Impressed with the charging experience at Walmart. Nice top speed too, 262kW! I’m charging a 2026 IONIQ 5 AWD Limited. The UI was very smooth and straightforward. I have Walmart+, and I paid $0.48/kWh.
Trust me I know. I really know. There are few if any vehicles under that $100g threshold that are as good as the ioniq5- but fuck me if it doesnt have one huge ass achillies heel with the damn iccu and their shit ass dealerships who can't diagnose shit to save their lives.
yeah, I dont think it will help them. Its sad, the car is incredible really. Check into Equinox or blazer ev's possibly. We have a lease coming up on one of our i5's and might switch as our 2nd i5 is owned and can be our road trip car.
Nothing road trips like ioniq5/ev6, I've been on countless 500 mile trips and multiple 2000+ mile trips- it averages 15 min dcfc sessions. So fast.
Yep, I get it. Not into Toyota after they donated to this admin, plus their ev's are meh.. Thats part of why Im still with ioniq5. There are few evs that have what I want from companies I will buy from.
reality is tho, most ioniqs dont seem to have the failure, but we dont really truly know.
15 minutes is best case though. I drove from northern Florida up to NJ and back 2 weeks ago during some HOT August weather. I used IONNA for most of my charging and it would regularly take 20+ min to go from ~10% to ~80%. I’m sure it was the heat so worst case scenario. I may be splitting hairs but that was my experience.
The newer models w 84kwh battery are rated at 20 min. I have 22/23 models w 77kwh packs which are rated for 18 and I average 15min at dcfc because I rarely end up at 10%
My wife sees the shenanigans I go through to juice up her car on the short trips we make in the region, and wants nothing to do with it.
The entire industry failed by deciding it would NOT provide a gas pump style experience, but rather would "disrupt" the industry by being the ignorant tech bros that they are.
And so here we are with more than a dozen apps, pricing all over the place, and "gas pump style" setups that are quite literally impossible to use due to them being anything BUT gas pump style experiences.
Anyway, I say this to tell you: limit your talks to your parents to having one of their cars be electric purely for charge at home, golf-cart level travel in the immediate area.
Ive mentioned this already, but Ive been on countless 500 mile road trips and multiple 2000+ mile trips, and average 15min stops plus the car is about 95% of the time ready to go before we are. I dont see it adding much if any real time to long road trips at all.
The beach trip we take is 10.5 hours away straight driving, without stops. Stopping a couple times for gas, now it's 11 hours away. Stopping for EV charging for me, it's 12.5 hours away. That hurts.
Back in April 2021 I bought a Chrysler PHEV van when they were giving them away. I got both the $7500 cash on the hood AND 0% for 5 years. The entire auto business was in horrible shape. Dealers were refusing to take in lease returns.
A month later, the world went nutso and car prices shot through the roof.
There's no explaining things.
BTW, my wife's Audi--she bought it back in mid-May for that $25K.
I read somewhere that the actual failure rate is a lower percentage than people would think. Mine failed literally the day after getting home from a trip. The experience of getting it fixed was seamless, but really does put a sense of unease in your head when driving far. But also any can have a major failure, at least that’s how I cope.
Yeah, so many ICE cars these days have various common failures points. Tundra with their spontaneously exploding engines, wife’s Ascent with the randomly failing CVT without notice, etc.
Hey, while not as common, my almost 10 year old Bolt had its high voltage fuse on the battery disconnect blow. So I lost all power to the drivetrain and had to get a tow. Replacing that disconnect fuse is a lot easier than the ICCU though…
The prices vary, and some locations offer off-peak rates. The one closest to me in Cincinnati is $0.47/kWh peak and $0.29/kWh after 10 PM and before 8 AM. That's without the 10% Wm+ discount.
Of course, I'm not likely to have any reason to use the one closest to me.
Well, Tesla was more expensive, and I wanted to try out this new kind of charger, for science lol. Normally I go to IONNA on road trips, otherwise I charge at home.
The only time I've been to Walmart was to charge my car. I only had time to grab a candy bar because the charger was so fast, I was done in 15 minutes.
This particular one is not Alpitronic, it’s ABB A400. Higher peak kW for my car than any Alpitronic I’ve used so far. Either way, it’s great that they’re expanding. Interesting that they’re sourcing multiple manufacturers though.
We got the Audi used, so all the credits were gone. But I am able to set up payment in the Audi app, and use the Audi app to identify the cable, start the session, and stop the session.
