Electrify America is enraging EV owners

[Worldwide Beagle]

Been there. Good charger station. Reinforces my idea that there is so much money to be made in so many things beyond the actual charge.

Buc-ees, WaWa, Loves, Cracker Barrel, etc. Sooner or later, they will get into the charging game and make a fortune.

Not just money, but a quality experience. I am outside legal counsel for the owner, East West Hospitality. Their aim in putting both chargers there, with all the amenities, went way beyond selling Frosty's. Adding to a quality experience to resort visitors, who happen to have a BEV.

 

[Neurio]

3:44 am. @Bunnylebowski? . My wife is starting to hide my ipad.

3:44 for you (2:44 for me). 5:44 for him. No faulting him for reading this forum while getting ready for work in the morning. Now that @borski guy - he never sleeps...

 

[Worldwide Beagle]

. Now that @borski guy - he never sleeps...

The work of a moderator is is never done. Especially on this forum.

 

[Electrified]

I like the car so much I’d rather drive than fly, but my daughter is 2 1/2 so long ass road trips aren’t a good idea yet. However, the state of flying and airports has become so dismal lately I’d MUCH rather wait for a disappointingly slow EA charging session in the comfort and peace of the Lucid than wait in an airport for a day because my late arriving flight made me miss my connecting flight.

My rule of thumb for many years was if I could drive to a destination in 8 hours or less I was driving and not flying, I have now changed that 8 hour rule to 12 hours due the miserable aspects of airports and the flying cattle cars.
In 1984 we road tripped to Yellowstone with a 10 month old on board, and continued road tripping with all three of our boys while they were growing up; DM me if you want a few tips on how to pleasantly road trip with children on board.

 

[Electrified]

I just had a brilliant thought, Those motels in the middle of no-where should rent rooms by the hour while you charge and refresh !

I just had a flashback to my youth and the 4 hour naps, good times.

 

[goshen]

I don't know what everyone is talking about, Here is a link to a video of the new CEO of Electrocute America driving coast to coast without any problems at their Charging Stations......:

We must be doing something wrong !

Totally PR video. Only 350kw charging stations shown and of course all appeared empty with literally o wait times or vehicles. I dream when that becomes reality!

 

[Keithmaj]

My reviews single handedly drove this station from an 8ish to low 4. Greenville, Alabama EA. However, you get a bunch of people where the station does supply as advertised reporting as working to drive the score back up...

The next closest station there or back is Montgomery, AL for our trip to Atmore, AL. That one will quickly show the same problems... A fellow Lucid owner unknowingly driving the location score up.

The next closest station after that is Birmingham, AL. There are two options that appear to work just okay. At that point, you are too far even charging 100% to drive around during the weekend or *gasp* a week.

There are no Level 1 or Level 2 in Atmore, AL. EA Is the only non-Tesla charging location for all of Alabama.

To be fair, we knew the stations would be limited. For stations not to work (broken or not advertised rates due to Signet Surge), the result is practically the same as we had to hit up the same broken, Signet Surge location twice totaling over 2 hours of additional travel time. Total time should have been no more than 30 minutes (two 15 minute stops).

Perhaps we are the minority in using the car for long road trips that have totalled well over 8k miles in 7-8 months and soon to be 10k miles in 10 months. Daily driving accounts for less than 2-3k miles each year.

Broken or not advertised rates still means broken. In some cases, that means having to really scramble upon reaching your destination to figure out charging options.

FYI, we were able to successfully charge twice at the EA chargers in Athens, AL a few weeks ago.

 

[Haggy]

at least I have solar but not so ok for people paying PGE through the nose.

Charging at home might make more sense regardless. My Model S still has free charging, and when I got it, I saw lots of people going to superchargers for everyday charging. "Free" charging seemed enticing, and prior to that, I had been spending about $3600/year on gasoline. But "free" charging wouldn't have saved me $3600, but about $600 that it would have cost to charge at home. When I added up the mileage to and from the closest Supercharger, figured out how many trips I'd need per year to charge, and compared that total mileage to the amount of depreciation for that many miles based on the rates I was seeing at the time, I would have lost about $1100 more on depreciation than I would have saved on electricity. Plus, if I compared the sheer amount of time to what it would cost to charge at home and get a job to earn the money to pay for it, it would have been a better use of time to get a job as a Walmart greeter, and use my pay toward the electric bill. I would have spent fewer hours that way. I think that most, if not all Lucid owners value their time more than that.

