New Electrify America EA Chargers Are Failing in the Cold

[kalalp]

I built, operated and then sold a Chevron station here in CA starting in 2008. Sold in 2017. I could count on one hand the number of times the 12 fuel pumps I had went down and were unusable.

I have a 2022 Lightning that I purchased in Sep of this year. I'm approaching 5k miles on the odometer. I also purchased a Tesla M3 almost 4 years ago that I was intending on selling when I got the Lightning, but ended up not selling because it gets twice the mileage as the Lightning.

The charging infrastructure that is associated with the Lightning is a total and absolute Sh****ow. This week I towed a ~5k trailer here in CA in the central valley, flat towing, 300 miles. 1 mile/kwh, which is what I expected. What I did not expect, was the complete hassle to keep charging at the Targets, Walmarts, etc. I would not be exaggerating if I claimed 80% of the chargers do not function at all or function at a fraction of the claimed output. What would have been a 5 hour trip in my 2015 diesel Superduty turned into 10 hour nightmare. And at $0.43/kwh the cost was actually more per mile than diesel fuel at $5.20/gallon.

Buyer beware. And more so, manufacturers beware. The Toyota CEO this past week voicing his concerns was not out of line.

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[F150ROD]

I built, operated and then sold a Chevron station here in CA starting in 2008. Sold in 2017. I could count on one hand the number of times the 12 fuel pumps I had went down and were unusable.

I have a 2022 Lightning that I purchased in Sep of this year. I'm approaching 5k miles on the odometer. I also purchased a Tesla M3 almost 4 years ago that I was intending on selling when I got the Lightning, but ended up not selling because it gets twice the mileage as the Lightning.

The charging infrastructure that is associated with the Lightning is a total and absolute Sh****ow. This week I towed a ~5k trailer here in CA in the central valley, flat towing, 300 miles. 1 mile/kwh, which is what I expected. What I did not expect, was the complete hassle to keep charging at the Targets, Walmarts, etc. I would not be exaggerating if I claimed 80% of the chargers do not function at all or function at a fraction of the claimed output. What would have been a 5 hour trip in my 2015 diesel Superduty turned into 10 hour nightmare. And at $0.43/kwh the cost was actually more per mile than diesel fuel at $5.20/gallon.

Buyer beware. And more so, manufacturers beware. The Toyota CEO this past week voicing his concerns was not out of line.

I can’t disagree, especially for the money being dished out on these bad boys.

 

[luebri]

Wow! I finally was able to place and order for my lightning but this and many other threads only confirm that my wife's car will remain ICE for a long time. For years we primarily took her car because she gets 28mph vs my truck at 20 . My Lightning won't (cannot!) be used for long trips because of the unreliability of chargers. It's clear from these posts that it will be a number of years before all the kinks on this stuff are worked out. None of this is surprising to me. Infrastructure takes time.

This 100%.

This is Exactly our current setup. If I wasn’t married and we did not have a second vehicle that fit the family for long trips I don’t think we would have bought a Lightning. That and an ability to charge and garage in Cold weather conditions and no necessity for long range towing. If you can get by those compromises then it’s amazing, but there are definite compromises you need to have a plan for. 2nd ICE vehicle takes care of most of them if your situation allows.

 

[davehu]

if gas stations make most of their money on in store purchases why isn’t Buckeyes QT or Racetrack of adopting fast charge stations ? Seems like it’s a no brainer with the extra parking spaces they usually have. All of those have massive food/beverage centers prime for EV people to consume

THEY ARE: Buc-ees Now offering Electric Car Charging Stations . and RaceTrac Moves Closer to Electric Vehicle Charging Station

 

[TaxmanHog]

IRVING OIL is opening charge stations at gasoline filling stations across New England and Eastern Canada, one will be located 100 feet from my favorite breakfast place, "I'm Lovin-it" !!!

https://www.irvingoil.com/en-CA/on-the-road/electric-vehicle-charging?st=&ft=evCharge

 

[vandy1981]

"Kyle finds out that the new Electrify America chargers that they co-developed with BTC don't work in cold temperatures. He also heads to ChargePoint, EVgo, and other EA chargers to see if they have similar issues in this cold snap."

The issue appears to be limited to the next gen cabinets produced by BTC. The ones made by Signet apparently didn't have any problems in the cold. Hopefully that means it will be an easy fix.

 

[nanohead]

Well, all I know is that in Bergen County NJ, which is full of Teslas and is very densely populated, we don't have any problems with EA chargers breaking, because we simply DON'T have any. In fact, there simply aren't that many chargers to speak of across most of the county that are above 8-10kwh. And this is a county of almost 1M people which is basically 20 minutes from NYC. And NJ has an EV subsidy program too that is fairly generous.

Yes, a handful of chargers here and there, many at BMW dealers that don't allow charging after hours, and a handful at other car dealers which mostly have the same policies. So basically useless

We have a zillion shopping malls, some have either broken ancient 8kwh chargers, or 1 actual EA spot with a 150kwh charger that seems also to be broken most of the time, which is a 20-30 minute drive from everywhere.

