Electrify America Has Been Upgrading Their Sites w/ New Chargers - Here's How It's Going So Far
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- We'd love to hear your experience with the new charging hardware! Overall we find it to be a big bump in performance and reliability, but there are still some major issues to be worked out.
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#EV #Charging #DCFC - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
Overall I like the new units. Better screens, nice cables, ok cable management (although I’ve heard of them breaking), juicy power, and faster screen response time. However these issues of them still being found offline or unavailable, bricking vehicles (unrelated to the F-150 story that blew up last week, that was on Signet), and some weird power sharing bugs means we are still on the rocky ride of public DCFC for CCS EVs
Cables are breaking and just laying on the ground often. Software is still absoulte trash, making new hardware irrelevant. Can't wait for tesla to open up.
Take your rivian to the rivian chargers and see what happens. They need to get on building their network so you don’t have to bash Ea for not handling the trucks . They network came out in 2018 for cars . They don’t owe rivian anything.
@@markfitzpatrick6692 There are two Rivian Waypoint chargers a 4 minute walk from my door. they are 11.6 kW that i use to charge my Chevrolet Bolt EUV for free, it handles 11.6 kW charging. And the chargers are rock solid, no issues so far.
Why don't you call up Electrify America and some of the other charging companies and do either zoom or in person interviews? I would find their insights very interesting
@@markfitzpatrick6692 so Rivian drivers should count on Rivian building out their own network while Vw, Ford and GM build zero?. EA wasn’t VW idea but forced. Where are Rivian supposed to charge if there is none around? Are are you referring to Tesla opening up which I do understand is not liked by Tesla drivers.
The Green LED lighting of the ‘old’ EA towers is an awesome feature when you are driving around a mall parking lot that you’ve never been to.
Bummer that it looks like these new ones don’t have it. 😢
Quite the downgrade if you ask me. Much less visibility, increased plan charging rates, little too no 220 volt charger availability. Looks like Shell chargers are already doing a better job than EA even with a huge head start!
On the plus side, the Plugshare app does a great job of pinpointing the *exact* location of the chargers (not just the 'street address' that could be anywhere on a complex 200 acre property). You have a good point, though.
99% of the time, when you hook an electrical load to a source of power, the load does indeed "pull" the power.
DC fast chargers are an exception. The really, truly PUSH current into the battery. The car is ordering up a certain charging power - but if the software and hardware in the charger ignores or misinterprets that request, or has some design flaw, like a very slow programmed rate of change that causes the charger to respond to requests from the car to back off only after some delay, there is no way for the car's circuits to throttle the excessive current. The only way the car can deal with a rogue charger that is sending more than the car has asked for is to either allow the overly high charging current for a while, or open the contactors that connect the charge port to the battery and completely stop the charge.
Even the way that ID4 guy drove out pissed me off 7:30
I wanted to talk to that older gentleman through my screen and let him know what he was doing so he would never do it again. People like him make the issue of all these unreliable chargers even worse.
I really can not stand people who have bad charger etiquette especially when the infrastructure is so fragile. There’s no excuse.
There may have been another car there earlier that parked strange and he had to just follow along to reach the charger.
@@jasonfournier Doubtful. Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt.
@@jasonfournier that doesn’t negate the fact that at some point, someone parked like an asshole and had terrible charger etiquette. Calling out such behavior is the only way to change it going forward.
really wanted a call out or a zoom in
Keep calling it how it is. I sincerely appreciate the effort taken to detail all of these different issues and desperately needed improvements.
I parked next to another ID4 a couple hours ago at an EA station and it was parked the SAME way. The guy was having trouble getting the station to work and was on the phone with support. I pulled up to the stall next to him, charged and left. Hard to feel a ton of sympathy when you park like you have no regard for anyone else.
1:10 If any car takes up 2 parking spaces, then the fine/ticket should be double costs as well. Don't forget to add twice of the points.
agreed
8:40 I loved this moment. Thanks for leaving it in! 😂
The other day at our local EA stations their was a Chevy bolt that was on idle for 310 minutes and counting when I finished charging. I called and reported their asses because no one needs to leave a car there for that long.
Thanks for this vlog. Have an amazing Thursday. 2023.
We just went on a road trip SF to Phoenix. EA chargers were routinely down. One thing that was top on our list is the Green neon lighting makes location MUCH easier!! Losing that is a giant loss. Good report. Our car is a Kia Niro EV
Great information Kyle! Please keep posting these very interesting and important charge dispenser updates.
