EA Megathread

[HC_79]

On road trips they all charge to 95% or more, my brother to avoid too many charging stops and my two friends because the issues with CCS charging make it risky to let charge drop too low before planning the next stop

eah, I try not to judge other people's motives with charging. Some folks really do need 95% or 100% to get to their next destination.

There are valid reasons for going between 85% to 100% even in the Lucid but in a downtown \ suburban location? not buying it.

I was on a road trip once and stopped at the Panoche Shell EA on the I-5. I was driving an e-Tron at the time, and I knew I couldn’t make it from that location to home without stopping at the Bakersfield location to cross the Grapevine. I charged my car to 80%, but the car beside me was already charging to 90% and beyond. In fact, they were there when I arrived and still there when I left. The issue was that even charging the car to 90% wasn’t enough to get them over the Grapevine, so they were going to have to stop at Bakersfield anyway. They literally stayed at the charger longer than they needed to, blocking it for someone else for no valid reason. Ironically, I finished charging my car and was about to leave the Bakersfield charger when I saw the exact same driver from the Panoche location pull up to charge. That’s the problem: people are blocking chargers that don’t actually benefit them or the line of drivers waiting for them to get out.

 

[momo3605]

Frankly, I think it's despicable that EA would set charging limits in a shabby attempt to address miserable conditions (out-of-service equipment, too few stalls, low power output) at so many of their charging stations.

Urban/suburban chargers are almost always used for free charging. I do agree, for rural chargers, there shouldn't be an hard limit. Probably still a good idea to soft limit to 80 or 85% like Tesla does in those cases.

But for the former, urban/suburban chargers...there are way too many abusers. I bet if people would GTFO at 80%, there would be no lines even with the lousy number of stalls/broken equipment situation.

 

[hmp10]

I was on a road trip once and stopped at the Panoche Shell EA on the I-5. I was driving an e-Tron at the time, and I knew I couldn’t make it from that location to home without stopping at the Bakersfield location to cross the Grapevine. I charged my car to 80%, but the car beside me was already charging to 90% and beyond. In fact, they were there when I arrived and still there when I left. The issue was that even charging the car to 90% wasn’t enough to get them over the Grapevine, so they were going to have to stop at Bakersfield anyway. They literally stayed at the charger longer than they needed to, blocking it for someone else for no valid reason. Ironically, I finished charging my car and was about to leave the Bakersfield charger when I saw the exact same driver from the Panoche location pull up to charge. That’s the problem: people are blocking chargers that don’t actually benefit them or the line of drivers waiting for them to get out.

You're using chargers on the West Coast which seems to have far fewer problems with EA chargers than the East Coast.

We are still in the 3-year free charging window with our Air, so I prefer to use EA chargers on road trips. Although the situation has improved a bit in spots on the East Coast, I NEVER set my charging limit on the assumption that the next EA station will be fully functional or even working at all (I've had several situations in which the latter was the case). So I always put in enough charge to insure I can get to an alternate charging location to the one I have planned. Consequently, I almost always charge up to 95% on road trips.

As much as it stirs my grits to say so, I will actually welcome the Gravity's being able to charge at Superchargers, as they will probably be my default choice on road trips in the Gravity. I'm just sick and tired of the panoply of problems that beset EA chargers and even some ChargePoint chargers I've used.

 

[joec]

There are valid reasons for going between 85% to 100% even in the Lucid but in a downtown \ suburban location? not buying it.

I was on a road trip once and stopped at the Panoche Shell EA on the I-5. I was driving an e-Tron at the time, and I knew I couldn’t make it from that location to home without stopping at the Bakersfield location to cross the Grapevine. I charged my car to 80%, but the car beside me was already charging to 90% and beyond. In fact, they were there when I arrived and still there when I left. The issue was that even charging the car to 90% wasn’t enough to get them over the Grapevine, so they were going to have to stop at Bakersfield anyway. They literally stayed at the charger longer than they needed to, blocking it for someone else for no valid reason. Ironically, I finished charging my car and was about to leave the Bakersfield charger when I saw the exact same driver from the Panoche location pull up to charge. That’s the problem: people are blocking chargers that don’t actually benefit them or the line of drivers waiting for them to get out.

Oh, I agree. Plenty of people are clearly abusing these chargers. That SF Harrison location you mention is five minutes from my house, so I know all too well.

I do think some people may be stopping there on their way from SoCal to up further north. Just because it's a huge station with many chargers, very convenient from the Bay Bridge. But the majority of folks at that station, I would think, are locals who have no home charging set up. And that could be for many reasons as well. Not all houses and apartments are properly set up for home charging, of course.

Not that any of this is an excuse.

This particular station has attendants on staff. If you ask me, part of that job should be managing who is charging and for how long. But they likely get paid too little to deal with rude customers, so maybe not.