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Electrify America Issues

While waiting to get a home charging plug installed in his garage, a friend got a call this weekend that the Chevrolet Bolt EUV he wanted had become available at a dealer ~200 miles away in north Florida. He is leaving this morning to pick it up and planning one charging stop on the return journey. Then, when arriving back in Naples, he was going to take the car to the local EA station to top it up for the coming week. He just texted me that the EA app is showing that NONE of the stations in Naples are currently operable. This is the same situation that Tom Moloughney's ("Out of Spec Motoring") father encountered months ago at that same charging stop. (After that episode, people were still reporting three weeks later than the chargers there were still not working.) Now my friend is worried that he'll also have trouble charging along the route at other EA stations.

Based on my own experience with EA in the southeast, he has every reason to worry. I've suggested that he also sign up for EVgo, Chargepoint, and Blink, as he's likely to need them.

If EV automakers are looking to Electrify America's promises to help them sell customers on the practicality of EVs, then the whole effort is already toast.

I know the whole story about the problems with sourcing from multiple vendors during the initial build-out phase of EA. But that was several years ago, and the system is still a clown act. Electrify America was funded by VW as a condition for avoiding criminal prosecution in the U.S. for the Dieselgate scandal. There needs to be an investigation of why Tesla can make its Supercharger network so reliable while a VW subsidiary cannot.

I don't know what the specific terms of the Dieselgate deal were, but if if included any requirement that the system actually work reliably, then it's time for the government to reopen the Dieselgate case.
 
hmp10 said:
I don't know what the specific terms of the Dieselgate deal were, but if if included any requirement that the system actually work reliably, then it's time for the government to reopen the Dieselgate case.
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My non-lawyer brain wants to say that even if no specific requirements were included, common and reasonable expectation should be legally binding. Of course, attorneys would split hair on the definition of common and reasonable expectation, but this is where the smell test and the jury/arbitrator/administrative judge come in.
 
EVCar said:
My non-lawyer brain wants to say that even if no specific requirements were included, common and reasonable expectation should be legally binding. Of course, attorneys would split hair on the definition of common and reasonable expectation, but this is where the smell test and the jury/arbitrator/administrative judge come in.
Click to expand...

As this was more in the nature of a plea deal than an arm's-length civil law contract negotiation, the deal probably spelled out what would be deemed a violation in considerable detail.
 
hmp10 said:
As this was more in the nature of a plea deal than an arm's-length civil law contract negotiation, the deal probably spelled out what would be deemed a violation in considerable detail.
Click to expand...
Naturally, for this kind of matters, I'll defer to your vast corporate experience.
Onto my personal experience with EA:
Today was the first time I charged my Air at EA.
The first station initiated the session and then promptly terminated, asking me to unplug.
Moved to the next station and was able to draw between 70-60 kW with 60% SoC.
Going from 60% to 80% SoC took 20 minutes.
The 3 chargers here are all 150 kW, with one for the Leaf.
Was relieved that I didn't have to call Lucid or EA for the P and C token.
Was hoping for more robust wattage, though.
(For those in Az, these are on 83rd St, off the 101. Looks like they have been well used, with one broken cable holder. The area is cleaner than Bell Rd.)
 
EricM said:
I had EA issues at the Hartsdale, NY (near White Plains) station on Thursday evening. Couldn’t get it to work at all despite lengthy phone calls with both EA and Lucid. I’ve used this location in the past without issues and other cars (Hyundai/Kia and VW) were using the station successfully.

Lucid tried applying a new cert to my account and I did numerous reboots to no avail.

I did see that one VW ID.4 owner posted on PlugShare that they were having the same problems I did around the same time I was there.

My sense is that the EA SW engineers don’t have their act together with their software upgrades and it’s causing authentication issues. You’d think that, given the heritage of EA, they’d know a thing or two about tricking software to make something work!
Click to expand...
…and today, this very same station worked fine for me. While I was there I watched an EV6 owner struggle for about 10 minutes trying to get his car to charge. “EA” must also stand for “Extreme Aggravation”
 
EVCar said:
Was hoping for more robust wattage, though.
Click to expand...
That's one of the problems with EA...even when it works (which I have to admit is more often the case now), you don't know what rate you are going to get. I recently charged from 61% to 82%. Started at 114 kwh and ended in the 60 - 70 kwh rate. I've also been at lower SoC but only gotten kwh rates in the 30s. But there are times I get rates in the 160s on a 150 charger with SoC in the 20s to 30s.
 
hmp10 said:
While waiting to get a home charging plug installed in his garage, a friend got a call this weekend that the Chevrolet Bolt EUV he wanted had become available at a dealer ~200 miles away in north Florida. He is leaving this morning to pick it up and planning one charging stop on the return journey. Then, when arriving back in Naples, he was going to take the car to the local EA station to top it up for the coming week. ...
Click to expand...
Since the Bolt can only charge at 55kW, I'd suggest he look for a 50/62.5kW Chargepoint station instead. They're much more reliable than EA and most other charging vendors. And ubiquitous.
 
