# Plugshare App hides ~5% of all SuperCharger stations



## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

The PlugShare App on iPhone and Android have an undocumented feature that hides about 5% of the SuperChargers. I opened a case with PlugShare support and their last e-mail response said in effect, 'no problem.'

*HOW TO REPLICATE*

Start the App using SuperCharger filter. I found the problem with the Athens SuperCharger but replicated it with Nashville TN, Atlanta GA, or any urban area with a reasonable number of SuperChargers:

Where is Athens SuperCharger?










What is that little green dot in Athens close to the SuperChargers?










The green dot calls itself a SuperCharger but that is not the icon










Both the IOS App and Android App hide ~5% of all SuperChargers by the "Requires Fee" filter










Turn on the filter and 5% of the SuperChargers suddenly show up including the one in Athens AL










I replicated the same behavior at Nashville, TN and Athens, GA. The filter does not exist on the Web interface to PlugShare.

*FOLLOW-UP*

Apparently the PlugShare support staff I've been working with believes the inconsistent behavior of "Requires Fee" is perfectly OK. I suspect they do not have a Tesla. Regardless, it sounds like they want the PlugShare App "Requires Fee" to continue to hide 5% of the Tesla SuperChargers.

Bob Wilson


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

Nah, it's just very broken. One of the toggles causes all of the charging stations (and I mean ALL of them) to disappear completely in this area - I don't remember which one, I just keep finding it by accident and then trying to fix it by trial and error.

I suspect since they used crowdsourcing to submit charging stations to the app, a lot of them end up getting flagged incorrectly, and they don't have the staff to fix it, and/or don't really care.


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## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

I checked and suspect this was aimed at CCS-1 style chargers. You can wipe out 50% of the CCS-1 chargers in the Atlanta GA map.

Unfortunately, the logic was applied to Tesla Superchargers which have a different billing algorithm. The Plugshare support staff does not understand this. I'd recommend helping to educate them.

Bob Wilson


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## Bigriver (Jan 26, 2018)

Might the “requires fee” be linked to being in a parking garage without free access? I know that both Birmingham and Chatanooga are like that, and they both appear/disappear with the toggle of “requires fee”.


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## Feathermerchant (Sep 17, 2018)

There was also one in a parking garage in Phila that required a fee.


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## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

Athens AL has no parking fee or limited access. The Nashville Brentwood Supercharger is at the Tesla store and is also available 24/7 with free parking. But this is really not important.

You can replicate the behavior I'm seeing and that is enough.

Bob Wilson


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

Requires Fee is not supposed to be for paid charging, it’s supposed to be for if there is a fee to get access to the area where the charging station is. Like if you have to pay to enter a garage to get to it.


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## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

I'm not sure why I would only want chargers that require a fee. Ones that don't make sense.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Ed Woodrick said:


> I'm not sure why I would only want chargers that require a fee. Ones that don't make sense.


Nobody *wants" a charging station that requires a fee. But many charging stations are located in parking garages, and you have to pay a fee to park in the garage. If you're going into a city and have to pay to park anyhow, you might as well pick a parking garage that has charging stations and top up a bit.


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## Bigriver (Jan 26, 2018)

Ed Woodrick said:


> I'm not sure why I would only want chargers that require a fee. Ones that don't make sense.


I agree that the PlugShare "requires fee" toggle is a little backwards and awkward. If you toggle it on, all chargers seem to show. Toggle it off and it hides only those that are presumed to have an access fee (although some such as Athens, AL are evidently wrong). I just noticed that there is also a separate "restricted access" toggle.


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## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

Sorry but the "Requires Fee" hides many Superchargers. I notice many show "Fee Required: 0.22/kwh" without listing a parking fee. This is a recent change not found in the Plugshare web page and affects CCS-1, fast DC chargers. Now that we know, we can deal with it.

Bob Wilson


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## Long Ranger (Jun 1, 2018)

JasonF said:


> Requires Fee is not supposed to be for paid charging, it's supposed to be for if there is a fee to get access to the area where the charging station is. Like if you have to pay to enter a garage to get to it.


