They don't appear to be planning to let off their installation pace for a while yet:
Given the infrastructure bill subsidy money for DCFC coming up, I think they're probably likely to stay on something like that pace.
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Electrify America general discussion
- Thread starter Mockingbird
- Start date
Given the infrastructure bill subsidy money for DCFC coming up, I think they're probably likely to stay on something like that pace.
Electrify America is required spend $2 billion over 10 years (2017-2026) building a charging network.
Electrify America can supplement that with the $15 billion ($7.5 billion already passed) that the government has set aside for building charging infrastructure.
Long term, Electrify America's future is likely similar those of IONITY. That is, other automakers join in to help pay for building the network.
IONITY is a charging network in Europe co-own by BMW, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai, and Volkswagen.
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RTPEV
Active Member
Yes, eventually I hope to be able to allow filtering by network, but for now I am just trying to catch up on filling out the data I have so far (my data source has a lot of "garbage" (i.e. Nissan dealers) and missing data (e.g. power levels) that I'm trying to clean up first. Once that process is complete, I'll work on adding filters for network and power level.
Well yes, but highway coverage is not everything. Some people (i.e. apartment dwellers) may think that local charging stations are more useful to them.
At any rate, my goal is not to provide a charging map for particular providers (you can just go to the providers' sites/apps and theoretically do that--some are better than others--or Plugshare). My motivation is more to provide a discussion forum for each site, particularly in the construction phase to track construction progress.
RTPEV
Active Member
The following is a copy of my trip report for the 1800+ mile trip I mentioned earlier that we took this past summer. It made extensive use of the EA network:
Just returned from an 1800+ mile road trip from North Carolina, to Maryland, northern New York, western New York, and back to North Carolina in our VW ID.4 (we needed a bit more of a challenge than the Tesla would offer!)
My process was to do my preliminary planning using ABRP as one large trip, modeling stopovers where I knew I would have 120V charging available. I threw in a couple of side trips in NY as well.
The Electrify America network is in the process of being built out here. It's not bad, but it's not the Supercharger network either, and there are some notable holes. In particular I-81 through Pennsylvania between Harrisburg, PA and Binghamton, NY is particularly challenging. In fact, as for CCS chargers, there is really nothing along that route from Harrisburg all the way to Syracuse, NY. The gap from the Carlisle, PA station to an EVolveNY station at a thruway stop in Syracuse is 276 miles! There is a sometimes-working 40kW station at the NY State welcome area, but hard to count on that. To be fair, even the Supercharger network is weak along that route, but at least there is a site near Scranton, PA.
So using ABRP I plotted two possible diversions: Bloomsburg, PA and Allentown, PA, that added about an hour to the trip. I researched all the potential stops on Plugshare and developed a confidence and convenience chart for each stop. Before committing to taking the ID.4 I wanted to make sure we had a good chance of success, and that amenities would be available for the somewhat longer charging times that I've been accustomed to with the Tesla. In the end I chose the Bloomsburg route and we decided to take the ID.4.
The day before we left, I learned that I could use my old OBD2 dongle in the ID.4 with the EVNotify app and it would integrate with ABRP. This turned out to be a major game changer! On a previous (shorter) trip I had manually been updating the SOC while en route, but this was incredibly unwieldy and didn't work well in marginal signal areas. I was pleased that I was able to get it to work (it was a bit tricky to get EVNotify to stay up in the background, but I eventually got it). The integration worked better than I had expected. Very nicely done. I can now get a Tesla-style live energy graph while en route, updated arrival SOC info, and calibrated consumption data, which is great because we actually did much better in the ID.4 than the default ABRP efficiency.
We did run into a few glitches at charging stations in PA. At the Blomsburg charging station in particular, one of the 4 stalls was taped off, and the only other open station when we arrived was charging very slow. When another stall opened up, we attempted to move to it, but EA got confused or something and we weren't able to initiate a new session. Even customer service was having difficulty, although eventually we got it started. It should have been a 35-40 minute stop, but it wound up taking 96 minutes. And we needed every last electron to make it all the way to Syracuse!
In Syracuse, a new EA site opened up the day before we left on the trip...chargers were working, but the site was not yet on the app. So we had to enlist customer support again to initiate our charge. And they were quite confused about this site as well. Again, it should have been a 35 minute stop, but it wound up taking 55 minutes altogether (nothing happens fast when you have to call up customer service!)
The other glitch we ran into was also in PA on the return leg. Ironically it was at a charging station I rated the highest in terms of confidence and convenience.
