EA Megathread

[Tâm]

Back to EA, last I checked it was 1000V. Did something change?

No. Nothing changes.

VW's Electrify America opens California's first 350kW ultra-fast charger, before cars can actually use it

Yesterday, Electrify America announced they've opened their first 350kW quick charge location in Northern California. The bank...

electrek.co

EA is rated for 1000VDC output but that voltage is adjusted down for 800V battery architecture.

When EA announced to the press, I can’t find 1000V anywhere but you often find 800V in their announcements.

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/214#

 

[Tesla2.0]

No. Nothing changes.

VW's Electrify America opens California's first 350kW ultra-fast charger, before cars can actually use it

Yesterday, Electrify America announced they've opened their first 350kW quick charge location in Northern California. The bank...

electrek.co

EA is rated for 1000VDC output but that voltage is adjusted down for 800V battery architecture.

When EA announced to the press, I can’t find 1000V anywhere but you often find 800V in their announcements.

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/214#

Air GT is 924 Volt

 

[Tâm]

Air GT is 924 Volt

You got me!

I guess 800V is a generic terminology for any battery architecture with 800V or above.

NEVI specs call for a minimum of 920V (that’s 4 Volts lower than Lucid's battery pack of 924V.)

 

[Adnillien]

NEVI specs call for a minimum of 920V (that’s 4 Volts lower than Lucid's battery pack of 924V.)

That is fine because by the time you charge your batteries above 920 volts, you are so close to 100% SOC and the charge rate will be well below 50kW that the DC to DC up-conversion can handle. It will not impact charging speed. Touring and Pure do no have to worry at all with 756V at 100% SOC.

 

[Adnillien]

That is fine because by the time you charge your batteries above 920 volts, you are so close to 100% SOC and the charge rate will be well below 50kW that the DC to DC up-conversion can handle. It will not impact charging speed. Touring and Pure do no have to worry at all with 756V at 100% SOC.

I should add that the requirement is 920V at the car during high current charging. This allows for some resistive voltage drop from the rectifiers to to the charger to the car. The biggest voltage drop from resistive losses will occur with high current which only happens at low SOC. At low SOC the battery voltage is well under 900 V. As the battery gets above 80% SOC the charge rate and current will decrease along with any resistive voltage drops. Hence, it is very unlikely that the DC to DC up-converter will ever be needed because the voltage will be well above 920 volts at low current.

 

[AltadenaAir]

I can't find that anyone has posted yet about EA's announcement for their "Cycle 4" investment plan in California.

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/231

It's a weird document - lots of almost-technical information, but mostly written to announce that with the Cycle 4 installations EA will have met their 10-year obligation to spend $800M on California's charging infrastructure.

it's quite a slog to carefully read the entire thing, but from my first quick skim:

• The next-gen chargers certainly sound better than currently-available models.
• EA plainly admits that they have fallen short in many areas, including up-time.
• The Cycle 4 chargers won't start showing up until Q4 2024 and will take two years to be fully rolled out. And at that time they won't have replaced all of the earlier equipment, just a fraction of it (and the document gives no guidance as to what the final fleet mix will be).
• The document has lots of nods to "good citizen" requirements imposed upon them at the time of the Consent Decree, like installing chargers in economically disadvantaged areas.
• The document includes a bunch of business plan tidbits that might otherwise be hard to find in one place, such as the fact that "Electrify America has developed national portfolio agreements withmajor real-estate holders including Target, Walmart, Simon Property Group, Brixmor, Sheetz, Bank of America, and others. "

Regarding reliability, the document includes a lot of "but it's not really our fault" language, along the lines of "Gee, it's really hard to keep hardware working all the time, ya know?" To me, the excuses they list are not convincing. Not to mention that it is insane than in the IoT era a device can be offline and the NOC isn't aware until a user calls in and says, "Hey, can you reboot this thing?"

