Holiday Weekend(July 4th) EA Electrify America Experience

[Viet658]

Hopefully California starts requiring minimum reliability standards.

https://www.teslarati.com/electric-... Newsom has,be published by charger operators.

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[Amps]

Hopefully California starts requiring minimum reliability standards.

NEVI funded chargers have a reliability requirement, too. Last I heard the definition of what 97% means hadn't been finalized. Does reliability mean you were able to keep going after a couple of hours of throttled charging, or does it mean putting out its rating?, or does it mean 97% of the time it provides what your vehicle is asking for?, etc., etc....?

 

[Nikos]

Stopped at four EA chargers over the July 4th holiday weekend on a road trip from Pomona, CA to San Francisco. Most of the EA locations had less than half of the stalls working. One location Harris Ranch only had three out of ten plugs working. Even the biggest one we went to had two broken stalls out of 10. The worst part of the trip is that EA app continues to show stalls working when they aren’t working. Drivers cannot plan if the information reported by EA is incorrect. Was thinking of taking the lightning on this same road trip end of the month but my wife was terrified by this experience. Will probably rent a truck for the next trip. The saddest is part was seeing all the tesla chargers at Harris Ranch and kettleman totally empty. EA really needs to improve their quality. The one positive charging experience was at the tesla charger in Scott’s Valley. Tesla opening their network can’t come soon enough for me.

So.....you have the same problems that I have on the SE. Same lousy experience. Your wife was terrified, mine was disgusted with EA. Cannot wait for the supercharging network to be available. Progressively EA is rolling downhill......fast. Another adaptation that I have to endure for few months.
If anyone in this forum thinks that Ford doesn't read our comments and experiences with EA, think again. They saw this coming a long time ago.
The switch to NACS was inevitable.

 

[RickLightning]

I admire your faith in government. Agreed that some sort of uptime guarantee should be in there, but I'm sure you've seen comments about the EA app showing chargers as functional only for a consumer to roll up and the device be non-operational. Perhaps the decree has an minimum uptime guarantee, but that uptime is based on bogus data from the app?

VW already cooked the books to get in this scenario. I could see them quietly bribing the app designer to not flag a station as down unless it's been independelty verified by an EA tech. And guess what, there's only one EA tech who's certified to make this declaration. And guess what, he's been on vacation for the last 6 months in Belize (all expences paid by VW).

I never rely on EA's app, I use PlugShare.

 

[AZT9]

I never rely on EA's app, I use PlugShare.

Agreed but the big problem I’m noticing with plugshare is that people are/can’t flag stations with the default options. I.e “2 of 4 stalls broken 1 charging at 54kw” flagged as a + because they got a charge.

 

[Zprime29]

Can't trust the rating, have to read the comments on check-ins. The rating gives you an idea if there's at least one charger working, the comments tell you which one.

 

[On the Road with Ralph]

I think there are two possible citizen/user options with respect to EA's disgustingly poor performance:

1) The consent decree was on behalf of the federal EPA and the California Air Resources Board (CARB). It not only required an investment in tech/services to support EV adoption, but it also had provisions that prohibit Volkswagen from making any misrepresentations that would deceive consumers about the environmental benefits or value of its vehicles or services. I think this can provide a basis for calling on CARB to hold public hearings on EA's (aka VW) miserable service. If CARB found that EA/VW was in violation of the agreement, it could turn to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California for remedies, including additional fines and sanctions. Maybe more important, CARB has the power to approve - or not - the sale of ALL cars in California (and by extension, about a dozen other states that follow CARB's rules). It would get VW's attention in a heartbeat if its ability to sell ANY car in California were threatened because they breached the consent decree.

2) I think there is a separate legal case for a class action suit on throttled chargers. We pay 36¢ (or 45¢) because DCFC's are supposed to pump the electrons into our vehicles at very high speed. This cost is far in excess of what the electricity actually costs. When EA widely throttles chargers that are plainly marked as 150 kW or 350 kW dispensers to 40 kW or less, it is basically cheating us as customers of a service they claim to provide. Yes, I know the chargers are labeled "up to" but given EA's widespread practice of throttling/derating I'm not sure that would be a sufficient defense. In the end, 90% of such civil law suits get settled out of court; it might lead to EA agreeing to discount charging done on throttled chargers, which in turn would lead it to wanting to improve reliability/robustness to keep from damaging its business case.

At this point, EA/VW's terrible performance may be the single greatest obstacle to EV adoption. I think it merits extreme legal and governmental steps to remedy.

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