EV charging myths

This is my 15th blog post for the Blaugust 2026 community blogging project. Join me all this month for more blogging. Six months ago I bought an EV – my first. It’s been a (mostly) great experience and I’ve learned a lot. Or, more accurately, I’ve unlearned a lot. Much of what you read out there about EV ownership – specifically around charging – is fear mongering. Let me share what I’ve learned and see if I can dispel some of that. Chargers are confusing – at first I went into EV ownership with some baseline knowledge. For years before my purchase, I’d try to rent an EV every time I travelled, and so I drove quite a few models. (But never a Tesla, because fuck Tesla.) At first, I found the bit about “charging levels” and “charging plugs” legit confusing. I remember the first time driving into a public charge station at a car dealer outside New Orleans, plugging in, and being anguished that the charger said it would take six hours to charge. The problem is that I had connected up to a…