs could spend over $100 at a fast charger during that same hour. Usually the only economical L2 charging stations in my area are at malls (best chance of getting a spot is before they open) or government buildings (libraries, city halls, parks etc.). Most of the charging apps allow you to filter out any charging stations that won't connect to your Prius Prime. The ones I use the most are JOLT (mostly free charging at malls), charge point (sometimes has reasonably priced L2 charging at about 0.30 per kWh) and plugshare (finds pretty much any charger).
I've got the plugshare app on my phone, but rarely use it - since my car charges while I sleep. I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of L2 charger in a national park I camped in for two days. They were marked for a specific brand of EV but had J1772 plugs and what looked like a chargepoint screen. I was lock-out of one, but the other did an electronic hand-shake and started charging. I corrected the plugshare data and description, that one of the two is freely open.
