Is Electrify America TRYING to Ruin EVs and Adoption!?

[mmyers300]

I was looking into getting the CCS adapter and it lead me to many articles and videos about how awful the EA chargers have been.
I have read 3 articles on EVs that have been literally bricked at their chargers and this is only 3 that we know of!
One was the F-150 (F-150 Lightning Bricked at Electrify America Charging Station),
next was the Rivian (Rivian R1T Fried, Stuck to Electrify America Charger for Days After 'Loud Boom' While Charging)
and very recently a Chevy Bolt (https://gmauthority.com/blog/2023/0...by-electrify-america-fast-charger-in-florida/).
All of them had to be towed away. The Bolt owner said $20k(!) in damages, and I haven't heard what the final outcome was for the others. There are So Many videos of people having issues with EA that I'm starting to think it's some kind of conspiracy by big oil or Elon. I'm struggling to comprehend why this is. I actually created a youtube video of what I have seen.

Then there is a new study from the University of California Berkeley (https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/GetDocument.aspx?tn=242517&DocumentContentId=76033) that says more than a fourth of all public chargers were found to be nonfunctional when tested. From the study: Overall, 72.5% of the 657 chargers were functional. A random evaluation of 10% of the chargers, approximately 8 days after the first evaluation, demonstrated no overall change in functionality. This level of functionality appears to conflict with the 95 to 98% uptime reported by the EV service providers who operate the EV charging stations. So does EA even see how big their problem is? Is it by design that they can't see the issues? The chargers in the study were primarily operated by EVgo and Electrify America.

It's just really sad - there is already so much BS that EV haters make up and now there is this reality that will really help make the case against EVs. I just watched a video by Stradman where is took his Hummer to MOAB Utah and had an awful "adventure" trying to get home due to all of the non-functioning chargers. It was 12-20 degrees F... This would be called a complete failure/nightmare by anyone else who's not a rich Youtuber.

 

[GtiMart]

I suggest you listen to few of Kyle Conner / Out of Spec videos on Youtube. He's been addressing this quite well. He also setup the RateYourCharge project, I suggest you follow that. A lot of good feedback and data is coming out of his (and other) work. It should help those providers realize what'S going on i the field and hopefully react.

 

[mspohr]

EA has certainly done a poor job of executing their court ordered mandate to install chargers. It could lead one to believe that they are doing it on purpose.
I usually subscribe to Hanlon's Razor... never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Speaking of stupidity, I read that the head of EA is going back to VW. No doubt as a reward for his "success" with the charging project.
Sandy Munro recently had a choice rant about EA and other third party chargers. Basically said just replace them all with Tesla chargers and make cars use Tesla's NACS.

 

[GtiMart]

Same here, I don't think it's malice. It would be easy to launch a company and install chargers without knowing how to maintain them or even whether they need maintaining at all. Even once you know they need maintenance, it needs to be in the company's DNA to understand that EV chargers are not just a commodity, they are an essential service. Non-working chargers might mean someone getting stranded, by definition far from home. In bad weather or "bad areas" this can be dangerous. So far I have not gotten the feeling that the DNA of any charging company includes "the chargers must work at all cost, uptime 99.99%". Tesla are the only ones that get somewhat close to that.

 

[mmyers300]

I suggest you listen to few of Kyle Conner / Out of Spec videos on Youtube. He's been addressing this quite well. He also setup the RateYourCharge project, I suggest you follow that. A lot of good feedback and data is coming out of his (and other) work. It should help those providers realize what'S going on i the field and hopefully react.

Yes! Pretty sure his is the first video I saw. I used much of his commentary as well as others in my video.

 

[Olle]

Follow the money... VW makes their profit from ICE manufacturing. Do they stand to win or lose if demand shifts from ICE to EV? That's all you need to know to understand their incentives to maintain EV chargers, that don't even have the VW name on them. This is as clear as night and day IMHO.

If we want to go out on a limb a be a little conspiratory: why are none of the EA charger damaged cars were VWs?

For those who are not familiar, VW still owns EA (according to wikipedia).

 

[Darmie]

I suggest you listen to few of Kyle Conner / Out of Spec videos on Youtube. He's been addressing this quite well. He also setup the RateYourCharge project, I suggest you follow that. A lot of good feedback and data is coming out of his (and other) work. It should help those providers realize what'S going on i the field and hopefully react.

There is also a Twitter handle, Rate Your Charge.

 

[Darmie]

EA has certainly done a poor job of executing their court ordered mandate to install chargers. It could lead one to believe that they are doing it on purpose.
I usually subscribe to Hanlon's Razor... never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Speaking of stupidity, I read that the head of EA is going back to VW. No doubt as a reward for his "success" with the charging project.
Sandy Munro recently had a choice rant about EA and other third party chargers. Basically said just replace them all with Tesla chargers and make cars use Tesla's NACS.

Love me some good Sandy rant. If more companies would listen to Sandy they would be that much more profitable.

 

[Genie]

Follow the money... VW makes their profit from ICE manufacturing. Do they stand to win or lose if demand shifts from ICE to EV? That's all you need to know to understand their incentives to maintain EV chargers, that don't even have the VW name on them. This is as clear as night and day IMHO.

