EV Charging Stations (CS)

[Andrew Dwyer]

4 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

Haven’t tried to route plan with the ReverSharger app but i don’t see this option there is “ Plan trip “ but doesn’t appear to allow a stop inbetween so in effect is like the “ Navigate “ button.

 

I would use either Google Maps, Waze or ABRP ( A Better Route Planner ) to plan your route from your phone via Android Auto ( I believe you have gone Samsung now ).

 

The Seal Navigation is pretty poor imho:

Initially i liked it as the interface was great and the shortcut button to bring up chargers was very handy. But it did struggle to find places and I reverted to Google Maps.

 

Recently the car has had a dealer update ( 2407 now ) and the SIM has been changed, along with this the Seal Navigation had an update.

Gone is the charger shortcut button, it is now buried in settings, the interface has changed but is neither better nor worse imho.

Worse though is the actual Navigation functionality:

On a recent road trip i typed in The White Temple in Chiang Rai whilst in Chiang Mai , drove some 180 km and the little lady exclaimed “ turn in here “ ! while the Navigation claimed i had 13 km to go !! putting it down to an error in my typing ( maybe i was headed to the White Temple café or Hotel ? ) i let it slide.

The next tourist stop was Wat Huay Pla Kang, stopped at a traffic light the Navigation was sending me 5 km to the right when the actual Wat 

 

 

was there to the left ( hard to miss ) !, curious i followed the Navigation and it took me away from my intended destination, announcing “ you have arrived at your destination “ in the middle of a random street  some 5 km away.

Needless to say i used Google Maps from then on with zero problems as the BYD Seal Navigation seems to be somewhat “ off “ !

Since my recent road trip and my adoption of the EV Station Pluz chargers in future i will be concentrating on using them only.

As stated they are plentiful and saw a couple of PTT stations yesterday without the large EV signs but clearly had chargers in operation.

 

The booking system is the only downside imo !

As i have taken advantage of the free electrons since Aug i thought it time to do a <10% to 100% charge on AC when arriving home ( 8% to 100% overnight took 12 hours on my ABB wall charger ).

So i did some mental calculations to charge at Kamphaeng Phet  to 58% arriving home with less than 10%.
 

It was 4.15 pm when i perused the app and both 120 kw chargers were available but booked for 4.00 to 4.30 and 4.30 to 5.00pm ( okay 4.27 and 4.57 but you get the idea ) so i decided to book the 5.00 to 5.30 slot .

Arriving around 4.50 pm neither charger was in use so i guess someone had booked 4 slots ( 80 baht ) and not shown up !

Why they adopted the booking system, and subsequent reduction to 1/2 hour slots, I don’t know. !

[Pib]

1 hour ago, Bandersnatch said:

ReverSharger gives me a list of charging stations on it's suggested route but when I selected a BYD dealership, it creates a trip to that location and it seems I have to repeat the exercise for my next stop.

 

Yeap....appears that's the way it works....just shows all the ReverSharger chargers along the way and when you select one of the chargers it just navigates you to that charger if desired.   Then repeat when it time to charge again.    No way I know of to select multiple chargers like Stop 1, Stop 2, etc., along the way.   

 

But one thing it does do when using the trip planner is it points out there are a "LOT" of Reversharger locations along the way...can gives a person a good feeling especially when you know you have only looked at "one" of the charging networks/apps you may be signed up/registered with. 

 

Like for me I'm registered with the following 6 charging networks/app which includes Reversharger.   If you are not signed up with PTT and PEA I would recommend such since they have a lot of chargers but with the PTT app be sure you can get a debit/credit card loaded/accepted into your app profile as the PTT app only allows payment via card.   PEA allows card or Wallet payment with wallet top-up via QR code.....and maybe also straight QR payment.  I used the PEA app just today as a periodic test since I had Bt200 in the wallet that I added via QR code top-up.  Here's the 6 charging networks/apps I'm registered with to include have payment options(s) setup in the apps.  After registering always be sure you can add a payment option to your profile...no use just registering and then not having a way to pay for a charging session.