I wish EA good luck. I really hope they can be successful. But this document seems to be a company saying "We are meeting the terms of the Consent Decree", not a company saying "We intend to be a major player in EV charging."

 

[SBD1500]

First time using level-3 charger since I've had my Pure. Drove to Portland to watch the Lakers play against the Trailblazers. I was going to take my wives Model Y because we've always had success with the superchargers and I was fearful of EA's reputation and forum users experience. Well we decided to take the Pure and try out the public charging experience and it wasn't bad at all. The Fred Meyers lot had 4 chargers and none in use to my surprise. Charging went well and it was a good overall experience similar to our supercharger experiences. While we were charging 2 VWs also came to charge. Hopefully EA is reliable like this whenever we might need it again.

 

[HariK]

First time using level-3 charger since I've had my Pure. Drove to Portland to watch the Lakers play against the Trailblazers. I was going to take my wives Model Y because we've always had success with the superchargers and I was fearful of EA's reputation and forum users experience. Well we decided to take the Pure and try out the public charging experience and it wasn't bad at all. The Fred Meyers lot had 4 chargers and none in use to my surprise. Charging went well and it was a good overall experience similar to our supercharger experiences. While we were charging 2 VWs also came to charge. Hopefully EA is reliable like this whenever we might need it again.
View attachment 16491

What was the ambient temp, start and end SoC? Did you pre-charge? Was it a 150 or 350kW charger?

 

[SBD1500]

What was the ambient temp, start and end SoC? Did you pre-charge? Was it a 150 or 350kW charger?

I think temp was mid 40s I don't remember. SOC was 38%. I charged to 81% and it took 29 mins. It was a 150kw charger.

 

[Tesla2.0]

First time using level-3 charger since I've had my Pure. Drove to Portland to watch the Lakers play against the Trailblazers. I was going to take my wives Model Y because we've always had success with the superchargers and I was fearful of EA's reputation and forum users experience. Well we decided to take the Pure and try out the public charging experience and it wasn't bad at all. The Fred Meyers lot had 4 chargers and none in use to my surprise. Charging went well and it was a good overall experience similar to our supercharger experiences. While we were charging 2 VWs also came to charge. Hopefully EA is reliable like this whenever we might need it again.
View attachment 16491

I honestly think EA has been improving drastically this year. The good sessions don’t get reported and bad sessions get reported and blown out of proportion on YouTube.

 

[MorganB]

I can't find that anyone has posted yet about EA's announcement for their "Cycle 4" investment plan in California.

I'm not sure I would hold my breath. Cycle 3 is supposed to be ending in July and here in Texas they have completed nothing at all on the Cycle 3 PDF.

 

[kurious]

First time using level-3 charger since I've had my Pure. Drove to Portland to watch the Lakers play against the Trailblazers. I was going to take my wives Model Y because we've always had success with the superchargers and I was fearful of EA's reputation and forum users experience. Well we decided to take the Pure and try out the public charging experience and it wasn't bad at all. The Fred Meyers lot had 4 chargers and none in use to my surprise. Charging went well and it was a good overall experience similar to our supercharger experiences. While we were charging 2 VWs also came to charge. Hopefully EA is reliable like this whenever we might need it again.
View attachment 16491

My experience today is very very similar! I've used EA twice in the five months I've owned my Pure just to top up and make sure it works when I need it in the future, very low kWh taken. Today I drove 240 miles over the Cascade Mountains and relied on EA in Leavenworth, Washington. When I told the Nav to route me, it said 3 of 4 chargers available, and automatically pre-conditioned the battery for fast charging. I get there an -- all four are open, pedestals BETWEEN the parking stalls to each side for best cable access. First time Level 3 charging, plugged in and It Just Worked. Enjoyed 30 minutes of errands and back on my way -- so far I'm very happy with EA.

 

[ViperSSD]

I've been having luck with the chargers just working, even one where the screen was broken, getting a max charge rate has been a definite miss though

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I honestly think EA has been improving drastically this year. The good sessions don’t get reported and bad sessions get reported and blown out of proportion on YouTube.