I disagree. I believe PlugShare intends this to simply mean that the charger is not free. They should definitely use clearer wording, because this confusion is what is causing some Superchargers to be labeled as requiring fee and others not.

Help text from PlugShare's website that indicates to me they are talking about charging fees: ** Switching "Requires Fee" toggle on will display chargers that require payment AND free stations** 
https://recargo.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/29000012581-managing-your-filter-settings
Also, the PlugShare web page text when you hover over the Payment Required Locations filter: "Show/Hide locations with at least one station with required payment. Locations with additional free stations may be filtered out."



bwilson4web said:


> This is a recent change not found in the Plugshare web page


The filter is on the PlugShare web page, it's just called "Payment Required Locations" instead of "Requires Fee". This isn't new. Maybe someone recently edited some Superchargers near you to add the fee. You can edit that detail yourself.

In my experience, you should only turn off the "Requires Fee" filter if you are looking for 100% free chargers.


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## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

This switch turns the number of Superchargers in Alabama between 3 and 7. Since I use the Plugshare trip planner, knowing about the switch is useful:















IMHO, the "Requires fee" should be relabeled:

"See all" - when trip planning, very important
"Hide some" - what it does today
"Parking fee" - a specific type of 3d party fee
"Restricted access" - what 3d parties do and sometimes have fees
"Access fees" - independent of normal billing, the two Tier rates of $0.26 and $0.13 per minute
"Non-charger fees" - what 3d parties do
"Only free charging" - perhaps their intent?

Bob Wilson


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

Long Ranger said:


> I disagree. I believe PlugShare intends this to simply mean that the charger is not free. They should definitely use clearer wording, because this confusion is what is causing some Superchargers to be labeled as requiring fee and others not.


I guess I'll stick with "very broken" then, because I tend to assume most public charging isn't free. But I don't tend to assume that getting into the place costs money. That could lead to a really rude surprise if you think you're headed to a Chargepoint you believe will be a few cents per kwh, and when you arrive, you find you have to pay $25 to get into the parking lot.

Thinking about it more, though, I think they might be confusing _mission_ and _purpose_. The _purpose_ of an app like that is to help people find charging, and make a decision about which one to use based on charging speed, cost, etc. But maybe their _mission_ instead is to provide a free app that helps people find _free_ charging, and anything that impinges on that is simply noted as "there is a price attached to this charge point, which violates our mission".

The problem with having a mission like that though is as EV's become more popular, less and less free charging will be available, until Plugshare and its free charging mission end up becoming obsolete - because no one will download an app that focuses on a handful of chargers that are free.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

JasonF said:


> But I don't tend to assume that getting into the place costs money.


If you take trips to cities, this happens all the time. Chargers are often located in parking garages, and you have to pay to use the garage.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

bwilson4web said:


> Apparently the PlugShare support staff I've been working with believes the inconsistent behavior of "Requires Fee" is perfectly OK. I suspect they do not have a Tesla. Regardless, it sounds like they want the PlugShare App "Requires Fee" to continue to hide 5% of the Tesla SuperChargers.


It's not the Plugshare app that is inconsistent - it's the data. The data being displayed by plugshare is community-curated. And that means it is sometimes wrong or inconsistent.

The Athens AL supercharger is listed as having a $0.22/kWh fee: https://www.plugshare.com/location/118833
The Manchester TN supercharger is not listed as having a fee: https://www.plugshare.com/location/159023
That's why the Manchester TN supercharger is always displayed, while the Athens AL supercharger is only displayed if "Payment Required Locations"/"Requires Fee" is turned on.

So if you want them to be consistent, you can actually propose changes to each of the superchargers that you believe has incorrect information. Have you tried editing any of the information yet?

The next questions is - what should superchargers be listed as? They all certainly require payment.



> The filter does not exist on the Web interface to PlugShare.


It does, but it's called "Payment Required Locations" in the web interface.