1.  PTT  EV Station PluZ  (PTT stations are everywhere....and many have a EV charger...more being added)

2.  PEA Volta  (PEA has lots of chargers in the provinces...not many in Bangkok)

3.  EA Anywhere  

4.  ReverSharger

5.  Altervim

6.  EleXA

 

Note:  And a charging test today using the Elexa app (i.e., Electric Generating Authority of Thailand - EGAT) confirmed why I list it last....will post a short story why later today probably.   I rarely need to actually use a charger on a trip due to the range of my Atto and where I have went so far...actually only "needed" to do it twice in the 14 months I've owned the Atto, BUT,  I still do charging tests (i.e., charge for a few kilowatts/a few minutes) at least every year with all the charging apps I registered with to ensure I can indeed charge, see if any new payment options have become available (like maybe an app adding payment option via Wallet, QR code, mobile banking, etc., versus just offering only payment via debit/credit card.

[Bandersnatch]

32 minutes ago, Pib said:

Yeap....appears that's the way it works...

 

Appreciated, I thought I was missing a trick.

 

As for your charging list, I have all but #5 and I have loaded payment methods into all of them. 

 

I took your advice and installed the new version of EV station + app when you posted about it so thanks for that.

[Pib]

11 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

 

Appreciated, I thought I was missing a trick.

 

As for your charging list, I have all but #5 and I have loaded payment methods into all of them. 

 

I took your advice and installed the new version of EV station + app when you posted about it so thanks for that.

The old PTT EV station app no longer works at all...can't even log in per my test about a week ago.  Expect it died on 1 Jan 2025.  So I uninstalled it. But I setup the new PTT app in early Dec and it works fine now although it had numerous glitches for a few days after going online according to social media ctossfeed and a few tests I did in mid Dec.

 

Now the Elexa app has been running painfully slow over the last week and today/right now it's running extremely painfully slow with server errors...at least on my phone a Samsung S24+. How about for you right now?  The other charging apps are running fine.

[Pib]

16 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

 

As for your charging list, I have all but #5 and I have loaded payment methods into all of them. 

With 5 charging apps setup you probably have access to a DC charger about every 5km (or less) along your trek.   

 

And once you get close to/in Bangkok it will be like every 100 meters for a DC/AC charger....kinda like a 7-11 being on every other soi....or a 7-11 every few hundred meters on major sois/roads.   😁

[Andrew Dwyer]

12 minutes ago, Pib said:

The old PTT EV station app no longer works at all...can't even log in per my test about a week ago.  Expect it died on 1 Jan 2025.  So I uninstalled it. But I setup the new PTT app in early Dec and it works fine now although it had numerous glitches for a few days after going online according to social media ctossfeed and a few tests I did in mid Dec.

 

Now the Elexa app has been running painfully slow over the last week and today/right now it's running extremely painfully slow with server errors...at least on my phone a Samsung S24+. How about for you right now?  The other charging apps are running fine.

Just tried Elexa, took about a minute to load then another minute to login and as i hadn’t used it since registering ages ago it asked for my phone number to send an OTP.

All that is not promising at all 

[Pib]

9 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

Just tried Elexa, took about a minute to load then another minute to login and as i hadn’t used it since registering ages ago it asked for my phone number to send an OTP.

All that is not promising at all 

Thanks for the confirmation of it being painfully slow....and looking at a phone for a minute waiting for an app to complete an action (like just to login) can seem like 10 minutes.  Even 15 seconds can seem like minutes. 

 

Oh, almost forgot: after logging in the upper right hand corner of the app do you see a icon along the lines of "e-KYC" for Electronic - Know Your Customer verification?  I think it has a explanation mark also in front of it.  And when tapping on that icon is starts an Identity Verification process.

[Bandersnatch]

22 minutes ago, Pib said:

Now the Elexa app has been running painfully slow over the last week and today/right now it's running extremely painfully slow with server errors...at least on my phone a Samsung S24+. How about for you right now? 

 

I don't charge away from home except for doing a quick test charge when I find a new charging company local to me.

 

I also have the Samsung S24 Ultra so will be testing it with a few charging stations over the next couple of days.

[Andrew Dwyer]

25 minutes ago, Pib said:

Thanks for the confirmation of it being painfully slow....and looking at a phone for a minute waiting for an app to complete an action (like just to login) can see like 10 minutes.  Even 15 seconds can seem like minutes. 

 

Oh, almost forgot: after logging in the upper right hand corner of the app do you see a icon along the lines of "e-KYC" for Electronic - Know Your Customer verification?  I think it has a explanation mark also in front of it.

No icon as you described.

 

 

I did try the route planner with a route i use often but with no start button i wasn’t sure how to get it to “ start “ !!