On my recent lengthy road trip EA was great 66% of the time. The one that sabotaged me was an older ABB unit in PA which had a PlugScore of 10 the day before, but the day I arrived at 11% with nothing else fast within range, 2/4 units were down and another car was waiting ahead of me. Once I plugged in I also got an authentication error and had to try again and on the second try it worked. Then it ripped at 184kw on a 150kw unit because the car had auto- preconditioned. The other two locations (I stopped at one on the way and then the same one again on the way back) were much better. I think it’s because they are these newest units which I’ve had 100% success rate and consistent speeds of 230-240kw at cold temps.

 

[Tesla2.0]

On my recent lengthy road trip EA was great 66% of the time. The one that sabotaged me was an older ABB unit in PA which had a PlugScore of 10 the day before, but the day I arrived at 11% with nothing else fast within range, 2/4 units were down and another car was waiting ahead of me. Once I plugged in I also got an authentication error and had to try again and on the second try it worked. Then it ripped at 184kw on a 150kw unit because the car had auto- preconditioned. The other two locations (I stopped at one on the way and then the same one again on the way back) were much better. I think it’s because they are these newest units which I’ve had 100% success rate and consistent speeds of 230-240kw at cold temps.

On my this year traveling I-10 west coast to Houston, only 1 station in between New Mexico and Texas was dubious — 3 stalls with 2 working.
On 2 trips on I-20 west coast to Dallas, all are fine, except it annoyingly go to Oklahoma City in the north then back down southeast to Dallas. I wish there are more EA are not just on interstate. But Tesla SCN open up in couple year can have that problem solved. I rather take 50kW speed than going 400 miles stretch highway to chance on unknown brand dispenser.

I see on the east coast, EA is still not as reliable. But I do believe EA is striving for the better. It’s just modern social media influencers are less forgiving to them.

 

[HC_79]

Electrify America is piloting limiting cars to 85% SoC to reduce congestion at its chargers.

Congestion Reduction Pilot | Electrify America

 

[ViperSSD]

I honestly wish they had a strategy of fewer charging sites with way more chargers at each site, it would make a lot of these issues easier to deal with. Right now, you arrive at a charging site you thought was open but since there are only 3 chargers, that last stall can get taken really quickly/easily and then you are choosing between waiting or guessing what the line may look like at another site a couple miles away.

 

[HC_79]

I honestly wish they had a strategy of fewer charging sites with way more chargers at each site, it would make a lot of these issues easier to deal with. Right now, you arrive at a charging site you thought was open but since there are only 3 chargers, that last stall can get taken really quickly/easily and then you are choosing between waiting or guessing what the line may look like at another site a couple miles away.

Agree. The reliability of the chargers is still a problem also. If you see 1 available its 50/50 on whether its actually working or not. For example, this station is full not because all the chargers are full of cars but because 2 are broken. This site has the new chargers and its still constantly got 1 or 2 broken. If the sites were bigger this may not be a problem but when a location of 6 has 2 chargers broken it knocks out 33% of the chargers which is just unacceptable. I hope EA doesn't think by limiting charging to 85% its going to make the network more reliable also

 

[Lucken]

Electrify America is piloting limiting cars to 85% SoC to reduce congestion at its chargers.

Congestion Reduction Pilot | Electrify America

In effect they’ve just reduced the range of all EVs by 15%. True in many/most circumstances it will be no big deal, but when there are great distances between chargers on a road trip, it could be very significant.

 

[HariK]

I honestly wish they had a strategy of fewer charging sites with way more chargers at each site, it would make a lot of these issues easier to deal with. Right now, you arrive at a charging site you thought was open but since there are only 3 chargers, that last stall can get taken really quickly/easily and then you are choosing between waiting or guessing what the line may look like at another site a couple miles away.

The other bad thing is one of the "open" chargers is L2.