Another bad EA charger

[Maxx]

If this does not already exist, there should be a federal database each station and each charger is required to register with. Owners of charging station should feed live data with last time each charger (with unique ID) is used. An app or the navigation on the vehicle could use that data to guess what is the likelihood of a location having a working and available Charger. Basically automated version of plugshare with additional functionality.

That database could be used with some carrots and sticks to improve performance but some tax payer’s money may have to go into this if all needed locations are not profitable.

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[RickLightning]

If this does not already exist, there should be a federal database each station and each charger is required to register with. Owners of charging station should feed live data with last time each charger (with unique ID) is used. An app or the navigation on the vehicle could use that data to guess what is the likelihood of a location having a working and available Charger. Basically automated version of plugshare with additional functionality.

That database could be used with some carrots and sticks to improve performance but some tax payer’s money may have to go into this if all needed locations are not profitable.

Doesn't exist, won't exist. No reason for a federal database. No live data exists for gas stations either.

 

[RickLightning]

Sadly - you choose to ignore it, but this isn't an isolate case. It happens daily with EA. The network sucks and their support is abysmal overall. Accept it if you want, but there is better and there is no reason we can't compare it. I won't let up on the charging network or Ford for the shortcomings in the truck. Overall it is awesome, but now it is time to tweak the bugs out of it. We'll see if they listen.

This is worthy of its own thread, but I just hauled a large outdoor umbrella home from Costco, tailgate down, with it strapped in. Now just tell me when I put it in reverse Ford wants to show me the camera pointing at my bumper. They know the tailgate is down. In this case why don't you change the backup camera to the one from the overhead bed? It's jus simple. How much testing and though have they really put into this?

I hear what every one is saying and although I'm maybe a bit heavy in my replies, I know there are challenges, but how long do we truly have to live with them? I'm just saying that if Farley wants to keep talking about the network and wants to reap his part of the profit from making an EV, then maybe he could put some money into the support of the network that he wants to make a central part of his plan. No. it isn't cheap, no they aren't going to make a lot of money off of it. They have a team that was supposed to be out checking and reporting problems, but maybe they need some support Ford would want to make sure the network is usable when needed.

Does he really get a pass for making a pretty good truck, saying he is going to build 150K in the next year and not have a good guaranteed way to charge when you head out across the country.

You don't seem to hear anything. You keep making false statements. "Sadly - you choose to ignore it.". BULLCRAP. Never said that. Stop putting words in people's mouths. You're not heavy in your replies, you're inaccurate and mistaken.

I've owned an EV for 13 months. The EA network is getting better, not worse. You seem to expect a perfect network overnight. In that case, you should sell your truck now. The $7.5B federal plan is for 5 years. A single location can take TWO YEARS to open.

I gave feedback on the Mach-E directly to Darren Palmer, telling him what I liked and didn't like. Yes, they need to improve things.

Another misstatement - Ford has not said they're going to build 150K in the next year. That's simply FALSE. They said that by the middle of the year, they'll be a run rate of 150K. That means in the back half of the year, they'll maybe make 75,000. In the front half, my guess is 25-45K, for a grand total of 100 - 120K. Not that that matters for the point of "they have to get better", but don't post things that are not correct.

And now you're complaining about the tailgate camera. Been that way for years and years on F-150s. Did you not do your research before buying? There's nothing in the Lightning that should be a surprise to anyone that does a bit of research.

 

[beatle]

There's more to failures than stranding someone. Long wait times can occur if multiple vehicles are queued up waiting at a station with 75% of its chargers offline.

What can be done to address this? Should EV automakers with CCS ports invest in EA or another company to improve the charging service? Should they start their own? Should we just hope for the best that the infrastructure bill will not only provide for more stations, but improve the overall reliability of the network?

There are still a lot of people out there who are very negative on EVs and their limitations. "Oh you can't take a road trip in an EV. You can't tow with an EV. You have to stop every hour and charge for 1 hour." Everyone here knows these claims to be mostly false, but the people making these claims shouldn't be given any more ammunition.

