New trip with electric car to Sweden. We left with good faith that errors and deficiencies at the charging stations had been rectified since we visited in August last year. But it hadn't gotten any better. Far from.
We arrived at Rasta in Värnamo where we had booked a room and thought this couldn't get any better! There were 4 free E.ON charging posts outside. Then we could connect the power to our new Ford Mustang Mach-e.
Or?
First on one charger. It didn't work. Neither do any of the others. The charging station appeared to be operational, but still did not accept the bank card that we could use everywhere in the Nordics. We also tried other payment cards. According to the user manual on the charging post, you could choose to pay with a charging chip, bank and credit card or the Easypark app. The user manual explained that the cards were read using "tapping", but this did not work for us, even after many attempts.
The last resort was to call E.ON's service number. There we met a nice lady called Olivia. She couldn't see why the charging post wouldn't work, but reset the terminal. Both she and we tried to make contact with it - still without success. In other words, the system was "Out of order". That's what was on the screen.
Well, the charging stations didn't work, but we were happy that Olivia tried to help us and not like last year, when the exchange only had service until 17.00 p.m.
The charging station, which was now out of service, is located in a very central location by Broadest, just outside Värnamo where the E4 and Riksvei 27 cross each other. We weren't particularly optimistic about the journey on to Malmö the following morning. We had bad experiences on the same route a year ago that I described in the first article about charging complications in Sweden. The charging stations are simply not good enough and one can ask questions about whether the companies that supply these systems understand how important this is for everyone who drives an electric car?
Fortunately, there were several charging stations in the area. Would they work? - And would it be possible to get assistance if we had problems? It was getting late.
We found an available Ionity charging station near Circle K that not only worked, but gave better charging speed. Overall, we therefore didn't lose that much time. The charging post at Ionity worked as it should. It accepted the payment as expected and started charging. Fortunately, we then had no need to test assistance at the exchange. It was getting late.
The fact that both ABB and E.ON have their logos on 4 charging stations that did not work outside Rasta does not inspire confidence. Both are solid, major players in this market.
If you are going to travel with an electric car in Sweden, you must be prepared for the charging systems not working. However, the share of electric cars is not as high as in Norway, but electric cars have been on Swedish roads for over 10 years. One of the common objections people have to electric cars is that they cannot be charged en route so that they can safely reach their destinations. If the suppliers in Sweden do not ensure that the charging stations work along the roads, people will still be skeptical.
A little apropos is that the undersigned already for approx. 20 years ago we had a cooperation agreement to build up an infrastructure at charging stations in Norway, when we believed that an expanded charging structure would be a critical factor for the spread of electric cars. Oslo Energi, ABB and JCDecaux were then involved in the planning of the charging structure in Oslo and the surrounding area under the name Charging power.
See
Charging complications in Sweden
With XPeng G3 electric car in Sweden. XPeng worked well, but Swedish charging stations are not much to brag about. If you are going to drive an electric car in Sweden, you should read this post. See more
Jonny Bunæs
Jonny Bunæs is a businessman with many projects at home and abroad. Among other things, he has been involved in developing infrastructure for electric car users and charging networks. He was one of the first to use an electric car in Norway.