We have CCS2 charging here at my company in northern Utah, it is for a special project with an electric semi truck from Europe! Fun stuff, keep it up, wonder if NACS will catch on.
I really hope we look back on road trip videos from now in 5 years and laugh at it
I do that now let's go back to 2017 b4 EA what was road trips like? So yeah 5 years from now will be a laugh
That’s what people have been saying for years. It will get a lot better ™
Great job recording Alyssa. Very good camera work. No bouncing, very smooth. Thanks for the content.
I don't understand why the reliability is bad now. That's the most important part of a charging network. What's the point in spending the money if 60% of them are working at any given time? If people are going to switch to evs these things need to work. Minimum expectation should be 90% up time. Bricking should be extremely rare. The network is for the driver. It doesn't sound like E.A. understands this. Hugely disappointing.
Have a look at Kempower satellite/dispenser stands. Small with awesome features. This one's are huge, so much waste of material.
I charged my BMW i4 M50 at two of the new EA sites in Texas this weekend. The hardware is SK Signet. At both sites on plugin, I pulled 201kW. The session was very good. At the second site, there are 6 chargers. Four were busy. I plugged into station 1. Station 2 was empty. I pulled 201kW on plugin. Then, a Mach-e plugged into station 2, and my charging level lowered to 179kW. These are balanced chargers. These two sites were the older ABB units. EA location Ennis, TX online last week, and Bellmead, TX, fully online today.
No one should be taking up two spaces-you are correct to call that behavior rude. As for charging to 100%, I believe it is rational behavior for ID.4 owners, especially in cold weather, because of lower range. I believe that the ID.4 that I own has a real-world range in warm weather of about 240 miles, but that range is much reduced in weather below 30 degrees. The ID.4’s sold in the United States don’t have heat pumps. Lack of range isn’t a problem for me because I have an Autel charging station in the garage. To make matters worse, when I tried to charge at an Electrify American DC charging station in Spokane, Washington, the station only charged at about 40kW, which was happening to another ID.4 near me. So anyone who relies on public DC chargers for an ID.4 is behaving rationally by charging to 100% in cold weather considering the reduced range. We traded in a Tesla Model Y to get the ID.4 and got a much superior automobile with poor EV technology, including poor public charging. I repeat that taking up two spaces is inexcusable. The car has a really nice backup camera-learn to use it.
You are right on the slow charging. In summer when I get 100 kWh + and then get dinged to 20kwh over 80% it makes sense to stop. But, in winter when max is 60+ and get dropped to 20 the penalty isn’t so bad so I hang around watching videos or shopping. My station isn’t so busy now but if that changes I’ll rethink.
Not to worry, you are not sounding like a Tesla fanboy. I appreciate all the detail you bring to the topic and it comes out quite balanced. So go for it!
Your knowledge of the charging and history are very vakluable. Thanks for your hard work and testing.
A few weeks ago in LA we pulled up to an Electrify America that my Lightning said was online as did the Electrify America app. The chargers were still wrapped in plastic. Went to the next station and it was full and/or broken. We found an EVgo station nearby. EA's shenanigans added about two hours to our 1000 mile trip.
Went on two trips totaling 10k miles this summer through out west and out east in Canada to Nova Scotia. Piece of cake using a Tesla and their supercharger network.
@@shou635 no shit, sh ou!
Should've gotten a Tesla 🤦🏾♂️
@@LuigiFan1305 Just replace that old commercial, "I should have had a V-8!" with I should have gotten a Tesla!
Thank You for All that you are doing for our Planet Earth.... Peace.. Shalom.. Salam.. Namaste 🙏🏻 😊 🌈 ✌ ☮ ❤
I had the experience of showing up at a charging station recently and finding the whole station shut down with new chargers not up and running yet. I had travelled the same route a few times with my 2022 Chevy Bolt EUV and so it didn’t occur to me that I had to check the app to see if the station would be working. There were no other EA stations without backtracking a ways, which seemed stupid because I could get to my destination with the charge I had albeit uncomfortably low. Now I know I ALWAYS have to check station status first. Luckily I found a Volta fast charger, the only one, and available, in a nearby shopping mall lot. What you said about the new chargers makes me a little nervous to use the new hardware because I don’t want to get bricked on a road trip … that seems like a HUGE problem then need to fix right away.