To start with, this was a 4-stall site at a busy interchange along the PA Turnpike. About an hour out, I noticed that all stalls were listed as being in use. I figured (hoped) it would be a temporary surge that would be cleared out by the time we arrived. Nope. All 4 were in use when we arrived and there were two others ahead of us queuing for a stall. So we wound up having to wait around to plug in, and when we finally did the charging station we were on was not able to deliver a consistent charge (kept dropping down to about 33kW). The stall next to us opened up, but it was not showing as available on the app (we needed to use the app versus using a credit card because we get free charging at EA). We fiddled with the charger over and over, and finally another stall opened up so we decided to move over to it. However, as soon as we unplugged the car and started to move out, a Bolt pulls up and wants to park in that stall. I explain the situation to them, and ask if they can use either the stall we just disconnected from or the other one that wasn't showing in the app (but was working), but they absolutely INSISTED that their Bolt could charge at 350kW. Try as I might, I was not able to get them to move, but meanwhile the last stall had opened up, so we moved to that one, and were finally able to get a consistent high speed charge from it. Another 90 minute stop that should have been more like 35-40.
The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful, but we found that we needed to be very specific with the order and timing of plugging in the car, pushing buttons on the screen and the app, etc. and if anything wasn't done perfectly, something would time out and we would have to reset the car and the charger and the app and start all over. We think we figured out exactly how to do it, but it continues to be very frustrating that it doesn't just work.
By way of an update, there is now an additional EA site in Binghamton, NY, and one under construction in Scranton, PA, so the gap from Harrisburg, PA to Syracuse is now split, and in the process of being improved. It would no longer be necessary to divert to Bloomsburg, PA or Allentown, PA to make this trip.
Just returned from an 1800+ mile road trip from North Carolina, to Maryland, northern New York, western New York, and back to North Carolina in our VW ID.4 (we needed a bit more of a challenge than the Tesla would offer!)
My process was to do my preliminary planning using ABRP as one large trip, modeling stopovers where I knew I would have 120V charging available. I threw in a couple of side trips in NY as well.
The Electrify America network is in the process of being built out here. It's not bad, but it's not the Supercharger network either, and there are some notable holes. In particular I-81 through Pennsylvania between Harrisburg, PA and Binghamton, NY is particularly challenging. In fact, as for CCS chargers, there is really nothing along that route from Harrisburg all the way to Syracuse, NY. The gap from the Carlisle, PA station to an EVolveNY station at a thruway stop in Syracuse is 276 miles! There is a sometimes-working 40kW station at the NY State welcome area, but hard to count on that. To be fair, even the Supercharger network is weak along that route, but at least there is a site near Scranton, PA.
So using ABRP I plotted two possible diversions: Bloomsburg, PA and Allentown, PA, that added about an hour to the trip. I researched all the potential stops on Plugshare and developed a confidence and convenience chart for each stop. Before committing to taking the ID.4 I wanted to make sure we had a good chance of success, and that amenities would be available for the somewhat longer charging times that I've been accustomed to with the Tesla. In the end I chose the Bloomsburg route and we decided to take the ID.4.
The day before we left, I learned that I could use my old OBD2 dongle in the ID.4 with the EVNotify app and it would integrate with ABRP. This turned out to be a major game changer! On a previous (shorter) trip I had manually been updating the SOC while en route, but this was incredibly unwieldy and didn't work well in marginal signal areas. I was pleased that I was able to get it to work (it was a bit tricky to get EVNotify to stay up in the background, but I eventually got it). The integration worked better than I had expected. Very nicely done. I can now get a Tesla-style live energy graph while en route, updated arrival SOC info, and calibrated consumption data, which is great because we actually did much better in the ID.4 than the default ABRP efficiency.
We did run into a few glitches at charging stations in PA. At the Blomsburg charging station in particular, one of the 4 stalls was taped off, and the only other open station when we arrived was charging very slow. When another stall opened up, we attempted to move to it, but EA got confused or something and we weren't able to initiate a new session. Even customer service was having difficulty, although eventually we got it started. It should have been a 35-40 minute stop, but it wound up taking 96 minutes. And we needed every last electron to make it all the way to Syracuse!
In Syracuse, a new EA site opened up the day before we left on the trip...chargers were working, but the site was not yet on the app. So we had to enlist customer support again to initiate our charge. And they were quite confused about this site as well. Again, it should have been a 35 minute stop, but it wound up taking 55 minutes altogether (nothing happens fast when you have to call up customer service!)