 

[beatle]

I get that it's important not to take anecdotal evidence as indication of a widespread problem. The start of this thread was about a single station having multiple failures, not the network as a whole, but it's hardly unique. Here are some other examples:

https://insideevs.com/news/590679/study-public-chargers-low-reliability



Take a look at the DelMar peninsula on PlugShare. Basically every single CCS charger is dead. Note that these are ChargePoint, not EA.

I'll say that I've not personally had a DCFC problem during the 4 times I've charged the truck at 3 different EA stations, and the experience was actually better than I expected. Plug and charge worked perfectly in about a minute without needing any input from me. I wisely avoided the station at Brugh's Mill Country Store, however. If I were towing on I-81 I may not have had the luxury of being able to do that.

 

[FlasherZ]

The real question is how many times has a broken EA charger stranded somebody? It doesnt matter that 3/4 were down if you were still able to charge up. Im a first time EV owner, and with plugshare I have never been failed yet using EA stations. Am I missing something?

I've had a broken DCFC station force me to spend 8 hours at an L2 charger, delaying my arrival to a family vacation by a day. There is better coverage now, but it's certainly not resilient enough yet.

 

[FlasherZ]

Sure, but how many times has it happened with EA chargers? I am sure that at some point there will be a wait for us, but so far my experience has been I have been the only vehicle there actively charging. I fully understand if this was breaking the ability of people with EVs to drive different places, but we cant use "hypothetical problems" as a reason to grumble when the current system is working. Again I am not doubting any of this, I fully understand my experience with EVs is limited and my state as a whole is different, but just based on what i'm seeing it seems overblown to a degree.

The current system isn't working well, and first-time EV buyers are indeed having problems.

In Bloomington, Illinois, just over a month ago, the EA station at Wal-Mart had one kiosk broken, the other 3 in use when I arrived. I waited 10 minutes then got a spot, but by then 6 cars immediately arrived behind me. By the time I left (40 minutes), only 2 of those 6 cars had been able to start charging in the other working stalls. By rough math, those final few cars would have waited about 90-120 minutes just to start charging, and who knows how many more would arrive in the meantime?

Based on what I've observed in 9 years of driving with Superchargers, I believe we need 75-mile coverage of stations with at least 6 charging stalls in each station for the charging demand. That will allow for the system to be resilient enough to deal with outages (whether whole-station or partial) and dynamic use. EA (and other DCFC networks) need to prioritize maintenance as Tesla has, so that no stall is down more than 7 days.

 

[LightningShow]

Tesla's network is much more reliable than EA at the moment but they also have a 6-year head start and are less subject to supply chain and labor shortages than EA. In spite of their current shortcomings, it's remarkable that they have singlehandedly made it possible to road trip a CCS vehicle across the USA. They need to get better, and I think things are going to improve dramatically if they're able to bring more charger development in house via the the Siemens investment. As it stands, I think EA is pretty great.

Some things to consider when comparing EA to Tesla:

• Tesla has been building Supercharger stations since 2012. EA has been doing it since 2018.
• Tesla builds its own stations and EA has to rely on three separate suppliers to source chargers and parts.
• Tesla has to support 4 models of cars that they build themselves. EA has to support over 20 models from multiple manufactures using two different fast charge standards.
• EA has additional failure points that can create issues including card readers and touch screens.

Don't forget that Tesla has a totally different business model. They can take a loss on the entire charging network because it's not the core product, EA doesn't have the luxury of selling their service at a breakeven or loss.

 

[LightningShow]

Just my experience in the last week, I plugged into 11 different EA stations and every one worked. There were a few stations out of order at the 50+ pedestals that were installed at the different locations, but it was probably less than 10% of them.

Overall, the public DCFC experience isn't even close to where it should be. I don't think it's all that productive to blame it on EA or anyone else. It's very early in the lifecycle of public DC charging. EA seems to be, by far, the best non-Tesla operator out there. They can do better but it will take time to build up the network and infrastructure.

