Visit to Electrify America - Wow

[Joneii]

I'm interested to see what some of the gas station chains do. They have an interest in keeping people at their location to visit the store. They are going to try to figure out how to make charging profitable as well.

Sheets is a gas station chain here in the mid-Atlantic region. They are adding chargers pretty regularly (some stations get CCS and others get Tesla Superchargers). I think they see the benefits of having consumers on the premises for 10-30 minutes. It works well for consumers too as the shops are always open, clean, and offer all the amenities that a traveler needs.

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[RickLightning]

I'm interested to see what some of the gas station chains do. They have an interest in keeping people at their location to visit the store. They are going to try to figure out how to make charging profitable as well.

Walmart, 7-Eleven, Subway, Pilot (with GM), ...

Many thousands just across these 4. Google and you'll find a lot more. Taco Bell,

 

[astricklin]

Walmart, 7-Eleven, Subway, Pilot (with GM), ...

Many thousands just across these 4. Google and you'll find a lot more. Taco Bell,

Ya Walmart is mostly EA though. One of the handful of 7-11 locations already installed is not too far from me. I know 7-11 has been working since 2018/2019 on planning the rollout of chargers so hopefully they'll accelerate quickly. It's somewhat in town so I don't really understand the location, something along a major highway route would have made more sense. Fast food places are a great idea as well as truck stops.
I see a lot on the 'coming soon' but how quickly are they going to get built. Hopefully faster than a lot that we have seen, but I fear things may progress slowly despite the massive amount of money being thrown into this by governments.

 

[Bills R Electric]

Dropped my kid off at a birthday party, noticed there was a Walmart w/ EA slots nearby, decided to try it out and burn some of my free allotment.
5x150kw chargers at the station, 2 of them were out of service, the next 2 would only charge @ 12 kw, the last one charged at 43 kw. I would like to take the truck out of the city some time but seems it’s still too risky.

I could go on and on about Electrify America. (Sometimes their PODs do work, but when first pulling up there is always that feeling that I am asking the black jack dealer to hit me....but don't drop a face card and bust me)

Electrify America is still controlled by Volkswagen of America, which only started EA to satisfy their court ordered punishment for DieselGate. No one creates a good company when forced to do something.

We need the court to allow VW to sell the EA assets to someone else, and then the new owner can spec white label Tesla built charging PODs and software and begin replacing all the EA Charging stations that already are in the wild. Sigh...it won't happen though...

 

[Bills R Electric]

Did you call EA while you were there and report the issues?

The thing is....EA doesn't really care.
Whether they have happy customers/users is not that important to them.

 

[Nikos]

Tesla uses hardware that they designed and built knowing that it would make or break their entire endeavor. Electrify America originated as a punishment on VW for the DieselGate scandal before VW had fully committed to going electric. I feel like it was a half hearted attempt to comply with the settlement agreement that they now recognize could be worth something. Unfortunately the initial design and manufacturing of the hardware leaves a lot to be desired in the reliability category. It could be a while until we see Tesla-like charging infrastructure from anybody not Tesla.

That is exactly what I have been saying for the last 6 months about EA. Their network is rolling downhill at a steady pace. Degraded charging rates to all of their chargers in SC and along my traveling routes in the South East. I have send Emails to the current CEO and the previous one, only to be answered by their communication team. Their answer,
" We strive for best for our customers. We are sorry for not getting what we promised ".
Numerous phone call when I stop by their chargers. Customer support is quick but they don't have any tools to help you. They just refer your complaint up the chain.
I've been watching a network that worked as advertised to steadily failing to deliver even the bare minimum.
Waiting for some other networks to built an offer a real service comparable to Tesla, but no where any time soon. Everybody wants to built EVs now. I hoped they looked into this pseudo reality.

 

[RickLightning]

Ya Walmart is mostly EA though. One of the handful of 7-11 locations already installed is not too far from me. I know 7-11 has been working since 2018/2019 on planning the rollout of chargers so hopefully they'll accelerate quickly. It's somewhat in town so I don't really understand the location, something along a major highway route would have made more sense. Fast food places are a great idea as well as truck stops.
I see a lot on the 'coming soon' but how quickly are they going to get built. Hopefully faster than a lot that we have seen, but I fear things may progress slowly despite the massive amount of money being thrown into this by governments.

Just to be clear:

EA has installed many of its locations at Walmart (also Target, Sam's Club (Walmart), Sheetz). Walmart hasn't installed anything. There are more than 280 of these locations currently.

Now, Walmart has committed to installing chargers at thousands of locations including Walmart and Sam's Club by 2030. They have not picked a vendor. This is thousands of locations (not chargers), compared to "more than 280". Thousands. This is huge.

 

[Replika]

Sure, but obviously they aren't doing a good enough job right now. Maybe getting more complaints will motivate them to do better.

