EA Charging Problems
- Thread starter BS8899
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While I agree the "miles-added/minute" is the correct aggregated metric of A GIVEN CHARGING SESSION, this metric is really an amalgamation of bunch of parameters such as:
[1] the charger's ability to deliver the power (150kW/200kW/350kW, power sharing with neighboring chargers, balancing, etc.) ,
[2] your car's ability to absorb the power (SoC, temperature, charging architecture, preconditioning etc.).
As such, it doesn't inform you as to how to optimize your charging such as, what charger to pick, preconditioning vs not, temperature, SoC when you charge, etc..
I am NOT "dissing" miles/minute as the bottom-line metric. I am saying is, it doesn't tell you how to optimize your charging parameters.
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Yeah, EA & the words "Improving" won't ever exist in the same sentence. You can't polish a turd
That looks just like Scarborough ME EA station..... Two stalls perpetually offline.
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Trust me, 2 stalls offline is considered good at that location. Usually 3 or sometimes 4 at any given time. These are the new power balanced chargers also so they have no excuse!
I'll pay closer attention to that metric next time. Having an Air Pure I'm not getting close to 243kW. If I'm not charging at home with the level 2 charging I'm charging at the local EA which are150 kW chargers. When I do that the most important metric to me is are they open or not at the time, regardless of all other specs.
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Title this “EA Lessons Learned”. Driving home Saturday evening. 200 miles to go. 1 last charge needed. Michigan City, IN the eastern end of Chicagoland, newer charger site. I hit 245 kW in my Touring there recently. 5 of 6 chargers unavailable. 2 had no power. 2 said unavailable. 1 frozen said please unplug. Sole working charger occupied by a Bolt charging to 100% of course. Guy in Mach E excited about using the Tesla chargers soon. His adapter slated to come in August. The Tesla charging station immediately adjacent has 20 stalls only 1 in use at any time. I saw 6 Teslas stop in for a quick charge during my 1.5 hour wait. Next time I will check the EA app for charger status ahead of time. I stopped doing that. Why so many EA chargers unavailable right now?
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I didn’t have EA problem on my last road trip, but I want to report Francis Energy DCFC station problem. New Mexico hardly have DCFC station outside of Tesla, so I had to plan where to go judiciously. I went to White Sands National Park, tried to charge the only DCFC station where PlugShare told me was ok. It was mistake. The station was not working and I called the 1-800 customer care and got confirmed not working and they cannot do anything about it. I had to go to GMC dealer to charge 1 hour for 45kW of EV Connect instead. Then on the next city Las Cruces, 3 EV Connect were 1 stall broke annd 2 were occupied by Bolt, plugged and disappeared.
I ended up overnight L-2 charge in Marriott property of Las Cruces
Rivian has recently just updated their mobile app to give DCFC station score base on data collection of their vehicle connections, charging curves, non-working and derailing incidences. Rivian mobile app navigation map is another good point of reference outside of PlugShare if you are planning a road trip to look stations ahead.
I ended up overnight L-2 charge in Marriott property of Las Cruces
Rivian has recently just updated their mobile app to give DCFC station score base on data collection of their vehicle connections, charging curves, non-working and derailing incidences. Rivian mobile app navigation map is another good point of reference outside of PlugShare if you are planning a road trip to look stations ahead.
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My guess:
. All brands need maintenance. Tesla have broken chargers too but that issue is hidden due to quick, real-time status reports and repairs. Also in your case EA 5/6 broken means 83% while if the next door Tesla has 5 broken, that only means 25%.
.EA might have a strict budget so it has to delay the repairs.
. Unreliable status reporting system: sometimes the app erroneously shows broken chargers as available even after drivers reported to humans in Customer Service.
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I have charged at EA for a year and a half. Authentication through the Lucid app has been required occasionally and randomly at the same charger. Locally, charging is of little concern, but on cross-country drives, it is a concern due to potentially inoperative stalls. Therefore my cross-country charging plan is about every 200 miles on the interstates usually at Walmart. If I have to stretch the charging distance or use another charging company so be it, but I always want about 150 miles of SOC cushion. Not a problem for me because three hours of seat time for ~200 miles is about my endurance limit. My sense and it is only based on limited local EA charging, is that EA performance is improving. Whatever its flaws may be, driving the astonishing AGT makes tolerating charging inconveniences trivial for me.
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here is a lesson for you and others who dependent on public chargers, get the plugshare app, then look at it to research the charger that you are planning on using, if the reviews are not good try and find a different place to charge.
if you do arrive at a charger that is either inoperative or overcrowded open the EA app to locate other nearby charging options.
since I do not have free EA charging I don't feel obliged to use the EA units, in fact here in Florida recent price increases for EA charging make EA a very costly place to charge.
there are many alternatives here to charge up on trips.
the moral to the story goes back to planning, planning is crucial.
whenever you are going to be driving beyond the range of your car you need to plan where and when you will charge to complete your journey.
planning your charging is the difference between an enjoyable trip or a trip loaded with inconveniences and frustration.
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a 150 mile cushion is a bit over the top.
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Not for me. Your lengthy admonition to plan is common sense. How many 2000-mile cross-country drives have you done?
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more than a few, most of my long distance trips are up and down I95 from FL to NYC which are sub 2k mile trips.
I have driven to CO, TX, IL. I live in very northern FL so a trip to miami is almost 800 miles R/t, to get to key west add 130 miles. the point is that I have a bit of experience making longer road trips.
FWIW my first EV was a Leaf, and I had a very early edition Model S, even better was the fact that when I took delivery of that tesla it was in NJ and I immediately drove it back to FL.
the charging infrastructure was 1/10 of what is is today, so that made for a couple of very long hops between chargers.
I hope my bona fides are sufficient.
now back to you charging with 150 miles in the "tank", when you charge at such a high SOC you are charging more slowly than you would if there were on 50 miles in the tank.
try driving the bottom of the battery to achieve the best charging speeds.
I try to get the battery under 5-10% soc or more and then charge the car 5-15% more than is needed to make it to the next charger. If I see that my wh/miles is good I will drive a bit more spirited to burn off miles,
this makes for faster charging stops.
when planning taking into account the climatic and topographic conditions along the route needs to be part of the equation.
the first time I drove from FL to Nashville on I 75 I foolishly didn't realize that I was passing through the mountains north of Atlanta and I white knuckled it for a bit.
did I mention how crucial planning is?
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Until the NEVI 50-mile interval is built, I did a cross-country from CA to the East Coast in my Lucid, and 150 or more is very good and practical advice, given the unreliability of charger availability.
If you Go East on I-40 and the whole charger station is down in Winslow, AZ, the next available station is Gallup, NM, which is 128 miles away. Drivers will need to hypermile in order to make the 150-mile reserve work for that trip.
Or they could go back to the previous station in Flagstaff, AZ 52 miles back. Again, for some drivers, 150 miles on the battery gauge will barely get them to that actual 52 mile distance.
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We are talking the same thing. I went from CA to the East Coast.
If my plan was to stop at Winslow, AZ to charge and I was still not arriving at the East Coast yet.
If Winslow, AZ station is down, I have 2 choices:
1. Go back the opposite direction to Flagstaff, AZ station 52 miles away to charge
or
2. Go forward 128 miles to charge at Gallup, NM station.
If I arrived with only 50 miles left in my Lucid in Winslow, AZ EA station that was down, I would be screwed!
I hear you on the 200 mile "seat" limit. If you've got a 50+ year old prostate, You'll be stopping every 3 hours anyway
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