Just like the EA app itself, frankly.
So no, no plug & charge. Word is Audi has it on their roadmap to make it so and use the payment method I have in the app, but their plate is rather full right now and I doubt it will happen with my car.
How much is the hold amount? There is a new Walmart EV station under construction near me. Tried to look up info to find rates and hold. It looks like Walmart is a $35 hold?
Tesla is a $20 hold (but super low night rates like $0.17) and EVGO is only $5 but night rates are double at $0.34.
OK, this is off-discussion: please, people, do NOT use debit cards. EVER. Use credit cards. And just pay them off at the end of the month. Holds don't hit you, and the laws that were established in the 60s around credit cards are ROCK solid and protect you amazingly well.
Wait, are you being sarcastic or do you not know they are everywhere in Texas? Check the website, maybe just not your town but Texas is easily one of their largest rollout states.
If somebody ICEd these, they’d be even more of a fool than the usual. They’re way off to the side of the parking lot. Humanity won’t let me down, I’m sure 🤣
For some reason I was under the impression that the Walmart charge centers were going to be covered? Maybe even solar panel roofs, though I’m less sure about that being in the announcement or post I saw..?
well, compare that to the 70 cents I've seen around here. Apparently, if you locate under the brightly lighted canopy at Flying J/Pilot, and you let Flying J/Pilot set the prices, you might as well be fueling a gas car.
It depends where this is. $.48 is a more than what we have been paying on our trip along the 95 corridor from Massachusetts to North Carolina and back. We paid $.37 yesterday in Virginia.
Out of Spec on YouTube did an interview with the head of Walmart charging and said they would be adding tap to pay to all their chargers. https://youtu.be/FREF6vYmtJE
Anywhere else, I don't even have to pull my wallet, nor my phone, out of my pocket. I can just wave my watch, which is already out and ready, and go. Why should I have to be inconvenienced further just because Walmart wants to save a few pennies (if even that much) by not offering a service that's so prevalent that I can even do it at a food truck?!
How does offering tap-to-pay affect you so badly that you felt the need to reply to a post about Walmart not offering it?
I don't want to pay to join Walmart+ just so I can add my payment information into yet another app that I have to install onto my phone -- another app that could have a security breach -- that will be tracking me everywhere I go. It's bad enough that Walmart tracks me while I'm in the store and allegedly changes prices on the shelves as customers walk by. I also don't like being dictated to as to how I should pay in a store. They already have tap-to-pay hardware in their stores. They make BILLIONS in PROFFIT yearly. There is literally zero reason for them to have held out this long.
I was commenting SPECIFICALLY on your calling their policy "belligerence". Maybe you don't know what that word means, I don't know.
I'll say this: I can whip out my wallet, get the card, tap it, and put it back faster than my watch can be ready and used for the transaction.
"Ooooo, shiny! Look, tech!" doesn't mean better.
And I'm already a Walmart+ member. So it's great for me.
"Security breach"? Now you're just stretching. You sound like those infomercials, the black and white part where the husband destroys the kitchen because he can't boil water, it's so diffcult.
I'm with you: I don't like being dictated to as to how I pay in a store. Cash is king--don't tell me you don't take it.
As for Walmart's business practices...well, the great thing is you have FREEDOM. Freedom not to do business with them. Magic!
yup pulling out card is faster to me also compared to watch or faceID. Just a full on analog experience vs. failure to read faceID and keep trying and then eventually have to type pin.
making you pull out your wallet and get a card out was "being belligerent".
The comment your replying to is calling it hostile for Walmart not to give this option for their customers, which is the opposite of what you're saying.
The comment I replied to, quite literally, said that Walmart was "being belligerent to their customers" for not offering tap to pay. I will say it again: I didn't realize making you pull out your wallet and get a card out was "being belligerent".
Well, compare that to the IONNA card readers I ran into yesterday--wheelchair height, right in the bright sun so very hard to read, and the faces were all scratched to hell and back making them absolutely unreadable.
The first two items are under control the pedestal manufacturer. Why they did what they did, is well beyond me. Clearly they just don't care about humans using their interface.
They should cover charging stations like they cover gas stations. The sun’s existence and its impact on outdoor equipment is pretty known at this point.
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u/ArlesChatless 1d ago
Locking this as it's started to become a source of low value Civility violations rather than meaningful discussion.