If this charging situation doesn't improve, I don't see how this whole experiment is going to work. I'm lucky as I have 2 chargers at my house now, but even though my 20 something kids mostly all want to move to EVs, they simply can't as there's literally no where to charge them where they live in the county.

 

[Tyler Durden]

I haven't been there yet, but the New Braunfels Bu-cee's (I believe that's the largest Bu-cee's, and that's saying something) has a 24-stall Tesla Supercharger.

 

[lakeguy55]

IRVING OIL is opening charge stations at gasoline filling stations across New England and Eastern Canada, one will be located 100 feet from my favorite breakfast place, "I'm Lovin-it" !!!

https://www.irvingoil.com/en-CA/on-the-road/electric-vehicle-charging?st=&ft=evCharge

It's a start I suppose. But with only 1 location in the whole state of NH (and over an hour from me), I won't hold my breath for one nearby. It would help if their website included information on plans for future buildout.

 

[vandy1981]

New Braunfels Bu-cee's (I believe that's the largest Bu-cee's, and that's saying something)

That's true, at least until the Sevierville, TN station opens next summer.

 

[TaxmanHog]

It's a start I suppose. But with only 1 location in the whole state of NH (and over an hour from me), I won't hold my breath for one nearby. It would help if their website included information on plans for future buildout.

Yes, I only know about my local station because the local news rag ran an article about it, maybe chat with the owner franchisee / manager, they may have inside information.

Last night I tested the Providence location, brand new station, two charge points, worked flawlessly with Ford Plug & Charge on.

This session was just an operational test, the cost is higher than my home charging and substantially higher than my average EA session in Mass at 24c/min. This session was only taking around 66Kw due to higher SOC 60% to 70%, the shared 2nd terminal was vacant at the time.

 

[ddbrooke]

I'm beginning to wonder if there is a CCS charging model that is profitable. Especially when each customer is going to tie up your station for 30 minute to an hour. The operator is going to have to set a kWh rate that will make EVs more expensive to operate than ICE vehicles. I already see that here in the Pittsburgh area. EVgo has units at Sheetz in Harmarville, just off the PA turnpike. They are charging $0.59/kWh between 4pm and 9pm. Most of the rest of the day is at $0.49/kWh.

At $0.59/kWh and averaging 1.7 mi/kWh, a full charge would cost $77.29 or $0.346/mi. With regular unleaded at $3.79/gal now, an ICE vehicle getting 10.82mpg would cost the same amount to cover the same distance.

Yes I know I can buy monthly plans with these providers to cut costs but I don't DC fast charge enough to make it worth while. And there is the rub. We want the infrastructure built out so it's easy to find chargers but we only want to use them occasionally.

 

[VTbuckeye]

I'm beginning to wonder if there is a CCS charging model that is profitable. Especially when each customer is going to tie up your station for 30 minute to an hour. The operator is going to have to set a kWh rate that will make EVs more expensive to operate than ICE vehicles. I already see that here in the Pittsburgh area. EVgo has units at Sheetz in Harmarville, just off the PA turnpike. They are charging $0.59/kWh between 4pm and 9pm. Most of the rest of the day is at $0.49/kWh.

At $0.59/kWh and averaging 1.7 mi/kWh, a full charge would cost $77.29 or $0.346/mi. With regular unleaded at $3.79/gal now, an ICE vehicle getting 10.82mpg would cost the same amount to cover the same distance.

Yes I know I can buy monthly plans with these providers to cut costs but I don't DC fast charge enough to make it worth while. And there is the rub. We want the infrastructure built out so it's easy to find chargers but we only want to use them occasionally.

How expensive and common would gas/gas stations be if most people could fill up in their garage? I don't know how we get to profitable DCFC everywhere we need/want it at an affordable price when most people can charge at home. I would pay more for DCFC than my home electricity prices if I need it while traveling, but I would be surprised if I need to DCFC more than a dozen times annually. Maybe more if we have to visit relatives out of town more than once per year, but in 3 months of ownership I went to a DCFC once and it turns out that I didn't need to (efficiency on the 200 mile round trip was adequate on the return leg with an empty trailer). I went to the DCFC to see how it worked and to have a big buffer just in case the efficiency did not improve after unloading the Tacoma from the uhaul trailer.
How many DCFC locations are necessary for peak travel times? Possibly an order of magnitude more than typical times. How much do they need the charge for the electricity alone with high demand charges for the kw through put that DCFC requires for multiple stalls at reasonable power to fill big batteries in a reasonable time. Then there is the cost of DCFC equipment/permitting/installation/maintenance. This does not look like a viable business model without significant government $$

 

[Farmford42]

Has anyone seen any follow up on this from E A or anywhere else? Are they working now?

 

[thecoloradokid]

Has anyone seen any follow up on this from E A or anywhere else? Are they working now?

Now that temps have dropped, the BTC units are working.

You can look up individual chargers on Plugshare to see recent status.

Electrify America has, and will continue, to say nothing. Their app is a mirage of fully functioning chargers since they sold system reliability to every EV car manufacturer in return for $$$$$.

I am not sure what their up time SLA is, but I am sure they are below the mark.

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