Just got off the phone with EA because the thread reminded me to call about the Greenville, AL location. The individual noted most people do not call and simply switch stations. Therefore, they have no idea (blows my mind nothing notifies but here we are).

The answer from EA is to call. They will send out technicians to triage and fix.

That's unfortunate and there really should be a way to report a non-functioning charger through the app. If there isn't one, I'll bother somebody at EA.

Hate to break it to you, but we’re definitely all EV early adopters. It is by no means the majority power train in vehicles yet, which definitionally makes us all early adopters.

Earlier yet for the Lucid, of course.

I'd consider myself an early EV adopter, and I'd consider anybody an early adopter who bought a Tesla and watched the status change from "reserved" to "sourcing parts" after finalizing the order. Now that millions of EVs are being made per year, I agree that we are early Lucid adopters, but we are not early EV adopters either in terms of volume, or in terms of years since modern EVs started hitting the market. I can't go anywhere without seeing EVs all over the place on the road.

 

[DeaneG]

.... there really should be a way to report a non-functioning charger through [EA's] app...

It is easy to report charging issues through EA's app. But I doubt that many of the "free charging" crowd use EA's app, or would even be invested enough to bother to report a broken station.

 

[Kfederico]

Today at the EA in Rocklin CA people were FURIOUS. out of about 10 stations 2 or 3 were working. A woman pulled up on a beautiful Mercedes, tried a few and screamed "I hate my car.". I tried to explain it wasn't her car it was EA. Another lucid was there, owner on the phone trying to sell his car back to lucid because so impossible to charge, and yes Bob, like me 3 years of free juice means "I will not pay for it! This is just unacceptable." VW owns E A and it feels like they are single handedly trying to keep ICS cars in sales. Most of the expensive EVs come with some EA fast charging (no other chargers match the speed, promised anyway). EV owners are enraged, flipping off EA chargers. LUCID YOU HAVE A PR PROBLEM WITH YOU PARTNERSHIP WITH ELECTRIFY AMERIKA! at least I have solar but not so ok for people paying PGE through the nose. Wake up lucid (and Mercedes et al). Electrify America is 90% unreliable and there is not an alternate fuel service on every corner. In California charging is very difficult to almost impossible. Not good at all for the industry.. Crippling infact

I am sorry some folks have had this experience. In all my experiences to date, I have found one out of order EA charger. I had to move over to the next charger. In town, I just charge overnight at hoe where night time power is free.

 

[Rogue]

It is easy to report charging issues through EA's app. But I doubt that many of the "free charging" crowd use EA's app, or would even be invested enough to bother to report a broken station.

Does this require an account?

I am not signed in. The only option available is to call support from what I can see.

If simply reporting the issues resolves broken stations in a timely manner, then we would gladly do it. This is an easy enough thing to do. I happen to have ChargePoint, PlugShare, and EA apps for route planning and verification.

 

[hydbob]

Charging at home might make more sense regardless. My Model S still has free charging, and when I got it, I saw lots of people going to superchargers for everyday charging. "Free" charging seemed enticing, and prior to that, I had been spending about $3600/year on gasoline. But "free" charging wouldn't have saved me $3600, but about $600 that it would have cost to charge at home. When I added up the mileage to and from the closest Supercharger, figured out how many trips I'd need per year to charge, and compared that total mileage to the amount of depreciation for that many miles based on the rates I was seeing at the time, I would have lost about $1100 more on depreciation than I would have saved on electricity. Plus, if I compared the sheer amount of time to what it would cost to charge at home and get a job to earn the money to pay for it, it would have been a better use of time to get a job as a Walmart greeter, and use my pay toward the electric bill. I would have spent fewer hours that way. I think that most, if not all Lucid owners value their time more than that.


That's unfortunate and there really should be a way to report a non-functioning charger through the app. If there isn't one, I'll bother somebody at EA.


I'd consider myself an early EV adopter, and I'd consider anybody an early adopter who bought a Tesla and watched the status change from "reserved" to "sourcing parts" after finalizing the order. Now that millions of EVs are being made per year, I agree that we are early Lucid adopters, but we are not early EV adopters either in terms of volume, or in terms of years since modern EVs started hitting the market. I can't go anywhere without seeing EVs all over the place on the road.

