I'm well aware some folks traveling cross country or extensive travel have run into a snag hear and there with Electrify America locations. But my wife recently talked me into putting together a trip we can go on to break in our new ID.4 Pro S. We really like the Northwest and want to visit Bend, Vancouver, WA. heading up to Puallup and over past Mt. Rainer and head back down to Yakima and stop at some of their wine country in Zillah, WA and then had back to our home in central Idaho. I scoped out probably no less then 10 possible charge sites that are EA and noted there were but a few issues at some of their locations. I called them and spoke to a really sweet lady there that was so very patient. We went through each location and gave each one complete analysis of past and current users that had used the sites to verify their quality and reliability. There were only Bolt and ChaDamo users that had any issues which was a good start. One location in Hermiston is currently down and is being worked on as we speak so that was good to hear. All in all I must have had her on the phone for at least 45 minutes and she gave me great in depth analysis of each site's history and specs. It was amazing. That would have alone been a GREAT experience. Then low and behold she called me back about 2 hours after our conversation. She said she noted on my EA account that my ID.4 VW Plan was not selected as my Default in the App. She patiently talked me through the process of doing so. I had no idea it wasn't set that way. She was only concerned because earlier she went thought the entire process of getting hooked up at a station. And said it was possible that due to my NOT having my program selected as the Default it may have caused some delays. What a sweetheart. So far this is my first interaction with them and it was 5 Stars. Can't wait to hit the road in September and get to use their system.
Thanks for the informative update. I just returned from 8+ days in the PacNW myself in an ICE rental. (Cascades, Seattle, San Juan Islands, & Olympic Peninsula) Despite the many hundreds of miles covered, I was a bit surprised to spot only a single ID4 (Blue Pro S) "out in the wild" ... although the Teslas were practically bumping-in to each other.
Ahh yes very familiar with that part of the country. Been there many times and it continues to be high on my visit list. I'm not surprised you've only seen ONE ID.4 My dealer informed me as I was taking delivery of my Pro S the last week of June, I was the FIRST one in the State of Idaho to take delivery. The others are all ordered but not delivered yet. Tesla's have been around now for years already. Their prices are a bit absurd, but heck good on them. One of these days I plan on doing the trip to Anacortes and get on the ferry to B.C to Butchart Gardens, then back across Hwy 20 and the North Cascades. We love to stay at the hotel on the mountain top in Winthrop along the way. Makes for a very scenic drive and I'm a professional photographer so it's eye candy to me.
Great to hear about your positive experience. It's easy to be motivated to write when things go wrong, but it takes more effort for us to share when things go well. Thanks for taking the time.
Tesla's been around now for years. The ID.4's are just now being delivered. When I took delivery of the ONLY ID.4 Pro S that my dealer had and he only had it because he ordered it same time they ordered their demo, he said I was the 1st person in all of Idaho to take delivery of the ID.4. They took my picture with the salesman as it was an event for them. So yeah, they are now just coming out so don't expect to see a ton of them yet. A year from now I would expect to see some others. Hope to be taking that trip you described you went on next May with my ID.4. I hope to see more charging stations opened up. If Musk will release the SuperCharger network to us all as he's promised, that will make for a HUGE removal of the "Range Anxiety" world we've lived in before.
Yes, I'd agree the support team at EA is doing well. Unfortunately, every time (yes 100%) I visit their charging station in my area, I have to call for support. Of 6 available stations, typically 2 are listed as out of service. Of the remaining, I've run into the following problems - sometimes repeatedly. YEs, I'm reviewing availability of ports in the app, so I can find a working charger. In the most recent visit, the app listed the station as having been used 3 hours prior. I found the system with no display/black screen. Sometimes if you're careful with timing you can still initiate a charge - but not this time. I moved to a different available charger and was successful. EA needs to get their charging service to a reliable state before I'd be willing to go long distance. There's too much risk in showing up to "available" devices that just don't work. A partial list of reported issues at 100286 in Waterford CT. Display black/out - somethings you can still charge. Display flashing/covered in green lines "Error Initiating Charge" Charge "starts" and ends within seconds. Ice cream (may have been a shake) melting over one of the ports, from someone who left it on top of the charger. It was there at least 5 days after I had reported it. Ports reportedly available/working - which simply fail to connect. With the next EA charger over 40+ minutes and ~30 minutes away, it's not a practical or reliable service at this time.
We have had many discussions with EA customer service, probably 10 or 12 times. They have all been great. The pumps in Arizona anyway will sometimes shut off, we found out, if it is too hot out. We bought our car at the end of June. Finally figured out that charging in 112 degrees doesn't work. I have started to go in the morning with much better success. Summer is over luckily so it should go much more smoothly.
I also had a bit of a spin up issue with ea stations. They always answered quickly, were very friendly and solved my problems. It took talking to a couple of guys in who had a first addition ID-4 who gave me this trick, identify the pump/charger in the program/app first, hit the start charge on the program/app and then plug in your car. It works every time now.
There are multiple ways to initiate charging, and what works will depend on what kind of phone you have. The method that works for everyone is to ID the charger, slide to start, and then plug in. But I prefer using NFC instead. So I just plug in, and after a few seconds hold my phone over the NFC pad (note that EA chargers have *TWO* NFC pads - one on the credit card reader, and the second one usually adjacent to it. Don't use the CC reader NFC pad unless you want to pay with Google Pay/Apple Pay).