As the owner of a brand new leaf, I'm glad they're not removing the chademo plugs yet. And yes I did my research but forgot to check if it was possible to get a chademo to ccs adapter and unfortunately it's not possible for an adapter to work
Went to charge my EQS on my lunch break on EA chargers were all getting a firmware update. Why not just update one at a time, or wait until late night or early morning when least usage. Totally agree with your opinions and experiences.
The way they operate is antithetical to the reality that they are vital infrastructure.
It’s also just bad business to strand your customers. I don’t know anyone who has a favorable view towards EA.
@@Termnath
Not surprising.. VW groups seems to not be able to get things done right when it comes to software.. or just basic common sense in many areas.
Lets pull down the I-95 corridor for repairs on the busiest travel holiday of the year??? How disconnected from reality do you need to be to do that.
Its a consequence of a large corporate structure that does not communicate within its own organization very effectively
Really unfortunate,
@@Termnath They don't care. The entire company was created because of a settlement. It might sound conspiracy theorist but I think their culture stinks to the core They are a nuisance to Volkswagen
@@Termnath E.A. was born out of punishment, clearly not because they "are in it to win it."
It's almost like the owners (VW) are trying to upset the customers! I can only guess why they shut off all of them at the same moment.
They need a process to confirm a technician is at the site, and only take it offline upon arrival. Shutting one down when no one is there is useless (just like all the empty 'work zones' on highways)
Just moved from Denver to Florida and we have one EA in town. It went offline last week for upgrading with no notice. The next closest EA is 40 miles away, so an 80 mile round trip to charge. Just rediculous. Luckily my apartment complex has a few free L2 chargers available, though I'm only getting 3kW from them. We will see how the new chargers work in a few weeks.
I love these videos on DC charging. These are my life saving stations for a long trip in my electric car.
Thanks for the video you are right on with the reliability problems. Francis energy seems to be limiting all their stations to 50K which is worthless. We went back to using our ICE car for road trips .
I have a Tesla MY & M3. I am impressed with a lot of the new EV offerings from many manufacturers and will consider them the next time I am in the market for a new car but Only if the charging infrastructure improves. Tesla has a HUGE advantage over the competition. They may be able to match Tesla performance at the vehicle level but the infrastructure issue is a real problem for non Tesla EVs. BTW. I’ve owned EVs for 4 years. I know 95% of all charging happens at home but if I cant drive from Florida to New England each year with confidence, I’m not going to consider leaving Tesla.
It wasn't just Texas that was down over Thanksgiving. New Castle DE (just off of I-95) was also down.
Great video Kyle!
We all know why they park in the center of two charging spots. That way their is half a parking spot on either side of their car,thinking no one will hit their car. They will only do that when no one is standing in another spot that could potentially confront them.
and the fact they are morons.
7:30 The boxy 50 kW EVgo chargers are BTC Power model L3R chargers. Later on, they introduced the L3S (L3 slim) and the L3R enclosure is now used for 100 kW chargers.
I own a business that contracts with EA and several others (including Jeep & Sunrun) to install DC&AC charging stations. Ive emailed asking if you guys wanted to see maintenance or installation numerous times and gotten nothing back. If any viewers have questions leave them below and im happy to answer
Is it true the temp sensors in the Huber+Shuner cables keep going bad and there's a shortage of replacements? When the cable chillers stop working do you have to hire an HVAC tech to work on those? Is lack of trained techs a limiting factor in keeping the stations running? Can a regular licensed electrician work on them or do they need special licenses?
Went to the station in Vegas where these new units are this weekend. Half the units were down. Even in my EV6 which should be able to pull 220kw+, I usually average around 125kw. Seems like most of the stations in Vegas/Southern Nevada and Southern Utah are only about 50% operational as of late November/early December 2022.
Hey Kyle, Do you think that EA should be doing pull through stations in the US? Obviously you've seen plenty of installations in Europe where there are pull through style chargers like gas pumps. Especially helpful when pulling trailers.
Should be doing? Yes. Are they doing it? That's a different question.
As always, Thank you Kyle(!!!) for your continues work on pointing out this mess!
I myself are going to road trip in my Tesla X Plaid next week, from Atlanta to Palm Springs. I do have a CCS adapter and plan on stopping on a few EA chargers (particular the per minute priced States). However, I will keep in mind they might not work and/or busy. Last thing I want to do is block somebody from charging their EV while I could just go to the next best supercharger.
