Electrify America effective today has commissioned 2 DCFC's in Green River Utah and Salina Utah effectively bridging the gap and unlocking the West for i70 travel from Grand Junction Colorado to Richfield Utah previously a 225 mile stretch that had a lot of elevation change, down to now just 107 miles!! This is huge guys. Previously I never did the i70 route from Grand Junction to Richfield as I didn't want to chance running out of electrons before I could reach Richfield or visa versa. So my make shift route around that blackhole was to painfully charge to 100% in Grand Junction and go north through Price Utah, charge at a dinky 20kW DC charger and then up through Spanish Fork to hit i15 which my Las Vegas road trip video on YouTube illustrated. Its a happy day for me as my Kona Electric driving is getting easier with these new chargers up and working.
Nice to see more DCFC's expanding in the inner areas of the country and not just up and down the coasts
It's not just about availability but also pricing. Before the pandemic I did a long trip (BC to AZ) and used my ICE car. It would have been significantly more expensive to take the Kona because of the high pricing structure of the fast charging stations. And I am not talking about just EA. So until that changes, I will continue to use my ICE car for longer trips. Here in BC, we have more free fast charging stations, so it is not as bad. But that could change, too, as more an more are no longer free. I don't see getting rid of my ICE car anytime soon.
I believe that pricing is related to the demand of station use. EA can’t pay everything off easily when few people use their stations. I think that wider EV adoption will help that. Right now, EA doesn’t really have much competition either. Once other networks get more serious or businesses start installing independent DCFC, there will be more downward pressure on prices.
That's true charging by the minute is not cool. I don't own an ICE car so I have to take the Kona. I pay a little extra on road trips but I charge at home on my grid tie solar 98% of the time which still saves me a ton. For me in Rural Colorado, DC fast charging infrastructure is hugely important to simply get places quicker rather then setting on slow chargers. As more EV drivers begin to use EA, pricing will go down over time. I hear rumors of EA dropping the per minute charging model all together which will be greatly beneficial for us Kona drivers.
Yeah, that is the dilemma alright. The fast charging infrastructure is expensive to install, and needs high usage to pay back. However, when people look at the cost to charge on a trip (not to mention range anxiety), they may also hold back buying EVs. At the least, home charging is cheap (for most), and that should help with EV adoption. But we need both adoption and availability (incl competition) to make travelling by EV economical.
Does anyone know the process that a company like Electrify America uses to decide when and where to install chargers?
You can request EA to install a charge in a location. I requested Green River and Salina about a year ago, and now those chargers are built and online. https://www.electrifyamerica.com/submissions/
If companies only installed 50kw, it would be cheaper. EA is pushing the envelope, and that costs a lot more. 50kw works in a pinch, but on a long trip you would probably want a bit faster.
EA is also owned by VW which include Porsche and Audi which do use the much higher charging rates so it is in EA interest to put in the 350 kw chargers. As far as the extra expense for electricity on long trips vrs an ICE vehicle I would choose to pay for the electricity vrs the maintenance insurance on a second vehicle as over all it probably still cheaper (never mind that I own 4 ICE vehicles)
I know this is getting a bit off-track from the original post but I have a general question about EA. I know that it's affiliated/owned with/by VW. Do the VW brands work with EA chargers like a Tesla with it's supercharger? Meaning can you just drive up and plug in or is there a RFID card, app or credit card use. As I only drive an EV with a level 2 charger I've never used a supercharger.
Yeah, for some that would work. But sometimes both my wife and I need a vehicle at the same time, so need a second vehicle regardless. Also we have a cabin with a rough road that requires a good off-road vehicle and also need to pull a boat a couple times a year. So we have an SUV for that. When a suitable off-road EV comes along, we might go for that.
I know Porsche get one year free charging at EA not sure about vw. So I guess all the Kona users are paying to charge all the Porsche Taycans for the first year. That must be why the rates are so high for Konas Oh wait I just saw that they now get three years free charging.... jeeez