Actually, I did recommend this to him as a backup. Before he left to pick up his car, I sent him the location of the Chargepoint station in Venice, FL. He decided to try the EA station in Bradenton, FL first, and he was able to charge there -- after a bit of hassle to get the session started. Since he was getting highway range near the EPA estimate of his car, he decided he did not need to try that haunted EA station in Naples and instead drove straight home to plug into a 110-volt circuit until he can get the 240-volt line up and running. (The Bolt claims it will add 70 miles of range on an overnight charge at 110 volts, which will be more than enough for his daily work commute and local errand running.)
 
EVCar said:
Naturally, for this kind of matters, I'll defer to your vast corporate experience.
Onto my personal experience with EA:
Today was the first time I charged my Air at EA.
The first station initiated the session and then promptly terminated, asking me to unplug.
Moved to the next station and was able to draw between 70-60 kW with 60% SoC.
Going from 60% to 80% SoC took 20 minutes.
The 3 chargers here are all 150 kW, with one for the Leaf.
Was relieved that I didn't have to call Lucid or EA for the P and C token.
Was hoping for more robust wattage, though.
(For those in Az, these are on 83rd St, off the 101. Looks like they have been well used, with one broken cable holder. The area is cleaner than Bell Rd.)
Click to expand...
Were you able to plug and charge at the second charger or did you have to use the Lucid app after the connection was made?
 
Today I had some time on my hands near an airport and thought I would look for some ChargePoint chargers to give them a try. There were several locations within a 10-mile radius, but otherwise I might as well have been dealing with Electrify America.

The nav system showed the nearest ChargePoint DCFC station as "In Use", but I decided to head for it, thinking it might be free when I arrived. When I arrived I found the charger was at a Harley-Davison dealer that was jammed with people. I finally found the charger over near the garage entrance, but the parking area in front said "Parking for Harley Vehicles Only". I inquired inside and was told it was okay to park there to charge.

So I pulled into the space in front of the charger. Even though I was parked head-in, the cable was too short to reach the charge port without rubbing against the front bumper. There was a stiff enough breeze that the cable kept moving against the car. As luck would have it, a car parked next to me pulled out, so I was able move over to straddle the two spaces enough to reach the car with the cable without scuffing the bumper.

I then discovered that I could not use the charger with just a credit car but instead had to install the ChargePoint app and open an account. I did this and was instructed to tap the phone against the reader on the charging station. I did this several times, but my car kept showing "Authentication Failed". So I called the help number posted on the charge station. After a lengthy hold, I finally got a lady on the line whose extremely thick accent made understanding her very difficult. I had to ask an embarrassing number of times for her to repeat what she said. After about 15 minutes of this during which nothing worked, I finally asked her if she could initiate the session remotely. She said she could. After a brief pause she came back to me with, "oh, sir, I'm sorry, but that station is out of service. I'll report it to our maintenance group."

As I said . . . it might as well have been Electrify America.

Kyle Conner of "Out of Spec" motoring recently repeated a charge-testing road trip he first made four years ago. He found that the problems he experienced then were still largely unresolved. Despite being an EV enthusiast, Conner is now recommending that car buyers either get a Tesla or find a nice ICE alternative. He has concluded that the CCS charging infrastructure in the U.S. is not currently up to the demands of highway travel by EV.
 
hmp10 said:
Today I had some time on my hands near an airport and thought I would look for some ChargePoint chargers to give them a try. There were several locations within a 10-mile radius, but otherwise I might as well have been dealing with Electrify America.

The nav system showed the nearest ChargePoint DCFC station as "In Use", but I decided to head for it, thinking it might be free when I arrived. When I arrived I found the charger was at a Harley-Davison dealer that was jammed with people. I finally found the charger over near the garage entrance, but the parking area in front said "Parking for Harley Vehicles Only". I inquired inside and was told it was okay to park there to charge.

So I pulled into the space in front of the charger. Even though I was parked head-in, the cable was too short to reach the charge port without rubbing against the front bumper. There was a stiff enough breeze that the cable kept moving against the car. As luck would have it, a car parked next to me pulled out, so I was able move over to straddle the two spaces enough to reach the car with the cable without scuffing the bumper.

I then discovered that I could not use the charger with just a credit car but instead had to install the ChargePoint app and open an account. I did this and was instructed to tap the phone against the reader on the charging station. I did this several times, but my car kept showing "Authentication Failed". So I called the help number posted on the charge station. After a lengthy hold, I finally got a lady on the line whose extremely thick accent made understanding her very difficult. I had to ask an embarrassing number of times for her to repeat what she said. After about 15 minutes of this during which nothing worked, I finally asked her if she could initiate the session remotely. She said she could. After a brief pause she came back to me with, "oh, sir, I'm sorry, but that station is out of service. I'll report it to our maintenance group."

As I said . . . it might as well have been Electrify America.