Given my short experience with EA has been rather painful and a strong disappointment. I cannot imagine having a CCS based EV and that would be my only real option for road trips across the country. I wonder how long it takes for EV producers (BMW, Mercedes, Ford, Hyundai...) to think about a valid solution for the sake of their customers and offer help on this.
If one of them would decided to implement Teslas NACS, then this would open up a whole new experience to their customers when it comes to long distance travel. Given that Tesla would make good on the needed second step after NACS, making superchargers available for any other vehicle that is using NACS. I think it would help other automakers boosting their cars to not only be useful to commute short distances to and from work, but also open up the realm of opportunities for long distance travel.
I did likewise, too. I had a road trip that went Minneapolis to Wichita, KS, to San Antonio, TX, to Deming, NM, to Los Angeles earlier this year. EA charges on a per-minute basis is Texas, while Tesla charges per kilowatt hour. I found the quality was hit and miss in 100-degree temperatures. Ozona, TX worked well; Van Horn, TX worked well; El Paso was a failure; Deming, NM was a failure; Buckeye, AZ had charging curve issues. Many of the stations are at Walmart stores, and as a result, the EA stations at these locations are set up for diagonal parking, which is very much Tesla-unfriendly.
As a CCS driver, It would be advisable to stick to superchargers. The state of the CCS infrastructure is so fragile, I know I would be pretty annoyed to find a Tesla increasing the line or taking up the only working charger.
If you do use them, maybe prioritize using them during low use hours and consider the day (weekend or not)
My big Q is why all are being taken down at the same time? It appears there is 1 Cabinet behind the fence for each dispenser. That means the can be Isolated (Use the breaker Luke). Do 1 or 2 at a time (depends on crew). And it was totally insane taking them (a site) down on a holiday weekend.
It's easiest/safest for the construction crew to cut power to the whole site so that there's no power going to any of the cabinets. Doesn't make it the right thing to do, though!
Annual maintenance. I was once stuck in Benson, AZ for 6 hours waiting for two guys to finish the annual maintenance on the EA station. Bad design. They should have been able to take down half the station at a time, leaving some chargers still working.
You have to shutdown power to the whole site to do it safely. There's generally earthworks involved as well and they need to all be done at the same time and that involves all the cabinets. Doing it on a holiday weekend though kinda says everything about EA's planning. But I bet every non-Tesla EV driver would be prepared to put up with the inconvenience if it results in a more reliable charging network.
@@jimbready3553 They should bring in generators and temporary chargers to vital sites while they’re down.
@@mondotv4216 If earthworks are involved the original install design was poorly planned. It's hard to believe they would have been that short-sighted. Buried conduit is widely used to prevent that exact problem.
My local utility has been using conduit for underground distribution since the mid-1980s. They just replaced the direct bury underground feed in my 1970s development (7.2KV distribution to 10? transformers) and they installed conduit first and ran the new line thru it. They did not shut down the power except for the final day. My street took several weeks but we only lost power on that single day for about 30 minutes near the supply to 2 hours at the far end. (They had notified us "power will be off for up to four hours.") The project manager said that on similar installs with existing conduit the entire job is completed in days instead of weeks because they don't need to dig (and they did minimal digging on my street with only 12in (30cm) diameter holes about 20ft (6m) apart and 3 trenches across the road).
Thanks, Kyle! Based on my personal experiences (and recency bias), ChargePoint's CPE250 might be the most reliable of the public CCS chargers. They haven't been deployed for long enough to tell how well they will age, but so far, they've had the best uptime. Now it's up to ChargePoint to start deploying them at higher power.
It would be nice if ChargePoint could deploy the CPE-250's higher power (and newer) version the ChargePoint Express Plus. It's a lot more modular but has mainly been used for fleet vehicles. The first public Express Plus units were opened recently in the Northeast US.
@@ArtiePenguin1 they just opened 1 in Maine let's see how it goes
@@ArtiePenguin1 Yeah. Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to try out the Express Plus units myself yet because the one they installed at ChargePoint Headquarters wasn't open to the public. We really need them along the freeway corridors.
Janesville wi,.love the location!
Great information! Has EA given a schedule of when they will update each of the charging stations?
Great job!!!
I've heard that there are some Kempower units on their way stateside, any ideas where they'll be installed? Worth a road trip to check them out...