We are early EV adopters for a CCS network. If you take Tesla into account it's early adoption for non-Tesla EVs.

 

[Haggy]

We are early EV adopters for a CCS network. If you take Tesla into account it's early adoption for non-Tesla EVs.

I'm fine being an early adopter for Lucid, but not so much for CCS. I was an early adopter for Tesla Superchargers, so I remember the wait when a station was full, no alternative stations since they were spaced to make travel on the route possible (back then if an entire Supercharger station wasn't working, I would have been stuck, or used Plugshare), shared chargers with A|B, which other people charging were unaware of, as well as lower speeds. But since they were designed for any allowed Tesla to just plug in, with no need to use an app, no payment options for people with accounts, there was no possibility of some things going wrong for many common problems with EA.

I also don't know how much of CCS issues are charger problems, how much has to do with users who pay not knowing to plug in first, etc. I don't know if all Lucid owners know that if charging doesn't start automatically at EA, they can try the Lucid app. If the option still shows up only after plugging in, I would be unlikely to find out about it without this forum.

Being an early adopter for Lucid will be a repeat of some of what I went through with Tesla early on, which was good customer service, some missing software features that I thought should have been there, and updates that add them over time. The difference is that I know from the start what's missing, and see that other owners have already asked for those features.

With Tesla specifically, the nice thing about being an early adopter was good service, with the bad part being watching the level of service degrade.

 

[DeaneG]

Does this require an account? I am not signed in. The only option available is to call support from what I can see. ...

Ah yes, you can only report a charging issue through EA's app by signing in first.

 

[borski]

I don't know if all Lucid owners know that if charging doesn't start automatically at EA, they can try the Lucid app. If the option still shows up only after plugging in, I would be unlikely to find out about it without this forum.

The app does send you a notification now asking you to select the charger, so it’s at least a bit more discoverable provided you see the notification.

 

[EVCar]

Just saw the MotorTrend article titled

The Lucid Air EV Should Be a Road-Trip Champ. Our 2,300-Mile Trip Exposed a Problem​

Excerpts:
"It's bad enough that Electrify America's charging stations are as reliably bad as the Detroit Lions, but Lucid and EA are turning a headache into a migraine for their customers by not proactively communicating about the issue. Both companies have the ability to warn Air owners when they're piloting their six-figure cars toward a 10-cent experience. Electrify America's app knows that I drive a Lucid Air. Why not use that information to highlight the stations where charging will be slow?
And while Lucid is powerless to fix Electrify America's bad software, the automaker does itself no favors by sticking its head in the sand. I had set out from Ann Arbor planning to trust the navigation system's routing algorithm up until it did something dumb. On initial inspection, the suggested two-to-three-hour stints at the wheel with roughly 20-minute charging stops looked great. But the algorithm was clearly counting on those stations delivering full power even though Lucid engineers knew they wouldn't..
. . .
It's easy for Lucid to point the finger at Electrify America in this case, but it doesn't benefit the company to do that. A bad charging experience sours the vehicle ownership experience, regardless of who's to blame. That's the risk Lucid and every other automaker that's not Tesla takes on in trusting someone else to develop and build out the infrastructure their cars rely on."

I wanted to post the link also, but repeatedly ran into an error message. Not sure why.

 

[gregshap]

Just saw the MotorTrend article titled

The Lucid Air EV Should Be a Road-Trip Champ. Our 2,300-Mile Trip Exposed a Problem​

Excerpts:
"It's bad enough that Electrify America's charging stations are as reliably bad as the Detroit Lions, but Lucid and EA are turning a headache into a migraine for their customers by not proactively communicating about the issue. Both companies have the ability to warn Air owners when they're piloting their six-figure cars toward a 10-cent experience. Electrify America's app knows that I drive a Lucid Air. Why not use that information to highlight the stations where charging will be slow?
And while Lucid is powerless to fix Electrify America's bad software, the automaker does itself no favors by sticking its head in the sand. I had set out from Ann Arbor planning to trust the navigation system's routing algorithm up until it did something dumb. On initial inspection, the suggested two-to-three-hour stints at the wheel with roughly 20-minute charging stops looked great. But the algorithm was clearly counting on those stations delivering full power even though Lucid engineers knew they wouldn't..
. . .
It's easy for Lucid to point the finger at Electrify America in this case, but it doesn't benefit the company to do that. A bad charging experience sours the vehicle ownership experience, regardless of who's to blame. That's the risk Lucid and every other automaker that's not Tesla takes on in trusting someone else to develop and build out the infrastructure their cars rely on."