Kyle Conner of "Out of Spec" motoring recently repeated a charge-testing road trip he first made four years ago. He found that the problems he experienced then were still largely unresolved. Despite being an EV enthusiast, Conner is now recommending that car buyers either get a Tesla or find a nice ICE alternative. He has concluded that the CCS charging infrastructure in the U.S. is not currently up to the demands of highway travel by EV.
Click to expand...
Huh - I have the chargepoint card in my Apple Wallet and it just worked seamlessly. I have previously run into one Chargepoint plug that was out of service but all the ones around it worked fine.
 
hmp10 said:
Today I had some time on my hands near an airport and thought I would look for some ChargePoint chargers to give them a try. There were several locations within a 10-mile radius, but otherwise I might as well have been dealing with Electrify America.

The nav system showed the nearest ChargePoint DCFC station as "In Use", but I decided to head for it, thinking it might be free when I arrived. When I arrived I found the charger was at a Harley-Davison dealer that was jammed with people. I finally found the charger over near the garage entrance, but the parking area in front said "Parking for Harley Vehicles Only". I inquired inside and was told it was okay to park there to charge.

So I pulled into the space in front of the charger. Even though I was parked head-in, the cable was too short to reach the charge port without rubbing against the front bumper. There was a stiff enough breeze that the cable kept moving against the car. As luck would have it, a car parked next to me pulled out, so I was able move over to straddle the two spaces enough to reach the car with the cable without scuffing the bumper.

I then discovered that I could not use the charger with just a credit car but instead had to install the ChargePoint app and open an account. I did this and was instructed to tap the phone against the reader on the charging station. I did this several times, but my car kept showing "Authentication Failed". So I called the help number posted on the charge station. After a lengthy hold, I finally got a lady on the line whose extremely thick accent made understanding her very difficult. I had to ask an embarrassing number of times for her to repeat what she said. After about 15 minutes of this during which nothing worked, I finally asked her if she could initiate the session remotely. She said she could. After a brief pause she came back to me with, "oh, sir, I'm sorry, but that station is out of service. I'll report it to our maintenance group."

As I said . . . it might as well have been Electrify America.

Kyle Conner of "Out of Spec" motoring recently repeated a charge-testing road trip he first made four years ago. He found that the problems he experienced then were still largely unresolved. Despite being an EV enthusiast, Conner is now recommending that car buyers either get a Tesla or find a nice ICE alternative. He has concluded that the CCS charging infrastructure in the U.S. is not currently up to the demands of highway travel by EV.
Click to expand...
As I have posted before, one needs 2 cars, a Lucid and an ice backup. Lucid range is irrelevant as I am scared to drive more than a radius that allows me to charge at home. Last visit to EA in my town had all 4 stations out of service, prior visits zero luck as well. Giving me 3 years of charging is meaningless as I’ve found a functioning EA twice in one year.
 
borski said:
Huh - I have the chargepoint card in my Apple Wallet and it just worked seamlessly. I have previously run into one Chargepoint plug that was out of service but all the ones around it worked fine.
Click to expand...

The situation with CCS chargers seems to be abysmal in the deep coastal southeast, especially Florida. There seem to be many more reports of failures here than people are seeing on the West Coast.

The hot, humid salt air of coastal Florida wreaks havoc on outdoor electronics. I can't count the number of mother boards or other electronic components we've had to replace on A/C units, pool heaters, well and water treatment equipment, landscape lighting, gate controls, etc. In fact, at least one A/C manufacturer has pulled its highest-SEER units out of the Florida market because their sensitive electronics cannot stand up to the climate. Car batteries also have a much shorter service life in Florida.

As Tesla Superchargers don't seem to have similar issues in Florida, I'm wondering if the electronics in CCS units being installed in the coastal south are not robust enough to take the heat, humidity, and salt air.
 
I live in Miami & have used the Dade Land mall EA charges & agree that reliability is a problem. Also I have used them 3 times & each time they didn’t recognize my Lucid & charged my credit card. I notified Lucid & they were to correct the issue & also credit my card. No surprise nothing has happened.
 
hmp10 said:
The situation with CCS chargers seems to be abysmal in the deep coastal southeast, especially Florida. There seem to be many more reports of failures here than people are seeing on the West Coast.

The hot, humid salt air of coastal Florida wreaks havoc on outdoor electronics. I can't count the number of mother boards or other electronic components we've had to replace on A/C units, pool heaters, well and water treatment equipment, landscape lighting, gate controls, etc. In fact, at least one A/C manufacturer has pulled its highest-SEER units out of the Florida market because their sensitive electronics cannot stand up to the climate. Car batteries also have a much shorter service life in Florida.

As Tesla Superchargers don't seem to have similar issues in Florida, I'm wondering if the electronics in CCS units being installed in the coastal south are not robust enough to take the heat, humidity, and salt air.
Click to expand...
That makes sense. Guess I’ll add another notch to why I’m not moving to Florida, heh (no disrespect meant)
 
ggrooms said:
As I have posted before, one needs 2 cars, a Lucid and an ice backup. Lucid range is irrelevant as I am scared to drive more than a radius that allows me to charge at home. Last visit to EA in my town had all 4 stations out of service, prior visits zero luck as well. Giving me 3 years of charging is meaningless as I’ve found a functioning EA twice in one year.
Click to expand...
Where are you located? I’ve taken plenty of road trips with no issues and sold both my ICE cars.
 
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