I wouldn't have guessed iD4 owners are now fighting for the douchebag crown 👑
Did you try Kempower C or S-series when you were in Europe? Can't wait to see what they cook up. Sure the implementation is going to be slow at first, but when they open their US factory things should speed up considerably.
jus wait untill Kempower comming to US the power distrubution will do alot better ;)
I think the use of the term "brick" is a little scarier sounding/misleading on your Rivian as traditionally in the power electronics world this would suggest that the truck is permanently damaged (which sucks if that is what is happening to the F150 Lightnings). The protective hardware sounds like it is doing what it's designed to do, still not great what the chargers are doing and hopefully EA can sort this harmonic condition out.
Did Discount damage the circumference of the Rivian wheels or is that just salt/dirt?
Do the supercharger installs really last longer, or are they better maintained and upgraded more often?
LOL, I probably made the exact same face when you almost stuck your hand in the bird poo.
ID4 owners got 3 years of unlimited free charging, so they're using EA as their primary fuel source since it's free. The 2023s even maintain 80 kW up to 90% and the drop-off after that isn't extreme, so it only adds a few minutes to the session to go all the way to 100%.
"free." You're paying for it with battery degradation that is caused by constantly DC fast charging.
@@descendency According to a study done by the Idaho National Laboratory, there is no meaningful increase in battery degradation from DC fast charging vs L2 charging, especially in vehicles with a thermal management system that maintains the battery temperature.
@@djg38 I would fire that laboratory. D.C. fast charging does degrade the battery. Its because of the "C" rating of the battery, fast charging does things to the battery that are not reversible.
Thank you for your service I'm not sure between gas and electricity for vehicle is it worth it it was still in the fence about it
They upgraded my local chargers, took 4 weeks came online and worked for 2 days before all of them went down.
😱
Drove down I15 from Lehi to St George Saturday in my new ID.4. Cold, ferocious headwind, but planned to charge at the new EA at Scipio. Arrived to find the two 350KW screens dead (the Chademo likewise). The 150 was live, but EA considered it "unavailable" so we couldn't use the app. Fortunately the card reader worked, so we charged up and proceeded. Because of the wind, we wanted to add some charge at Beaver, another 80 miles along. We had just checked that station out the week before and it was working. Pulled in and found it shut down and fenced off, so we reduced speed to 65 and made it comfortably to Cedar City, where the units at Walmart were working fine. Distance between working chargers (not counting Scipio where we got lucky) was 202 miles - too far for us in that wind. My son with his Leaf would have been stranded. Sure, checking the app before we left would have been smarter, but even that didn't give the full picture, and we were naively relying on the status we'd seen two weeks earlier when we checked out those stations while driving an ICE vehicle.
Great video Kyle, but why does it appear Europe seems to have nailed it but not here in N. America for charger reliability, is it that they have the technical training and good supply of repair parts and do regular maintainance for better charger uptime?
It is weird that we know the reliable equipment does exist in Europe but EA are not selecting what is proven to be reliable in Europe. I can give Blink a hall pass for their level 3 units being junk back in 2012, but here we are ten years later and EA is just as junky as the ten tear old blinks.
Probably that they are taking it more seriously. Ev seems to be pushed harder in Europe and especially in the nordic countries. In the us even in California I barely see any ev that isn’t a Tesla
@@sentryion3106 You are right. EA take it less seriously because it's "free money" that came because of diesalgate. In Europe the majority of networks are spending their own money and make smarter choices. It's the difference between compliance and running a profitable business.
There are 2 locations within 215 miles that are both off line for the upgrade. Seems they don't look at what is near as other options. As the one in Tampa is the only one within 50 miles. The other one is in Coco Beach and again only one around for 60 plus miles. I have an 2022 ID.4 and on the ABB and older BTC on the 150kw chargers will not get more than 140kw. But on a 350 my car will charge at 173kw. With the 3.1 software it will charge from almost 0 to 100 in about 55 minutes. Love the speed of them for road trips.
I appreciate what you do. I am sure that you have created pressure to make them improve. I own a Tesla and charge at home, in Texas. Tesla has been adding charging which solved a problem for me. A year ago, I could drive to Lubbock (a college town) but there was no way to drive back. That has been fixed. A local Whole Foods has 2 charge point stalls. I went there as an experiment... free charging but ultra slow. When I came out the market, it had added 4 miles. Mostly pointless. I found another charger, not sure what brand in a shopping center and tried to use it. The screen was so sun fogged that I couldn't tell if the display was on. It had tap to pay, I tried tapping with my credit card but it wouldn't unlock the cable. Tesla Superchargers are so simple; I feel sorry for owners of other brands of EVs.
