Electrify America general discussion

[Jeff N]

It appears that Tesla still maintains a sizeable 10x lead over EA in network size and reliability.

"As of their latest update, Electrify America currently has around 800 stations with 3,500 individual chargers. In comparison, Tesla recently celebrated the opening of their 35,000th Supercharger stall in China this month, pegging the value of the Supercharger network at least $25 billion, but likely much higher considering the wide coverage and reliability of Tesla’s network."

Which irrelevant since EA only covers the US.

Tesla seems to have about 1,400 locations in the US today. I’m not sure offhand how many stalls that is but I’m guessing close to 20,000.

EA says that with the new investments they have a plan to reach 1,800 US locations with 10,000 stalls by 2026.

Clearly Tesla remains far in the lead versus EA for the foreseeable future but, of course, there are other CCS charging networks today like EVgo (with recent funding from GM) and they will get their own increased funding and expand greatly by 2026.

What really matters is that almost all Tesla owners will have the option to use CCS and will have access to almost any charger out there.

 

[Mockingbird]

It appears that Tesla still maintains a sizeable 10x lead over EA in network size and reliability.

"As of their latest update, Electrify America currently has around 800 stations with 3,500 individual chargers. In comparison, Tesla recently celebrated the opening of their 35,000th Supercharger stall in China this month, pegging the value of the Supercharger network at least $25 billion, but likely much higher considering the wide coverage and reliability of Tesla’s network."

Your apple to orange comparison is so bad.

Electrify America charging stations are only in the United States.

Tesla Superchargers are in multiple countries.

 

[MP3Mike]

Apparently EA doesn't have any parts to be able to repair stations that are down:

The entire Hermiston, OR station has been down for weeks. (EA doesn't even show it on their map anymore.) Even before that only one of the stalls had been working.)

Your apple to orange comparison is so bad.

That wasn't their comparison, they were just quoting something that a news site reported.

 

[lynyrdM]

Apparently EA doesn't have any parts to be able to repair stations that are down:

The entire Hermiston, OR station has been down for weeks. (EA doesn't even show it on their map anymore.) Even before that only one of the stalls had been working.)



That wasn't their comparison, they were just quoting something that a news site reported.

Francis has a station (Antlers, OK) with two BTCPower high powered chargers (like EA uses) which have been down for almost a year.

I don’t know that parts availability is the reason but I wouldn’t doubt that it’s that along with prioritizing repairs on other chargers.

These chargers need to be built more robust. They go down way too often and malfunction far too frequently.

I hope the Infrastructure bill funded chargers are better. I think there are greater reliability requirements than VW settlement contracts required.

 

[RTPEV]

One would hope that engineers are doing failure analysis on these chargers to develop a lessons learned and design out the weaknesses in these designs. However, we're over a decade in to mass production of fastchargers and the impression I get is that we haven't made much progress at all. Even the early EA fastchargers should be 3rd or 4th generation. I get that this is still relatively new technology, but the reliability and QA engineers on these units have to be doing a pretty crappy job to not have some kind of testing procedure to weed out what I have to believe are early failures (if they are not early, we are in real big trouble if the expected life of these units are only a year or two!)

I suppose that Tesla has an advantage here in that it's the same company monitoring the performance of the chargers in the field that is also manufacturing them, and they have shown that they can quickly rev designs to work out flaws and weaknesses. But if I was running EA or EVgo, with the volume of charging stations they are purchasing, I would be demanding several field engineers from the manufacturer to be embedded with the EA/EVgo maintenance teams doing failure analysis of broken machines in the field so they can get first-hand data to send back to the factory quickly.

It's very disappointing to still see what appears to be major quality issues at this stage. 5-10 years ago, understandable. Nowadays? It's downright unacceptable.

 

[MP3Mike]

One would hope that engineers are doing failure analysis on these chargers to develop a lessons learned and design out the weaknesses in these designs. However, we're over a decade in to mass production of fastchargers and the impression I get is that we haven't made much progress at all.

Apparently Rivian uses the same cooled CCS cable supplier as EA in their chargers, but they mentioned that they are using revision 2 of them; with the main difference being that the temperature sensor in the plug can be serviced, where in revision 1 you had to replace the entire cable. (And the temperature sensor is apparently a big failure point, it may be what causes a stall to de-rate to ~34kW.)

So there has been some progress.

 

[Exelion]

However, we're over a decade in to mass production of fastchargers and the impression I get is that we haven't made much progress at all.

DCFC charge companies aren’t going to be as good as Tesla. One of them happens to be spending money as imposed punishment, so you can already imagine the issues there. Looking back as recent as 2018, I remember *fast* chargers were simply labeled as such, there wasn’t a 100, 150, 250 or 300 speed charger. Almost all of them were 50kW, and most of the cars using them had smaller batteries with ranges in the 100 miles or less. So they are improving, just not as fast as we, customers would want them to, and especially since we have one superior system we constantly compare them to (supercharger).

I think its a lot cheaper and easier to open new sites and drop chargers than it is to go back and upgrade old chargers to new ones. That’s probably why there’s such a slew of speed differences at these places.

Expect more of this to continue for the near-to-far future.

 

[Jeremy3292]

EA site near my house has had one unit down for over SIX months. That is not a typo, it literally has been off-line entirely for over six months, leaving only three available for use. EA absolutely sucks and the plug share check-ins and notes of stations down all across America supports this statement. Since they are really the only game in town for non-Tesla’s, I guess it really doesn’t matter how good they are.