I guess that’s it. ?

 

[KhunLA]

49 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

 

Appreciated, I thought I was missing a trick.

 

As for your charging list, I have all but #5 and I have loaded payment methods into all of them. 

 

I took your advice and installed the new version of EV station + app when you posted about it so thanks for that.

I peeked at Gmap, and both routes have plenty of CSs.  You can almost, probably make without charging, especially if 580 is WLTP range, as it's only 460 kms (using hwy # 539), although about 7 hrs.

[Andrew Dwyer]

7 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

No icon as you described.

 

 

I did try the route planner with a route i use often but with no start button i wasn’t sure how to get it to “ start “ !!

I guess that’s it. ?

 

Tried a few longer locations ( 600 km ) but not an Elexa charger to be seen , what am I missing ?

Tried the Home Screen also which works as expected showing nearby chargers and search for chargers etc that you can then navigate to but the trip planner without any charging stops seems a bit surplus to requirements !!

 

Also get a few Format Exception messages so something amiss .

[Pib]

3 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

 

I don't charge away from home except for doing a quick test charge when I find a new charging company local to me.

 

I also have the Samsung S24 Ultra so will be testing it with a few charging stations over the next couple of days.

Over the past 14 months of owning my Atto and using DC chargers in quick & short tests of around a few minutes/few kilowatts (probably around 30 times) and  also another 80 times using ReverSharger chargers to get free electron of the expired BYD free/reduced rate electrons promotion, it has resulted in a good amount of charger QR code scanning to start/stop the charging session using my Samsung S24+.   

 

What I experienced is usually the QR code scans just fine but maybe 20% of the time it can "appear" the phone is not able to scan the QR code on the charger because of app in-action/non response.  And you think to yourself you've never had a problem in scanning any other QR codes in your daily activities where QR codes are used.   

 

What is really happening when it "appears" the charger code is simply not being scanned by your phone, well, it not that the phone is not able to scan the QR but it because the charging app can be very slow in giving you any indication it was able to scan the QR code because the charging app and the cloud servers it connecting to along with the cloud server communication with the charger can sometimes be painfully slow. 

 

Makes you think there is something wrong with your phone...makes you thing the phone is not scanning the QR code.  But what is really happening is the charging app is simply communicating slowly thru the charging network's cloud servers to the charger.   Quite a few times, especially at Shell chargers listed in the ReverSharger app, it sometimes take close to a minute for the scan of the QR to cause the charger to stop or start OR the app to take the next step/show the next screen in the app use process.   

 

Can make you think your durn expensive phone can't scan simple QR codes on a charger until you remind yourself your phone scans QR codes just fine every where else that you scan QR codes at, but for some reason QR code scanning at "some" chargers using certain charging app seems to be a hard thing to get to work "sometimes" like it's an intermittent problem.  Well, I've come to the conclusion from testing it's a case of simple "slow/corrupted" communications between your phone to the app's server in the cloud who is linking to the charger...and of course the charger talking back to the cloud server which in turns talks to your phone's app. 

[Pib]

18 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

No icon as you described.

 

 

I did try the route planner with a route i use often but with no start button i wasn’t sure how to get it to “ start “ !!

I guess that’s it. ?

 

 

 

You are looking at the wrong screen....I should have been more specific....my bad. 

 

Press the "Other" icon at the bottom which takes you into your Profile area/menu and then look for the "e-KYC" icon at the top right if your ID has not been verified.  If you did the ID verification process already and maybe forgot you did it in the past there will still be an icon but the icon will just show the image of a head & shoulders with a green check mark next to it which means you have completed the ID verification process.

[Andrew Dwyer]

12 minutes ago, Pib said:

 

 

You are looking at the wrong screen....I should have been more specific....my bad. 

 

Press the "Other" icon at the bottom which takes you into your Profile area/menu and then look for the "e-KYC" icon at the top right if your ID has not been verified.  If you did the ID verification process already and maybe forgot you did it in the past there will still be an icon but the icon will just show the image of a head & shoulders with a green check mark next to it which means you have completed the ID verification process.

Okay, am with you now, yup it’s requesting a passport photo ….. and gone into slow mode again !

[Andrew Dwyer]

12 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

Okay, am with you now, yup it’s requesting a passport photo ….. and gone into slow mode again !

Apparently after more than 50 tries my face comparison does not match ……. given up 😞