The only time I've used an EA charger.. 4 were not working and the 5th was only delivering at 80 Kwh. I will not rely on them, for a very long time
I've some of the EA dispensers and not had the best of luck. I went to some that were just installed and turned just two days before and one of them was already bricked and one of the others was completely off. And others at another site where they had recently replaced the units one was completely dead and the others weren't delivering the full KW's it was designed for.
Tesla cables seem super easy to move in cold weather? Is there a difference?
I’ve had pretty good success with the new Delta “Ultium Ready” EVgo units. Main issue is the distribution of stations isn’t as good as EA
I have been watching Fully Charged since 2016 and other electric vehicle TH-cam/electric vehicle charging TH-cam channels, and have learned the edicate while charging. Learned quite a bit from Tom; State of Charge TH-cam channel.
Most non-tesla chargers in europe work fine, but just like in america, certain brands seem to be doing worse than others.
Come down to the Springs and try this. We only have ONE location. So much for free charging for my ID4 (I do park between the lines.)
I understand having to take them offline to upgrade, but EA absolutely can’t take two in a row offline at the same time. Right now, there are two in a row that are offline on the 15 in Utah, making it impossible to travel that corridor unless you have a Lucid.
I just purchased a BMW i3 and I'm stuck in Lafayette Indiana because 4 of the 5 EA chargers are down. There's a line of 3 people so I'm sitting here across the street at a level 2 charger in a hotel. Lucky the hotel charging is Free. Plugshare saved the day
Hmm not here in Miami, FL. The EA chargers here has been stuck on 45-70kW charging for weeks now!!
What I don’t understand is why it takes so long to get a new site up and running. EA is putting in a new 4 charger site less than half a mile from my home. Construction started in January. The chargers were in the ground and the site completed by May. It’s December, and they’re still sitting there with connectors wrapped in plastic.
Probably no power due to politics.
E.A. was born out of punishment, clearly not because they "are in it to win it."
Keep up the videos!
Kyle, you've probably covered this but how much faster is a V3 250kw Tesla charger versus a V2 150kw charging 10% to 80% on the newer Teslas? Seems you get that big push at the beginning but how much faster is it overall? These high-peak chargers are negating much of the benefit of switching to electricity.
New 350kW chargers in New River, AZ are great. Thanks EA!
Wow on that ID.4 and my wife cried out and made me rewind it. It's her name and birthday, lol, but no we don't live in Colorado and don't have an ID.4 hehe. Free charging is rife with abuse, sadly.
So, is the over 500 A delivery in order or a glitch? Didn't you spike with the Taycan over 290 kW before?
Just encountered a section of I-15 between Cedar City and Salt Lake City, 2 locations taken down for the upgrades. Good thing Plug Share had it identified. I need one or the other to get to SLC. Had to divert to Richfield adding about 30 miles to the trip. This could have been a fail. Just a thought--Why not Upgrade one at a time? I used one of the new charges in SLC no problems!! I was my third try at at locations in SLC 18miles from where I needed to be. Driving a R1T.
I agree. EA, why is it still so hard to charge a car on your network? Software issues and bricking cars with brand new co developed hardware stinks of pulling the bread out of the oven half baked and saying good enough. I still road trip in a Chevy Bolt. Are one of these shiny new 350kw units going to try to force far more than the car's hardware can accept with them trying to do so on higher KW rated vehicles? If you damage my car, do you fix it?
0:30 have they been putting in more charging stations after replacing the old stations?
The coolest charging station I've ever seen is a supercharger in Dallas in a station called fuel city. You can get some killer tacos plus while you charge you can watch some longhorns they have there.
What they need to do it display the log of car/charger interactions so we can see where the thing fails so we know who to blame - the car should also do this - knowledge is king
Used one of these in Tuscaloosa. Brand new station and it took 5 tries to communicate with my mach e
I have a Tesla model Y and got the CCS adapter from Tesla. I used electrify America station for the first time. I couldn’t charge of the 350 kW an hour because some idiot ID4 Owner was there. But at the 150 kW in our charger it did an excellent job. This was in Mansfield Ohio.
