Although I'd seen reports that free EA juice had stopped recently, I'd seen others that it was still going on. As I posted at Electrify America complimentary sessions (stations set..., I can confirm it was still free at a site in the SF Bay Area on Sunday night (9/25).
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Electrify America general discussion
- Thread starter Mockingbird
- Start date
This never happens at Electrify America. All of their chargers support at least 920V output even if they are the relatively few metro sites limited to 50 kW (125A) cables.
The only (very few) chargers labeled as Electrify America that support only 500V are installed at a few EVgo-managed sites and we’re installed with funding from EA before they started installing their own locations.
My last 3 charges since the update that allowed free charging have reverted to pay to charge. I did notice that the max charge speed reported in the app seems more correct than the generic (usually 215 kW) that was reported before the update. Can't check what they used to say since I also noted the app charge history seems to have deleted the charging sessions I had from May to September 2022. Older sessions I had in 2020 and prior for a Bolt and i3 are still there however.
Beginning of summer, it used to report the actual max power the car received. Then it switched to showing the max that the car requested. I'm pretty sure it is still showing the max the car requested, looking at my last few sessions since the free juice ended.
Which would make sense, as EA, at sites that charge per minute, bills you based on the maximum power the car requests, not what is actually delivered.
All the chargers I've used are pay by the kWh and are the 150 kW rated ones. For the last 4 sessions, all in Oct this year, the listed max charging speeds vs starting SOC are:
91 kW/35% avg 80.4 kWh/hr
144 kW/11% avg 127.5 kWh/hr
160 kW/26% avg 119 kWh/hr
130 kW/33% avg 103 kWh/hr
Average charge rate is the kWh divided by the charge time in the EA app., I haven't used a supercharger since I got the adapter back in May. Overall I am happy with it. The time difference to charge is mitigated in my case that the EA locations are where I prefer to stop and many times are easier on/off freeway access.
91 kW/35% avg 80.4 kWh/hr
144 kW/11% avg 127.5 kWh/hr
160 kW/26% avg 119 kWh/hr
130 kW/33% avg 103 kWh/hr
Average charge rate is the kWh divided by the charge time in the EA app., I haven't used a supercharger since I got the adapter back in May. Overall I am happy with it. The time difference to charge is mitigated in my case that the EA locations are where I prefer to stop and many times are easier on/off freeway access.
For me there are also a few EA stations I like to use, where the nearby SC is a 72kW urban charger.
SeaM3White2021
model 3 LR 18 white/white ordered 1/21/21
Used a EA for the first time with my model 3 today in Seattle and just now checked my EA app and I have no charge for the session. I didnt really pay attention to the charging screen during the session. Just wanted to test new CCS adapter. Woot.
Which one did you use? I used 3-4 different EA stations in the Seattle area, and they all charged. There was a problem with their billing system for a while, becuase my balance showed negative, but it fixed itself after a while.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
Some stats I got from Electrify America reveal that the average station at the end of 2021 did 1.25 sessions (average 28kWh) per day, which is pretty meager. I don't yet know how to estimate what the numbers are for Tesla.
Here's my article about it for Forbes.com
www.forbes.com
What are your experiences at EA stations? Are they still mostly empty? Now that Teslas have CCS adapters, are Teslas starting to be the dominant car at stations which are either distant from superchargers, or near to full or high-priced superchargers? It looks that way on Plugshare.
Here's my article about it for Forbes.com
Electrify America Chargers Are Rarely Used - What’s Up With Non-Tesla Fast Charging?
In 2021, Electrify America stalls were used from 0.5 to 1.25 times/day on average. Why is usage so low at the largest CCS network?
www.forbes.com
What are your experiences at EA stations? Are they still mostly empty? Now that Teslas have CCS adapters, are Teslas starting to be the dominant car at stations which are either distant from superchargers, or near to full or high-priced superchargers? It looks that way on Plugshare.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
I previously had the CHAdeMO adapter. I noticed that by far the most common cars using CdM ports were Teslas, and plugshare reports bore this out. This makes sense because only the Leaf and a few other low volume cars used CHAdeMO, and those cars are by and large not very good cars for road trips, though later Leafs started to have the range. 50kw is good enough but not great. Teslas road trip all the time though. Now I suspect even those who own CdM adapters are getting the CCS if their car will use it. (Or even upgrading the charge controller as I did) so we will see it switch. Teslas are 80% of the cars out there, but there are enough cars that can road trip on CCS now that they won't take over (as we have SCs as well) but they are becoming a factor.
