Here in EU (south-east France, north-west Italy to be more precise) most chargers seems operational though they are ALL an immense amount of crapware crap, many with mandatory dysfunctional apps, some with a hell of different smart-cards one per network plus roaming agreements.
Essentially most reliability issues here cane from the client crapware, not the charger itself. Maybe a three-phase main distribution plus HVDC dedicated for quick chargers help, but all issues I found are not electrical and some are really ridiculous like a mandatory dysfunctional app in a zone very bad covered by mobile networks where you can start charging after many efforts, than you are trapped, you have to stop the charge from car to remove the plug and your charging session remain open for restarting a charge on the same credit card and no other question asked. Customer services that IF they respond to their 24/7/365 "call us when you want, we are here to help" they say they can't identify the charger you are at and so on.
Essentially the "engineering parts" it's essentially ok here, the "business and business software part" deserve the use of napalm.
All these apps are just a symptom of there being oxygen wasters employed that rely on “growth & engagement” to justify their careers.
There is no reason an EV charger can’t have a card terminal to take payment like all gas pumps and call it a day, except these people would be out of a job if they no longer have any "engagement" to report on or user data to trade.
Absolutely, but only very few highway chargers here also accept bank cards and they also operate badly, some have only crapplications, some have app+card but the card tend to be costly.
It's very useful to get a multi-network RFID card. I've got ChargeMyHyundai and their card works with all these crappy little networks that feel so important to have an app.
I have some, BUT they tend to have some hyper-high costs on certain networks, so on unusual trips I still need a companion app to verify the price of one of the few I have plus the option to register, download the nth crapplication and so on to avoid roaming costs.
Just try ChargePrice somewhere in the EU no matter what charger, you'll find for the same charge an enormous price difference, often more than 4x or even 10x from the cheapest to the most expensive combo of roaming and own network cards. It's a jungle.
Thankfully as almost any BEV owner I do need public charging only for long trips, not frequently, for the rest I recharge at home, but this also means many in cities would simply never get an EV.
Than ad the absurd price delta from the BRICS countries, let's say an entry-level BEV, BYD Atto 3, ~38k€ here, ~9k€ in Thailand, same battery and accessories. For where I live there are enough public charger for essentially all destinations in the region, it's not a matter of mere availability, it's a matter of a awful market on them with absurdly different prices for the same amount of energy (and time, because some chargers have ha connection fee, a time fee and an energy fee together and you have to do a bit of math to find the cheapest if you want) while gasoline/diesel vary just about few cents around a region an not more than ten cents in the whole EU united to such incredible price difference for the car, essentially BEV are a sound option ONLY if you recharge at home 99% of the time and run them at least 20k km/year or more. Witch makes them sound for just 10% or so of the overall population. While at BRICS costs, not just China they probably be convenient for 50-30% of overall population.
Essentially most reliability issues here cane from the client crapware, not the charger itself. Maybe a three-phase main distribution plus HVDC dedicated for quick chargers help, but all issues I found are not electrical and some are really ridiculous like a mandatory dysfunctional app in a zone very bad covered by mobile networks where you can start charging after many efforts, than you are trapped, you have to stop the charge from car to remove the plug and your charging session remain open for restarting a charge on the same credit card and no other question asked. Customer services that IF they respond to their 24/7/365 "call us when you want, we are here to help" they say they can't identify the charger you are at and so on.
Essentially the "engineering parts" it's essentially ok here, the "business and business software part" deserve the use of napalm.