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## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

garsh said:


> The next questions is - what should superchargers be listed as? They all certainly require payment.


Exactly, "Requires Fee" becomes a toggle for Tesla Superchargers with either ALL or NONE. I'm OK with that approach.

Alternatively, list the database entry "Cost" as "Requires Fee" to match the filter ... or change "Requires Fee" to "Cost" or "No Cost."

Bob Wilson


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

bwilson4web said:


> Exactly, "Requires Fee" becomes a toggle for Tesla Superchargers with either ALL or NONE. I'm OK with that approach.


Agreed. But the onus is on Plugshare users to update the data to be correct.


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## JWardell (May 9, 2016)

Clearly TeslaFi employees have confused themselves and their own definitions, and need to more clearly name things.
There should be a toggle for "Free charging only" and another toggle for "Requires access fee" which has nothing to do with the charging fee.


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## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

garsh said:


> Agreed. But the onus is on Plugshare users to update the data to be correct.


<MEGA SIGH>

Ok, I'll run the proposed experiment and take Athen AL:





























It appears to have initially worked! But when I look at the expanded image I'm seeing the original "green dot" and the more accurate icon and data:









After two days, we'll see if someone comes behind and wipes out my edit. I hope we won't get in "Wiki" editor fight were after I set them one way, somebody else comes behind and reverses it. Then I'll do the three remaining Alabama Superchargers.

As for any cross country trips, I'll just enable "Requires Fee" on the App outside of Alabama.

Bob Wilson


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## pyjamasam (Feb 25, 2020)

I think the Green PIO identifier is coming from the apple maps tiles that plugshare is using.










I see it when I use the maps app on my laptop in that same spot.

chris.


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## iChris93 (Feb 3, 2017)

garsh said:


> The next questions is - what should superchargers be listed as? They all certainly require payment.


Except the free ones...


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

iChris93 said:


> Except the free ones...


Are there particular locations that are always free, or is that just a side effect of a temporary communication issue for that location?


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## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

I got an e-mail from Plugshare support that they are escalating the problem to their engineering team. Let's give them a chance to 'do the right thing.'

In the meanwhile, Tesla owners using Plugshare should enable 'Requires Fee' so the otherwise invisible Superchargers are seen.

As posted earlier, it appears my Athens Supercharger changes have not been backed out.

Bob Wilson


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## iChris93 (Feb 3, 2017)

garsh said:


> Are there particular locations that are always free, or is that just a side effect of a temporary communication issue for that location?


The one in Lima, OH is always free.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

I believe the ones along the Florida Turnpike are free due to an agreement with the operator. Or they were at one time, at least.


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## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

We have a couple of SC's that are free. They are in the parking lot of a bakery that sponsors/pays for them.


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## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

iChris93 said:


> The one in Lima, OH is always free.


That is strange as I was billed for charging at Lima OH (see attached PDF.)

Do you think I should complain?

Bob Wilson


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## iChris93 (Feb 3, 2017)

bwilson4web said:


> That is strange as I was billed for charging at Lima OH (see attached PDF.)
> 
> Do you think I should complain?
> 
> Bob Wilson


That's very interesting. Looking through my history, every stop at Lima except one, so 15 out of 16, has been no charge. The only one that shows a charge was on 6/22/2019, two days after yours. Previously on 3/31/2019 and after on 12/20/2019 it was free. So there was a period around June they were charging for it. Not sure why that happened but as of 7/26/2020 it was still free.


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## lance.bailey (Apr 1, 2019)

have you applied the "chargepoint update" or the "chargehub patch" to your plugshare usage?


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## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

lance.bailey said:


> have you applied the "chargepoint update" or the "chargehub patch" to your plugshare usage?


I wasn't aware of anything like this. My first Google hit brought up the Plugshare map showing the Chargepoint HQ. Could you share a link or more technical details?

Bob Wilson


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## lance.bailey (Apr 1, 2019)

i was saying that if you don't like plugshare, don't use plugshare. I use chargepoint and chargehub and like how they work for me. 

I was in a wry mood. apologies.


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