 

[FlasherZ]

Nonetheless, I hope we can all agree that the DCFC infrastructure outside of Tesla-land is not where we want it to be. Hopefully the $1B per year investment from the government will result in much better coverage with higher reliability, and that it's not more of the same that we've been seeing for the past 5 years.

While I won't dare to say that EV mass-market adoption depends upon it (because there are definitely some drivers that so rarely take road trips), it's a black mark on EV adoption and just enables more naysayers.

There are a bunch of people who will only see good chargers, and there are going to be areas where there are nothing but bad chargers, likely due to the contractors that DCFC network companies use for maintenance. One region may have awesome maintenance; others may have beer-swilling "we'll get to it when we get to it" maintenance contracts.

I have personally experienced very poor reliability from the EA network, with nearly a third of the stalls being out of service throughout the midwest and down to the southeast. I hope it changes... I need it to change so my F-150 Lightning becomes more useful.

 

[millim]

Who doesn’t love a good internet sh!T show fight!! J/K - but I figure I’ll add my $.02.

Still need to do a trip report, but a couple weeks back we did over 2,000 miles going from OC to Vail and back by way of the “Mighty 5” national parks in Utah. Today I just got back from a 500 mile RT from OC to Arizona.

I exclusively did my DCFC at EA. For the entirety of both trips I never had to wait, and always had a functioning charger. The only issue I ran into was the EA in Washington, Utah, where they were all putting out at 40kw. I did use plugshare to check ahead and maximize our chances of a good session/route.

There were definitely some broken chargers at various stations, but we were never skunked and never waited (but I got super lucky at the Vegas outlets…people right after me waited).

I think we need to appreciate a few things. Tesla has been at this for many more years and they seem to have figured out their chargers. They’ve also had the luxury of only needing to charge Teslas…kind of like Apple/iOS.

EA is newer, they have a hodgepodge of hardware vendors, and like Android, they need their chargers to work across various brands that they don’t control. One of the techs I bumped into at an EA actually said that Lightnings are causing issues at some stations, especially those in the desert heat, due to voltage/amperage/something. Two times I left a station and my session finished when I unplugged, but the EA screen froze quite a bit earlier.

EA can and needs to do better, but I think it’s disingenuous to think they just don’t give a crap. They have limited resources and are obviously juggling a ton of complicated issues, both business and technical, as we consumers are simply looking to reliably access their chargers around the country.

 

[orangefirefish]

A few observations based on my Mach E experience since early 2021. The EA network is OK and I’ve done a few longer trips (California to Arkansas back and forth a few times, NorCal to SoCal a few times). I haven’t gotten stranded but I almost expect a fault every now and the . I’ve hit inoperable chargers multiple times, had to call EA customer service a few times, and it’s well possible I could get stranded one of these days if customer service can’t reboot a station to get it working. I would rather stop at an EA station than any other CCS, but that doesn’t mean it’s reliable, just “more” reliable. It’s not where it needs to be yet though- too much variability, but it is what it is. There’s a ton of misconception about charging EVs, I just hope these DCFC stories don’t further tarnish the EV reputation.

 

[Maxx]

Doesn't exist, won't exist. No reason for a federal database. No live data exists for gas stations either.

Gas network is established and functional at the moment so there is no need to solve a problem that does not exist. Public charging network and infrastructure in U.S. is dysfunctional and unreliable. There is a problem to solve. I consider mobility for business and public a national security issue and IF private industry is incapable of addressing the need, Government has to step in. This part of my opinion is debatable and I don't want to get political on the forum but the part that there is a problem that need to be solved is not just my opinion:

 

[RickLightning]

This video is the same person as mentioned by the OP from Twitter.

 

[Maxx]

This video is the same person as mentioned by the OP from Twitter.

Are you saying there is no problem to solve because @OutofSpecKyle is saying there is a problem?

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