Here is Salt Lake they just ripped out the entire station and upgraded it. I haven't had a chance to use it yet as it just came back online but I'm glad they are. Still, it sucked because there are no other DC fast charging for about 40 miles away. Fortunately I have home charging but I have solar and like to use EA when it's cloudy. I can't imagine if someone depended on it for full time charging.
A friend of mine was traveling through when the station was offline. They had to use a 50kW station nearby. Thankfully on the way back the upgrade was finished and worked fine.
Thanks for this video! But i notice that this EA where you’re at, is located at a Target. In my experience here in Texas, our EA’s here are always at a Walmart. Lol. Do they have a contract with these establishments?
I'm in the greater Boston area and have yet to see any updated EA chargers. The reliability of the chargers is horrendous. A few weeks ago the 3 EA locations in my area where all down.
I hope sometime in the near future the reliability issues will be solved. Luckily I have a level 2 at home. Feel sorry for those EV owners who depend on EA.
Kyle, could you comment how Europe is doing their charging network and if they are having the same difficulty and, if not, why not. Thanks.
I read about your problems with charging in the US and it reminds me of France in 2019 when every road trip in my Hyundai Kona was a nightmare. Three years later (and I’ve since added a Chinese-made Model Y to my garage) it’s immeasurably improved with Ionity fast charging at almost every Autoroute service area, and the Tesla network on top of that. It helps greatly that we have a common charge port for Tesla and everything else. Range anxiety simply isn’t an issue here anymore.
Tried to charge at some of the new stations on a trip to Texas from Utah during thanksgiving and rarely got more than 50kw on a 22 VW ID4. Sucked since they charge me after 30 minutes of free charging. If it charged like the car can accept I wouldn’t have needed to stay more than 30 minutes. Got reliable 60+ kw at ChargePoint units which seem to be rock solid compared to EA units
Seems like Shell and chargepoint are places to stop at
Port St. Lucie, Florida just got upgraded chargers which seemed great since the old ones were totally undependable. However, went to charge and got connection errors. Tried two different chargers with service rep on the phone who even reset them and never could get a good connection to my 2021 ID. 4. Finally went to the one old charger 150/chademo and plugged in connected immediately and got a good charge. Ionic five Guy said he plugged in, went in Walmart and came back and realized he wasn't charging. Chevy bolt moved a couple times and finally got it charge, and another ID 4 guy couldn't get connected either. So, not real excited about the new chargers 😞
Thank you so much for doing these review videos of the charging infrastructure! I truly hope that EA will be better in the future, but that is highly unlikely if they are NOT going to be open and honest about these horrible experiences they are creating. I wish I was seeing better communication from them when bad things are continually and increasingly happening to more and more people. It seems like it is spiraling out of control.
I think Kyle unintentionally buried the lede that the new stations sucked as he explained the technical specs and backstory. The fact that the latest EA hardware is so bad even after they touted how it was custom designed in-house for maximum reliability. It's nuts.
@Wes Wahlin, are you using Tesla or are you now on CCS?
@@anthonyc8499 I use both
@@anthonyc8499 I'm on Tesla. I am afraid to try others.😁
What is it with ID 4 owners charging to full?
I’ve noticed that as well even when there’s a long line or only one working charger. Very frustrating.
I have a ‘21 and it’s this stupid free charging. I wish they would buy me out. I set mine to 90% thinking no harm will be done and that 80-90% will be slow. I love to talk to other owners and answer questions from outsiders so if I’m doing my thing I don’t mind it being slow. However, if I’m not enjoying my charging experience or someone pulls up and needs a spot, I leave or pull to a non charging spot and continue socializing. Another big problem is low watt cars pulling into high watt chargers when they don’t have too, Kyle, you might be partially responsible because you have suggested the 350kw units might give a faster charge on an ID4 than a 150kw.
@@4rwayner7 if there’s nobody around, that’s fine. I just always try to be mindful of other people. Ive even moved from a 350 to a 150 once my car’s curve went below 170 so that a Taycan could use the 350 and speed up the line. Also the free charging excuse is a bit weird to me because Ioniqs/Kias also get that and don’t find them charging that long even though 30 min would pretty much get them to 100% most of the time.
ID 4s, Bolts, and Niros using the 350s is whole other issue as well and extremely frustrating on busy travel days.
