As many have experienced the charging of EV’s in Pasadena has been disappointing, and when it comes to DCFC fast charging it has been horrible.
With most DCFC not working. Well over 80% do not work.
This has been the case for a long time, even before Shell and the City of Pasadena parted ways, and after millions had been spent.
Greenlots failed on many levels and other cities experienced this well before Shell acquired them, and switched to other providers like Chargepoint, ripping out chargers from Greenlots.
Shell now is attempting again but again failing to deploy a network of chargers. Buying other companies along the way, basically attempting to eliminate the competition.
This leaves Pasadena with approx 50 DC Fast Chargers, at several locations around the city, most notable is the Marengo plaza parking 5th floor top floor with 20 DCFC with most of them not working. As of April 19, there was one that appeared to work with a vehicle charging.
Most have the old Shell labels or nothing, others have no signage or QR codes. The city needs to be clear about what is being doing here, and has failed to do that.
The current status is that we are being told that half of the non functioning chargers will be repaired, whatever that number is we don’t know, since what is defined as not working.
The other half will be repaired within three months. So in three months we should have working approx 50 DCFC in Pasadena. All with CCS and a good amount with Chademo connections at 50kw charging capability.
Current Status:
DC Fast Charging in Pasadena
Del Mar – 2 DCFC – both appear to with with CCS only one works with Chademo
Robinson Park – 5 DCFC – 2 working, both on CCS and Chademo
Victory Park – 3 DCFC – 1 working – only CCS. 2 others are on, but either QR code is incorrect or units are broken, even though city claims all units are operations.
Glenarm(Arroyo Electric Vehicle) – 6 DCFC none working, all DCFC OFF
Shoppers Lane – possibly 2 are working only CCS chargers
Marengo Plaza – 20 DCFC – 1 appears to be working, several others are on, 16 are either off or blocked by barricade, cones
City of Pasadena PowerFlex app, is only showing DCFC at Del Mar(1) and Victory Park (3) so basically according to the app that City of Pasadena relies on and tells users to use, there are four DCFC, Of those four two work from what we can tell.
With less than two weeks for the city to repair the broken DCFC we certainly hope the city can deliver on the repairs of these chargers.
One continued comment we hear is that the rate for charging on Pasadena PWP chargers is one of the lowest. I don’t think that is a good thing. The city needs to figure out a competitive rate, and perhaps seriously revise rates, but also one thing that needs to be done is offer residents a preferred rate. Also, the limit on DCFC should be 30minutes max. There’s no reason anyone should be there longer, if they do, there needs to be surcharges. If a charger is still available after 30minutes you can either restart a session, or move to another charger or move and allow someone else 30minutes of charge. When there are multiple vehicles attempting to charge like is common at Robinson Park, there needs to be a way to que vehicles and allowing others to charge.
Right now it seems that Robinson Park needs the most attention to chargers. With 5 chargers and only two working, if the city could double that quickly it would really help the users.
As many Altadena residents who lost their homes have told me firsthand, they rely on fast charging, to get back and forth, many live far away and fast charging is the only viable way to get back and forth from their current housing.
The city sends people to this page:
Then sends them to Plugshare. Notice that Robinson Park is not listed on the city website. Why?