First DC fast charging experience. The Mini was great, EA not so much…

175 highway miles??

my trip to buffalo last summer was not nearly as range friendly. We averaged about 90 miles per charge to 90% at highway 65 mph speeds. We did have a bicycle in tow though which likely reduced range.

 

Also from the DFW area, I decided to drive to what I am guessing is the same EA location you mention (in Denton), and as a first-time DC fast-charge effort see what is what there, and try it out. However, my MINI SE was still above SoC of 80% upon arrival, so although there were plenty of open charging lanes I just looked it over without trying to charge there and opted to press on to our planned ultimate destination in Oklahoma, just across the Red River.

Once there, I visited a PlugShare-listed fast charger offered by an Oklahoma company, Francis Energy. There I plugged in my SE with the DC combo plug, swiped my credit card and proceeded to easily and successfully charge the MINI at 47 kW for 25 minutes. If this can be done in the middle of nowhere in southern Oklahoma by a local company, surely EA could easily be as reliable and successful as the local company in Oklahoma. But, based on your post and other reports, I guess that is not the case.

 

I had a same experience as you at an EA fast charging station in Houston. I was at 64% SOC because I didn't plug in the night before. I had something come up that required me to need to be at 90% SOC to make it home for the evening.

I tried to charge at a local Nissan dealership that offered free fast charging but the cable for the CCS was too short to reach the stop I parked so I went across the street to the EA charger. There was an Ioniq 5 already there charging and there were 4 open spots. I plugged in and it took a while for the initializing charging to start charging. I charged for 20min and ended up at 92% SOC, I was chatting with the Ioniq 5 owner.

I hit stop charging on the EA charger and unplugged and went back to work. I forgot to check how much my session was and so I logged into the EA app. The app showed that I was still charging for some reason and that I've been plugged in for an hour now with 0 kWh. I called EA and they said they would remotely reboot the charger and for me to sign out and sign back in the app and that should stop the charging. I did that and even deleted and reinstalled app but it still showed I was charging. I checked the EA website and it showed the charger I was using as available so I assumed it worked but the app wouldn't update. I finally get a text 4 hours later from EA for my charging session, $0 for 1kWh delivered. If I had known that I would have charged up to 100% for free.

Overall the experience was ok compared to some of the horror stories I've read about or seen videos of. EA customer support was super easy to get a hold of and easy to deal with. I do miss the simplicity of the Tesla Superchargers, plug in charge up, unplug and go. Your card on file is charged automatically.

 

We don't seem to have a range thread, but I can't believe what I did in my SE today. GOM (car) said I had 126 miles total, @GvilleGuy's EV Range showed 138 miles! I still have my winter wheels on, and drove aggressively in mid mode all day, mostly freeway.

***********************************
Mar 21, 2022 at 18:05 ** 55.4°F ** Wind: 11.806 mph from E ** Humidity: 53% ** Driven: 95.1 Mi ** Start-Batt: 100% ** End-Batt: 31% ** Mi / kWh: 4.77 ** GOM Reading: 31 Mi ** Range Left: 42.73 Mi ** Total Range (From 100% charge): 137.83 Mi ** Total Range (From 100% charge): 137.853 Mi

 

That's impressive!

 

EA contracted the work out to 4 different suppliers. Depending on your region you may have a different supplier with varying degrees of reliability.



efacec was the first to get voted off the island!

 

I could not agree more. Level 3 charging needs to be as simple and uncomplicated as pumping gas. I have had some kind of hiccup almost every time I’ve attempted to use a Level 3 charger. The only one I’ve found mostly reliable is the FREE L3 at the local power company. It’s the one I use the most, obviously. However, yesterday it was occupied by a Bolt so I attempted to use a pay-for-use L3 down the street. No such luck. So back to the FREE charger and a 20 min wait.

My hat is off to Tesla for creating a charging experience that exceeds expectations rather than disappoints.


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It seems usually a software failure, probably frequently caused by some hardware conditions. I believe EA DC fast chargers (maybe other sites as well?) have coolant in the cabling, plus DC fast chargers also have cooling in the cabinets. Because these are all in unattended locations they don't have anyone watching over them, unlike most fuel pumps that get daily human supervision.

 

Good points. L3 chargers -- regardless of flavor -- do seem to have fan-augmented cooling in the cabinets. But, even so, these should have a lot fewer moving parts than traditional gasoline pumps that do get daily human supervision as you note. So maybe the L3 charger manufacturers should focus on beefing up the cooling systems and parts as a likely primary point of failure?

 

You guys are making me nervous. I will be trading in (or selling outright) my Tesla Model Y for my new Mini SE and driving it from Dallas to our vacation home in Central Florida (and back). I've calculated 14 charge stops along the route and it seems I've no choice but to make one of two legs perilously close to 104 miles. Seems after one reaches a point of no return, one is dependent on the reliability of commercial (non-Tesla) chargers. Clearly, there is a possibility some may be INOP. What is a reasonable number of miles to plan between stops so as to plan for alternate charging locations? All this ambiguity is making me think of renting a Uhaul and flat bedding it instead.

 

Not on site, but given Tesla's tech savvy I do not doubt every supercharger is remotely monitored in real time.

 

I for one would be willing to pay more for Level 3 charging if it increased the reliability to at least equal petrol pumps.

This brings up my oft stated question: why aren’t petrol stations being the logical place to locate Level 3 charges? What do gas stations expect to do when BEV’s are more prolific? When their only revenue sources will be ice water and bad coffee!

Gas stations should be on the forefront of making electricity available for transportation just like they have with gasoline for the past century. Wake up! Welcome to the electric century! Petrol stations need to reinvent themselves as “energy stations”.


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At the exhoribitant energy prices Level 3 EVSEs impose, I wouldn't advocate for increasing their prices even more. Broken public EVSEs don't make money. I believe companies will care more about the reliability of their EVSEs as the number of EVs using them increases. The situation will also improve as the companies making the most reliable EVSEs that require the least maintenance achieve the greatest market success.

I never see EVs charging at the gas-station EVSEs in my town. Instead, I see people charging at big-box stores where they have something to do while their EV is charging.