The other glitch we ran into was also in PA on the return leg. Ironically it was at a charging station I rated the highest in terms of confidence and convenience.
To start with, this was a 4-stall site at a busy interchange along the PA Turnpike. About an hour out, I noticed that all stalls were listed as being in use. I figured (hoped) it would be a temporary surge that would be cleared out by the time we arrived. Nope. All 4 were in use when we arrived and there were two others ahead of us queuing for a stall. So we wound up having to wait around to plug in, and when we finally did the charging station we were on was not able to deliver a consistent charge (kept dropping down to about 33kW). The stall next to us opened up, but it was not showing as available on the app (we needed to use the app versus using a credit card because we get free charging at EA). We fiddled with the charger over and over, and finally another stall opened up so we decided to move over to it. However, as soon as we unplugged the car and started to move out, a Bolt pulls up and wants to park in that stall. I explain the situation to them, and ask if they can use either the stall we just disconnected from or the other one that wasn't showing in the app (but was working), but they absolutely INSISTED that their Bolt could charge at 350kW. Try as I might, I was not able to get them to move, but meanwhile the last stall had opened up, so we moved to that one, and were finally able to get a consistent high speed charge from it. Another 90 minute stop that should have been more like 35-40.
The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful, but we found that we needed to be very specific with the order and timing of plugging in the car, pushing buttons on the screen and the app, etc. and if anything wasn't done perfectly, something would time out and we would have to reset the car and the charger and the app and start all over. We think we figured out exactly how to do it, but it continues to be very frustrating that it doesn't just work.
By way of an update, there is now an additional EA site in Binghamton, NY, and one under construction in Scranton, PA, so the gap from Harrisburg, PA to Syracuse is now split, and in the process of being improved. It would no longer be necessary to divert to Bloomsburg, PA or Allentown, PA to make this trip.
I would say that, with all the government bureaucracy, hardly anyone is going to see that money anytime soon.
Electrify America's Cycle 3 is probably locked in at this point with the government subsidies not having an effect until Cycle 4.
bobby g
Member
How do you hurt a fictitious person? Well, it's wallet is real but I think I'm some cases, corporate officers should be jailed. This one is likely to turn out pretty good for us, meaning ev drivers. Even if it gets VW into a new money maker, I think it's good.
RTPEV
Active Member
I wouldn’t exactly call that “covering.” They’ll get there eventually, but if those gray pins are the only immediately upcoming sites, I-90 will still have several very large gaps.
I suppose.
The actual construction only take a few days.
Most of the wait time is either getting permits or utility hookup.
"Coming soon" sites are probably awaiting utility hookup.
Sites that are not shown yet are probably still in the permits phase.
Maybe EA uses different "coming soon" criteria than Tesla. Lots of Tesla joints have been "coming soon" for years.... or have disappeared entirely.
Having followed EV infrastructure buildout for years, I can say that site construction rarely only takes a few days. Tesla’s new prefabricated V3 sites take a couple of weeks but anything requiring trenching and conduit takes much longer. Utility hookups can take a long time, as well, delaying site openings for weeks.
I’ll be impressed if Electrify America has I-90 covered with <150 mile gaps by the end of 2022.
Definitely.
Electrify America's "coming soon" sites have actual addresses unlike Tesla's, which only show approximate locations.
Many people have gone to Electrify America's "coming soon" sites to find that Electrify America's equipment have already been installed, but haven't been energized.
RTPEV
Active Member
True, because many of EA's coming soon sites are sited because of nationwide agreements with outlets like Walmart so they have the address in mind, whereas Tesla's coming soon sites may or may not have a particular host set in stone yet, so they just set their pin to the town or city without any specific address. In fact, most of the new Tesla Superchargers that are being driven from hosts requesting Superchargers never appear on the Tesla coming soon map at all.
While I have an admittedly small sample size, I don't agree that the EA construction process is anywhere near as mature as Tesla's at this point. It took Tesla years to get where they are today in terms of streamlining the entire construction process from siting to permitting to equipment acquisition to construction to inspection to commissioning. We typically don't see the true start of the Tesla process, but occasionally we get lucky and see the very beginning of at least the permit process, and lately it seems like the time from initial permit to the site being opened is 6-8 weeks, which is remarkable considering supply chain issues (some geographies will vary). EA, on the other hand, has not been able to achieve this timeline in my experience. I started following the process of several sites this past summer as I was planning my road trip and there were 4 sites that were on the Coming Soon map that I was trying to follow the progress on (one of the motivations for creating the fastcharger.info site (turns out Plugshare is okay, but not great at tracking progress). While charging stations may have been delivered and even installed on site, getting transformers on site and installed and inspected dragged on for weeks->months. And even once EA announces on Plugshare, or submits their site to the AFDC database as being "open", it's actually taking well over a week for the site to show up even in the EA app (something that frustrates Tesla owners when a Supercharger doesn't yet show up in the nav even after it's been confirmed live, but that time period is usually only 1-2 days).