I've called a ton since owning CCS vehicles, but just don't have the time/interest for it any longer.

I will still leave Plugshare reviews, and recommend everyone do that. Then the issues are public, and Electrify America does monitor Plugshare.

 

[Peddyr]

My take - if you're going to drive an EV, and you are going to use PlugShare to see if locations are working, then it's your responsibility to report your success, or failure, on PlugShare. I also do it on the EA app (you can also do it on FordPass).

EA doesn't care. There are 6 stalls at the Mall of New Hampshire that have been absolute dogshit for more than 3 months now. I don't even consider it an option at this point because it's been so unreliable. The comments on PlugShare going back three months are brutal and I've personally reached out to EA no fewer than 4 times and they've done jacksquat about it. What makes it even more frustrating is that 23 miles south of those stalls is a very reliable and consistent 6 stalls that have become my go to if I need them.

 

[RickLightning]

EA doesn't care. There are 6 stalls at the Mall of New Hampshire that have been absolute dogshit for more than 3 months now. I don't even consider it an option at this point because it's been so unreliable. The comments on PlugShare going back three months are brutal and I've personally reached out to EA no fewer than 4 times and they've done jacksquat about it. What makes it even more frustrating is that 23 miles south of those stalls is a very reliable and consistent 6 stalls that have become my go to if I need them.

I don't think you can make that blanket statement. We're not privy to EA's supply chain of parts, or 3rd party repair personnel. There is clearly an issue with repairs, the cause is unknown to us.

We took a trip to Florida a few months back, and EA's charging at 2 locations in Southern Georgia and one in Northern Florida was so bad we went home a different route. But I don't know WHY they haven't fixed those areas.

 

[Peddyr]

I don't think you can make that blanket statement. We're not privy to EA's supply chain of parts, or 3rd party repair personnel. There is clearly an issue with repairs, the cause is unknown to us.

We took a trip to Florida a few months back, and EA's charging at 2 locations in Southern Georgia and one in Northern Florida was so bad we went home a different route. But I don't know WHY they haven't fixed those areas.

I understand what your saying. Maybe I'm a bit jadded with them because they have stalls in MA near my office that aren't a lot better than the ones at the Mall in NH. The PlugShare reviews are very similar and it seems to have been an issue for a while that has had plenty of visibility with no improvement.

 

[Ventorum94]

Ya, but the squeaky wheel gets grease. I feel like if people aren't complaining to the company, what incentives do they have to actually fix them?
I've spent time working in customer technical support and I feel like if the phone call volume increases significantly, the higher ups are going to notice. Maybe they'll do something, maybe not.
Tesla has a lot more locations with a lot more cars on the road and certainly a lot higher utilization rates per charge station. They can manage to keep things running. These other companies can do it too, the customers just have to demand better. Hopefully soon we will see more competition on the ccs network and overall things will improve because there will be options.

The incentive to fix them ought to be avoidance of revenue losses. If that isn’t the only necessary incentive, then their prices are way too low.
Premise: Fast-DC charging is for road-tripping, when you MUST depend on it (routine day-to-day charging is done at home, most economically).
Proposal: Wouldn’t it be better to spend, say, $1/kWh for DC-Fast Charging, if the higher price made DEPENDABILITY possible?

 

[roddiaz1]

I'm interested to see what some of the gas station chains do. They have an interest in keeping people at their location to visit the store. They are going to try to figure out how to make charging profitable as well.

There is a chain of gas stations here in PA (MD & OH too) called Sheetz. They have several locations with Tesla chargers and a few with EA chargers. The concept is really cool and I hope it gets rolled out to all or most of their locations. Their convenience stores are well stocked and the food is not half-bad. Also, I’ve never found “their” charges to be down often or for an extended period.

Hopefully others will follow suit and it might alleviate the shortage of reliable charges out in the wild. This will become more and more critical as more EV are launched into the world. I can’t imagine what it will be like in 5 years when the number of EVs triples or quadruples and all those drivers are fighting for limited charging places.

 

[tenkil622]

On a recent trip to Cape Cod, I used EA in Hyannis and the Waterford Commons in Conn. I had no problems at either of these charging stations. In fact, at both of these locations I was able to charge using EA's Hyper Charger at 350w. Unfortunately the Hyannis charging station is the ONLY level 3 on the Cape. Hopefully this will change in the not too distance future.

 

[Tyler Durden]

Proposal: Wouldn’t it be better to spend, say, $1/kWh for DC-Fast Charging, if the higher price made DEPENDABILITY possible?

Exactly this. I never have range axiety, but I do have availability and functinality anxiety. I'd be happy to spend $1/kWh on my (very rare) road-trips if it discouraged some non-road-trippers that could otherwise charge at home or a public L2 when appropriate. And a much higher price this would (you hope) incentivize DCFC providers to keep their s_ working.

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