I wanted to post the link also, but repeatedly ran into an error message. Not sure why.

The Lucid Air EV Should Be a Road-Trip Champ. Our 2,300-Mile Trip Exposed a Problem

A drive from Michigan to LA was should highlight Lucid’s long range and fast charging. It reminded us of the last great hurdle to mass EV adoption instead.

www.motortrend.com

 

[Tesla2.0]

Just saw the MotorTrend article titled

The Lucid Air EV Should Be a Road-Trip Champ. Our 2,300-Mile Trip Exposed a Problem​

Excerpts:
"It's bad enough that Electrify America's charging stations are as reliably bad as the Detroit Lions, but Lucid and EA are turning a headache into a migraine for their customers by not proactively communicating about the issue. Both companies have the ability to warn Air owners when they're piloting their six-figure cars toward a 10-cent experience. Electrify America's app knows that I drive a Lucid Air. Why not use that information to highlight the stations where charging will be slow?
And while Lucid is powerless to fix Electrify America's bad software, the automaker does itself no favors by sticking its head in the sand. I had set out from Ann Arbor planning to trust the navigation system's routing algorithm up until it did something dumb. On initial inspection, the suggested two-to-three-hour stints at the wheel with roughly 20-minute charging stops looked great. But the algorithm was clearly counting on those stations delivering full power even though Lucid engineers knew they wouldn't..
. . .
It's easy for Lucid to point the finger at Electrify America in this case, but it doesn't benefit the company to do that. A bad charging experience sours the vehicle ownership experience, regardless of who's to blame. That's the risk Lucid and every other automaker that's not Tesla takes on in trusting someone else to develop and build out the infrastructure their cars rely on."

I wanted to post the link also, but repeatedly ran into an error message. Not sure why.

Ford understood customers’ complaints and Jim Farley swallowed pride and bow down to join NACS. Other brands heard their customers and did PR as well too follow. For higher voltage vehicle such as Porsche, Hyundai and Lucid, Tesla magic dock is no help at 50 kW unless Wunderbox gets redesigned for voltage booster.

There has to be some better PR speech to bolster public confidence than stating Lucid is better off for AC charging at home. Rivian has its Rivian Adventure Network and is still announcing adopting NASC news to please its early adopters. I think it doesn’t hurt for Lucid to join upcoming 7 automaker alliance charging network than being indifferent. At least do something to show care to frustrated Lucid owners than quietly letting media assault the brand. Just my 2c.

 

[EVCar]

Ford understood customers’ complaints and Jim Farley swallowed pride and bow down to join NACS. Other brands heard their customers and did PR as well too follow. For higher voltage vehicle such as Porsche, Hyundai and Lucid, Tesla magic dock is no help at 50 kW unless Wunderbox gets redesigned for voltage booster.

There has to be some better PR speech to bolster public confidence than stating Lucid is better off for AC charging at home. Rivian has its Rivian Adventure Network and is still announcing adopting NASC news to please its early adopters. I think it doesn’t hurt for Lucid to join upcoming 7 automaker alliance charging network than being indifferent. At least do something to show care to frustrated Lucid owners than quietly letting media assault the brand. Just my 2c.

Completely agree.
I keep hearing that there’s on-going discussion at Lucid, dating back to last December but there’s really been nothing offered to owners to help with the 10-cent experience.

 

[stratus]

Ford understood customers’ complaints and Jim Farley swallowed pride and bow down to join NACS. Other brands heard their customers and did PR as well too follow. For higher voltage vehicle such as Porsche, Hyundai and Lucid, Tesla magic dock is no help at 50 kW unless Wunderbox gets redesigned for voltage booster.

There has to be some better PR speech to bolster public confidence than stating Lucid is better off for AC charging at home. Rivian has its Rivian Adventure Network and is still announcing adopting NASC news to please its early adopters. I think it doesn’t hurt for Lucid to join upcoming 7 automaker alliance charging network than being indifferent. At least do something to show care to frustrated Lucid owners than quietly letting media assault the brand. Just my 2c.

I also feel like Lucid has been too passive about the charging situation. I say this out of genuine concern for the brand that we are all rooting for.