If we want to go out on a limb a be a little conspiratory: why are none of the EA charger damaged cars were VWs?

View attachment 904442
For those who are not familiar, VW still owns EA (according to wikipedia).

Don’t VW group build more models of EV than anyone, by a long way? Public charging is a newish industy, anyone getting in early is bound to make some mistakes and bad decisions, I wouldn’t ‘ascribe it to malice’.

 

[beatle]

There's not much money to be made in charging right now so there's little motivation for EA to do much to improve beyond the bare minimum. EVs are still in early adoption and are still expensive. With many people able charge at home, owners infrequently need to charge on the road. I think I spend on average only about $100/year to supercharge. To encourage more deployments and more reliable service, DCFC companies should charge more per kwh to help recoup their costs, especially in charging deserts. Plenty of people pay $12 (or more) for a beer at the ballpark when they could have cold one at home for $2. You're paying for the convenience of charging away from home and that carries a premium. Later, as there is more demand and smaller charging deserts, prices can come down. I know I would have paid $1/kwh to supercharge while at the beach back in 2021. Instead I had to stay half an hour out of my way at a hotel that had L2 charging.

This article has some good perspective and a good idea about when the station fails to initiate billing, it will still charge your car and not strand you or force you to move to an adjacent stall. This improves the experience and doesn't leave many first-time EV owners soured or stranded.

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

 

[mspohr]

There's not much money to be made in charging right now so there's little motivation for EA to do much to improve beyond the bare minimum. EVs are still in early adoption and are still expensive. With many people able charge at home, owners infrequently need to charge on the road. I think I spend on average only about $100/year to supercharge. To encourage more deployments and more reliable service, DCFC companies should charge more per kwh to help recoup their costs, especially in charging deserts. Plenty of people pay $12 (or more) for a beer at the ballpark when they could have cold one at home for $2. You're paying for the convenience of charging away from home and that carries a premium. Later, as there is more demand and smaller charging deserts, prices can come down. I know I would have paid $1/kwh to supercharge while at the beach back in 2021. Instead I had to stay half an hour out of my way at a hotel that had L2 charging.

This article has some good perspective and a good idea about when the station fails to initiate billing, it will still charge your car and not strand you or force you to move to an adjacent stall. This improves the experience and doesn't leave many first-time EV owners soured or stranded.

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

Still, they should ensure that their chargers actually work.

 

[beatle]

Still, they should ensure that their chargers actually work.

Oh I agree. It's annoying. I'm just saying there's little financial motivation for them to do so, so they probably won't do much about it. Tesla's charging network at least helps them sell cars if charging doesn't make them any money.

 

[Olle]

Don’t VW group build more models of EV than anyone, by a long way?

Far from it. VW was no 5 in 2022

cut from today's issue of cleantechnica

 

[SVMike]

EA has certainly done a poor job of executing their court ordered mandate to install chargers. It could lead one to believe that they are doing it on purpose.

People may wonder where the programmers at VW went who designed the intentional cheat in the software on the emissions test

 

[dduffey]

My first real road trip (one needing a single charging stop) using EA on our R1T was a complete disaster.

That was May/June of last year. EA for awhile called me every few weeks with "updates" and "someone is scheduled to fix it next week!".

They stopped calling around October when I told them "call me when it's working".

My experience was eye opening and surreal, shopping at Walmart while EA reset chargers, getting approached by parking lot homeless community, and slow charging at Tesla destination chargers.

Took the Y on a road trip a couple of weeks ago, stopping at a couple Bucee's along the way, we also did a multi state ski trip. Both times I spent an hour researching if we could do it on non-Tesla network (because we love the R1T) and the routes where less convenient, longer (ski trip by 13 hours!!!), and several single points of failure that would leave us stranded if one station was down (or occupied).

 

[eskudo12791]

rich rebuilds road tripped his R1t from boston to I believe tampa, and showed how spotty other networks are

 

[nativewolf]

I really haven’t seen the problems others describe. But we also have seen the chargers fairly well occupied, especially in VA TN and LA.

 

[mspohr]

This charger seemed to work just fine.

 

[beatle]

I really haven’t seen the problems others describe. But we also have seen the chargers fairly well occupied, especially in VA TN and LA.

I also didn't personally experience any issues while I had my Lightning last summer, though I did only stop to DCFC 4 times: twice in VA, twice in PA, all on EA. Plug and charge worked perfectly and charge rates approached the truck's maximum. Each time it was pretty much like a supercharger - nice and boring as it should be. That said, from researching Plugshare I saw there was an EA station on I-81 that I avoided on a trip since it had been offline for 2 months. The DelMarVa peninsula is a graveyard of DCFCs. Literally everything is dead. A camping trip I took to Assateague last spring with my P85D would have been a nail-biting hassle in a Lightning even with the big battery.

Marques Brownlee just had a timely video about the state of non-Tesla charging, echoing much of the sentiment here:

 

[GtiMart]

IT might be a chicken and egg thing then... EA won't fix the issues until they make money out of them, and people won't go there until they fix the chargers