 

[Mockingbird]

EA site near my house has had one unit down for over SIX months. That is not a typo, it literally has been off-line entirely for over six months, leaving only three available for use. EA absolutely sucks and the plug share check-ins and notes of stations down all across America supports this statement. Since they are really the only game in town for non-Tesla’s, I guess it really doesn’t matter how good they are.

There is a global supply chain issue that is causing a shortage of equipment and replacement parts.

It's not solely an Electrify America issue.

Other charging networks such as EVgo and Francis Energy are having the same issue.

 

[Jeremy3292]

There is a global supply chain issue that is causing a shortage of equipment and replacement parts.

It's not solely an Electrify America issue.

Other charging networks such as EVgo and Francis Energy are having the same issue.

Is the Tesla supercharging network having the same issue? The answer is no.

 

[Mockingbird]

Is the Tesla supercharging network having the same issue? The answer is no.

Supercharger doesn't use off-the-shelf hardware.

Tesla manufacture its own equipment for the Supercharger.

 

[Jeremy3292]

Tesla doesn't buy off-the-shelf hardware.

Tesla manufacture its own equipment.

Your insinuation being that a *global* supply shortage doesn't affect Tesla?

Manufacturing in house still requires parts!

 

[Mockingbird]

Your insinuation being that a *global* supply shortage doesn't affect Tesla?

Manufacturing in house still requires parts!

Tesla has a lot deeper pockets to pay for in-demand components that do ABB/BTC Power/Signet.

 

[srs5694]

There is a global supply chain issue that is causing a shortage of equipment and replacement parts.

It's not solely an Electrify America issue.

Other charging networks such as EVgo and Francis Energy are having the same issue.

The Transport Evolved channel is doing a series on the Ford F-150. Most of the first half of this recent video relates problems with charging at EA stations, along with reporting of EA statements that corroborate what you're saying, at least for EA -- that they're experiencing parts shortages that are causing extended problems at some sites:

That video doesn't explicitly mention EVgo, Francis Energy, or any other network, but it's entirely plausible that they'd be experiencing similar problems.

Tesla has proven itself to be more nimble and able to navigate the current global supply-chain problems than other automakers. As I understand it, they didn't foolishly cancel contracts when the pandemic hit, and because of their software expertise, they've been able to swap in components that are available and write new software to make them work. This may be true in the DC fast charging realm, too, but that's speculation on my part; I have no inside knowledge, and I've seen no reporting, on this issue.

 

[MP3Mike]

Tesla has a lot deeper pockets to pay for in-demand components that do ABB/BTC Power/Signet.

Ok, so you're changing the story to now parts are available but EA, and their suppliers, are unwilling to pay for them even if it means that whole sites have to get shutdown. (Even if that means that it puts them in breach of their settlement agreement.)

 

[Mockingbird]

Ok, so you're changing the story to now parts are available but EA, and their suppliers, are unwilling to pay for them even if it means that whole sites have to get shutdown. (Even if that means that it puts them in breach of their settlement agreement.)

I don't know if you are intentionally trying to misinterpret what I said or what.

If there are 50 items available, but 200 items are needed, someone is going to have to lose out.

 

[Exelion]

Tesla has a lot deeper pockets to pay for in-demand components that do ABB/BTC Power/Signet.

Which also affects the staffing and availability of people able to go out and repair such stations. I’m guessing Tesla has a solid crew of people ready to respond quickly to minimize downtime at their SC’s, where EVGo and EA probably have just two guys operating over a giant 50 mile radius, struggling to keep stations online.

Question: how often have you seen a technician fixing a charge handle/cabinet?

 

[Mockingbird]

Which also affects the staffing and availability of people able to go out and repair such stations. I’m guessing Tesla has a solid crew of people ready to respond quickly to minimize downtime at their SC’s, where EVGo and EA probably have just two guys operating over a giant 50 mile radius, struggling to keep stations online.

Question: how often have you seen a technician fixing a charge handle/cabinet?

Actually, most of the work is done by contractors.

Whoever pays the most gets the highest priority.

 

[avs007]

Tesla has proven itself to be more nimble and able to navigate the current global supply-chain problems than other automakers. As I understand it, they didn't foolishly cancel contracts when the pandemic hit, and because of their software expertise, they've been able to swap in components that are available and write new software to make them work. This may be true in the DC fast charging realm, too, but that's speculation on my part; I have no inside knowledge, and I've seen no reporting, on this issue.

Along the same lines, all the Tesla Superchargers look to be identical to each other, depending on if it's v1, v2, or v3, etc... Whereas EA uses many different chargers, from ABB, to Signet, BTC, etc... That's got to be a lot harder for EA to have to maintain parts for all the different vendors, wheras Tesla owns the whole vertical stack, so it may be easier for them to swap out hardware and reprogram the firmware to work around it, wheras EA would be at the mercy of the individual vendors.

 

[FlatSix911]

Along the same lines, all the Tesla Superchargers look to be identical to each other, depending on if it's v1, v2, or v3, etc... Whereas EA uses many different chargers, from ABB, to Signet, BTC, etc... That's got to be a lot harder for EA to have to maintain parts for all the different vendors, wheras Tesla owns the whole vertical stack, so it may be easier for them to swap out hardware and reprogram the firmware to work around it, wheras EA would be at the mercy of the individual vendors.

TLDR - The bottom line: EA system reliability and availability has suffered, while Tesla has not.