It really depends on the area. For example, Lake Shore Plaza in SF and the BofA in Davis were almost always full. From what I've seen when I was there it was mostly i3 and id4s at Lakeshore, and ioniq5 and ev6 in Davis. I was nearby, so I was watching the stations like a hawk on the EA app and jumped over there when a slot opened.
Likewise, when I drove down the 5 freeway thru California... During daylight hours, the stations were mostly full or almost full. I didn't have to wait, but I ended up grabbing the last stall, or somebody else did while I was charging. What made matters worse was each station usually had at least one broken stall.
The most recent trip about a month ago, I ended up skipping most of them and using SC instead because plugshare reported that most of the stalls at the time were busted and/or only outputting 30kW.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
Yes, urban stations are tending to be the busiest. Which is a departure from how it "should" be which is people should charge at home and almost never need charging in their own town. But people are doing that, and more charging stations keep getting put in cities. I must say I would find my EV a lot less pleasant if I had to charge it at local fast chargers, even though I have many of them quite close to me, and located with some decent food even. But they are still good so people are buying them.
I am more interested in what's happening out in the country. The number calculated is an average (and it's from the end of 2021) so some stations will be much busier, and others less.
srs5694
Active Member
Ideally, yes. Unfortunately, most apartments and apartment-style condos still lack EV charging on site, so many people who lives in such a location and who want to own EVs must charge away from home. That said, I don't know how common this situation is. I imagine it's more common where you are, in California, than in most parts of the US. It'd be interesting to do a survey to find out how much DC fast charger use is by people who can't charge at home.
I strongly hope that apartments start installing EVSEs in larger numbers soon, since easy at-home charging is important for EV adoption. (At-work charging can be almost as good, and often better if you want to have cars charge when solar power is available.)
Just finishing up a cross country trip. Started in San Francisco and made it to Niagara Falls Ontario And back to SF. I did have the opportunity to use the EA chargers on occasions. I found that with a subscription the EA chargers were a little less expensive but the ease of use and the reliability of the Superchargers made me lean toward Tesla. Most EA stations had zero or one car charging. Several of the EA stations were out of order and required a lot of shuffling around. To find a working one. The big Plus for me was the EA chargers seemed to be located in better locations with amenities like a Walmart or Krogers.
RichAZ/CapeCod
Member
My experience as well. Excellent locations (well, away from the north/east anyway), but spotty reliability and finicky connectivity issues.
Rich
TunaBug
Member
Some stats I got from Electrify America reveal that the average station at the end of 2021 did 1.25 sessions (average 28kWh) per day, which is pretty meager. I don't yet know how to estimate what the numbers are for Tesla.
Here's my article about it for Forbes.com
Electrify America Chargers Are Rarely Used - What’s Up With Non-Tesla Fast Charging?
In 2021, Electrify America stalls were used from 0.5 to 1.25 times/day on average. Why is usage so low at the largest CCS network?
What are your experiences at EA stations? Are they still mostly empty? Now that Teslas have CCS adapters, are Teslas starting to be the dominant car at stations which are either distant from superchargers, or near to full or high-priced superchargers? It looks that way on Plugshare.
You said in that article
By my math, that would mean 2 charging sessions per day per stall. Is that right? If so, then from 0.5/day to 2/day is a 4X increase, which is moving in the right direction.
Also, being pedantic, you said "station" at the top of your post, but "stall" in the article, which I assume are not the same thing? That is, a gas station has one or more pumps, and I would assume a charging station has one or more stalls?
Assuming your first charge in a month is ~2k ($10/kW demand charge, 200 kW peak charge rate), spreading that over 60 charges gets your amortized demand charges costs down to closer to $33/charge. That's still too high, even if the electricity is basically free after that. I'd guess you want another doubling of that to get close to break-even.
The problem I see with this is that queuing suggests really high odds of having to wait... people don't spread themselves out evenly.
The problem I see with this is that queuing suggests really high odds of having to wait... people don't spread themselves out evenly.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
Yes, it's all per stall. But no, there's no 2 charging sessions per day per stall in these numbers. It started in January as 0.5/day and ended the year around 1.25 per day. Definitely lots of increase -- but increase from a start where many of the stations would not see anybody on a typical day.
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