I do think they will get there, but I estimate that it will probably take them 2 more years before they have their logistics streamlined to the point where they can hit a 6-8 week TAT from siting to the site going live. I don't have great statistics, but my sense in following the several stations that I have been tracking is that right now it's more like 4-6 months (yes, as much as 6 months in some cases). I will be interested in seeing how this timeframe improves over time.
That's no excuse.
There is nothing that prevents Tesla from getting similar partnership.
In fact, Tesla does exactly that. For example, Tesla has an agreement with Buc-ees.
You get this wrong.
The time it takes to get a permit is the time it takes to get a permit.
Likewise, the time it takes to get utility hookup is the the time it takes to get utility hookup.
There is no shortcut.
Electrify America said that it takes 55 days on average (78 days in California) to complete the permit process.
Utility hookup takes 41 weeks on average in California.
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RTPEV
Active Member
Not trying to play it as an "excuse". It's an explanation of why you see addresses on the EA map, but not on the Tesla map. And yes, Tesla does have strategic partnerships with Buc-ees, Target, Sheetz, and other outlets. But with some of those, it's the host site that drives the siting and scheduling, so those sites tend not to ever appear on the Tesla map at all. In fact, that is becoming the rule rather than the exception.
Not true at all. It's not like you submit your permit application and then they start a 55-day timer and then ding, you get your permit at the end. It is a process of working with town/city officials on project plans. And each locality has their own nuances when it comes to requirements that may involve a back-and-forth with the town, project manager, subcontractors, utilities, neighboring landowners, etc. There are many variables that can speed up or slow down this process, but if you've done it enough times, you start to get a very good sense for submitting a plan that already addresses many of the questions and concerns that will be raised, because you've seen them all. Also, if you have established a network of construction partners with local experience in the areas you are siting your stations, they will be able to lend their experience in making sure that all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed when it comes to submitting permits so that it flows through the system better.
And something that EA will benefit from is that Tesla has already blazed the trail when it comes to these kinds of installations, so hopefully when EA comes in and sites a charging site a few blocks away from a Supercharger, it's not completely foreign to the approving entities.
But in general, it's going to take EA some time to get to the point where they have enough expertise built up to smooth the process out. Like with anything, there is no substitute for experience.
Also not true. Well, not in a general sense. Again, you have to have a good network of contractors, contacts within the utilities, and the supply chain to ensure that the project proceeds smoothly and swiftly. Having installed so many Superchargers to date, I am sure that Tesla has established all the right contacts within the utilities such that Tesla and the utilities are working closely together to plan the rollout of Supercharger sites. And through experience and with this lock-step planning they are able to better coordinate their site plans such that everything more or less happens at once.
Not too long ago it was common for Supercharger sites to be built out and sit for months waiting on a transformer/utility hookup. You just don't see that any more. Why? Either Tesla has achieved priority with the utilities (due to the size of their expansion) or they have fine tuned their project planning so that if they know they can't get a transformer on site in Anytown until July, the redirect their efforts and don't start the buildout process until June because they have a very predictable process. I suspect it's a combination of the two. As a result, we don't see mostly built-out Superchargers sitting around for a transformer for 3-4 months any more (although there are exceptions to this!)
Again, I'm not trying to knock EA here. Eventually they will have attained enough experience that they will be at the point Tesla is today. And they'll probably reach that point faster than it took Tesla to get here because of the legwork that Tesla and other charging networks have done to streamline the process and get new regulations and technology in place to support these kinds of buildouts. But not only having been in the game for about 2.5 years, they are really just getting started.
bobby g
Member
It's only 2 that I've seen but Pismo beach outlets and brea mall have Tesla and EA next to each other
That is false.
Neither Tesla nor Electrify America does those things.
The processs is handle by contractors in the area.
Those same contractors do work for multiple companies (Tesla, Electrify America, EVgo, Greenlots, etc).
Again, this is false.
The timing depends on when the utility companies can perform the necessary upgrades on their end.
For example, if the utility company can't hookup a new transformer until end of July, then that is that.
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I'm going with the person with the experience of over a thousand comments, rather than the person with fifty.
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