Overall, EA should add more communication to their app about this type of stuff. Maybe a reminder depending on your car about what charger to use. Add a virtual queue to the app so drivers can see how long lines are while they’re planning/driving to the station. This would also prevent scenarios where drivers will just pull up into a station and cut the line, it’s strange how many times I’ve had to negotiate charging lines. Send notifications to drivers once they are at 80% if there is a line, asking them to move or pay peak charging cost for their inefficient behavior. There’s so much EA could do right now without needing to rip out chargers to greatly reduce the lines and pain of driving. Right now, it’s a crapshoot. You never know what type of situation you’re going to pull up to and that causes charge anxiety.
I wonder why they feel they must install the replacement units in the same location as the ones they are replacing? So say they have 4 sites, like the one you are at, and they want to install 4 more new ones. Sure they can re-use the location of the cabinets, and maybe not need to replace conduit and pull in new larger wires.
They could also install the newer units to the other side of the transformer enclosure room. And then have those new chargers ready before shutting off the old ones.
Or maybe a good plan would be to buy a couple of level 2 chargers rated at 32 amps at 240 volts, and put those to the other side of the charging transformer room. Then they would not be totally offline when they switch out the EV chargers. (except for tour leaf).
On one of your recent video's, I saw you drove past a Ford dealership as you left the I-70 freeway. Ford will normally have a level 2 charger in the service area. I would guess most car dealers have a charger now.
I talked to EA about publishing a list of stations to be upgraded and the scheduled dates for the work. Unfortunately the people on the phones are not informed of field activities. I tried to impress on them the need to be able to know if a station is going offline during a roadtrip. There are many miles here on the east coast where there is no backup for failed stations. A family would be stuck at a L2 station for hours in order to advance to the next DC FC. We are planning a roadtrip up I-95 at Christmas time. I tried to find out if there will be any stations out of service on I-95 during that time, the agents on the phones could not answer that question. Seems like the management of field activities are operating in a vaccuum. I would not blame a driver for going back to gas for road trips. Hopefully videos like this help improve the overall experience. Thanks for publishing your experience.
I decided to switch back to gas for road trips because here in the middle of the country it can be hundreds of miles between chargers and there is no way of knowing if a particular location can charge a high-voltage vehicle such as my Ioniq 5. The area between I-40 and I-70 and I-25 and I-35 is a desert, you just can’t do a road trip in an EV. There are no EA stations in this area at all, and all DCFC’s are located on the interstates, with none along US or state highways
Where were these people you were calling, the Philippines?
@@avesraggiana Funny, no USA
I was stranded with guests on a recent trip when they decided to take down the only two fast charger sites in the Austin/Dallas corridor at the SAME TIME WITHOUT NOTICE RIGHT BEFORW THANKSGIVING. Had to cancel our plans and sit at an L2 for hours. I can not tell you how much I hate this terrible company. Customer service didn’t know what was going on and barley seemed to understand what a DC fast charger was and why I couldnt just go somewhere else as if it was as common as a gas station.
@@glenngore6609 I live in the middle of Colorado, the only DCFC's on US or state highways are Chargepoint. So at least we have that. All the EA's are on I-70 and I-25.
Why about other operators? Are there any smaller companies that use working hardware?
How do you know when the new units will be installed in Florida?
you should go to england and try their GRIDSERVE charging stations, they look awesome
Unfortunately they are just as unreliable it seems.
Lots of them have been broken.
As someone considering a first EV for our use case, this presents some problems for us. You covered some really important points: With the upgrade, the EA network is no more reliable, but now has more potential to damage your vehicle. And with the new rollout, no increase in the number of charge units per site. Has anyone talked about how this being a punishment for VW probably doesn't motivate EA to be a top performer? VW, this is not helping your brand image. It would be great if VW sold off EA to someone who will make it a success. Thanks.
They still have done anything about drive through charging stations for those people towing trailers.
So Tesla CAN step back like in Europe and China. Thanks Kyle for confirming this, folks have been freaking out over Tesla stepping back.
What's happening to the old stations? Refurbish/Repair and Redeployment?
Or just the lazy trash way?
anyone has insights on the (upcoming) Chamberlain SD charging site? this seems to be a critical stop for E/W trip along I90, the two closest EA site is almost 300 miles apart, making EV tripping very difficult or impossible without a Chamberlain stop if driving at 70 mph or higher..