Weird Electrify America Issue

On my Sonata the VIN is located on the sticker located inside next to the drivers side door. There is another located by looking from the outside where it's located between the windshield and the steering wheel, and it's on the registration that I have in the glove department.

EA has a short time to get their act together before folks just stop going to them and use a Tesla station.

 

Better still, sell their assets to Tesla.

Bob Wilson

 

Why would that want they want them outside of the land they are using?

The locations here in the Seattle area usually just have two or three chargers, while Tesla usually puts in 10 to 12 chargers.

 

For the land, power, and communications. It would be a great way to deploy a bunch of V4 SuperChargers.

Bob Wilson

 

I can see land, but I'm not sure how more land these locations can acquire. Around here it's common to see only two to three chargers per location. Like I said before, Tesla likes to put in 10 or more chargers per location.

On top of that, I don't think buying an existing location qualifies for any federal money. If you can't get any federal money, I don't see much point at this time. Maybe Tesla will wait to see if EA files bankruptcy.

 

Actually Tesla has moved forward with prefabricated, modulo 4 charging assemblies. They have a standard, modular assembly that just needs a crane, footing, and power: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-prefab-supercharger-images/


The earlier V2 (max 150 kW) stations were built up in the field by piece assemblies. Typically, in pairs for power sharing, the number of charging lanes has always been modulo 2 but I've charged at 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and larger charging lane stations.

Today, there is at least one 'pull in' lane. Yet Tesla has installed 'pull through' charging lanes too. I suspect the Cyber Truck will lead to more 'pull through' charging lanes.

One of Tesla's strengths is they don't 'freeze' a design but continue to improve everything from design through installation. This flexibility has been how Tesla keeps ahead. In contrast, GM's "ultium battery" that remains a joke frozen in a decade old design and price point.

Bob Wilson

 

They are just finishing up a local install here and starting another. EVgo has three 50 kW stations that generally don't work located here too.

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/supercharger-tacoma-wa-s-steele-st-under-construction-oct-2023-16-v3-stalls.309236/page-4

 

I had the same issue yesterday, fortunately my wife's app worked so we did that. I'm going to contact EA to see what's up.

 

In Minnesota the EA locations are all like 8 towers, but in parking lots of Walmart, Target, and other shopping areas. I'm sure EA doesn't own the land for those sites.

 

A large chunk of the Seattle build was pretty much in the first build section. So that may explain why you don't see anything more then 6 chargers and more likely 3 to 4 chargers.

Anyhow, I'm sure Walmart and the others lease their stores and parking lots and have a lot to say about installing charging stations.

I suspect that more chargers can be added at Walmart, however there are locations around here that don't have a huge Walmart parking lot. For example, Bank America has a two charger location with not much room to expand.

The good news is that Washington state has way, way more locations then Minnesota. The Tesla superchargers are going to be a big help for you guys in Minnesota.

 

EVgo is right up there with Blink. I have visited various EVgo stations 8 times and was only able to charge twice. I thought I had cancelled them, stopped even trying to use them and failed to realize they continued to bill me $5/mo after I thought I had cancelled the service. My CC on file was replaced during a fraud incident, and three months later they started sending me dunning notices. I logged back in and they wouldn't let me cancel the account because it was past due. They finally sent me to collections for $33. It's been 2 years. A collection agency called me a month or so ago. I laughed at them. Unlikely I would ever use them again, though I do have common stock in the company. I don't really care about $30 one way or the other, but it's ticky-tack crap like this that really makes people angry and just kills customer relationships. Further I never asked for any credit, the minute my CC failed to bill the account should have automatically cancelled. I never agreed to any term. The management of these organizations is stunning.

 

Given the unreliability of EA and Blink, I've never been tempted by the monthly fee systems. Even my recently added CCS-1 adapter, I seldom use it. I could never break even with any monthly fee system.

My Tesla and Superchargers simply work.

There is a way such discount access fees make sense. Upon first charge in a month, offer the option of a 30 day membership. If I'm on a trip where I am likely to use their network chargers again, I'd pay one month's discount rate, membership fee for the next 30 days. But I'm not going to commit to a repeating, monthly charge for a service I'm not going to be using around town.

Hummm, does anyone know if a 'disposable' Visa card can be used for the EV network, discount fee? Have a pre-paid Visa card with just enough credit for one full month. Sounds like an interesting experiment to try.

Bob Wilson

 

Well EVgo isn't as bad as Blink around here. The issues are mainly with the 50 kW chargers. They installed 100 kW and 350 kW chargers here at two locations and they generally work for most folks.

However, they may have gone with variable pricing depending on the time of day. So expensive to charge.

My understanding is that the 50 kW chargers will get replaced with higher capacity ones if they can come up with the money. However, the federal money is for new locations, so maybe that's where the emphasis is going to take place.

 

EA and Evgo fees are by the month and you can quit any time. When I go on an long trip (over 1000 miles ) I sign up and then immediately quit. The month I paid for will continue for the 30 days from the day I signed up even though I have quit the plan. It allows you quit and still maintain the 30 days paid for. Or you can also quit when you get home from the trip.

 

It should work since those appear as the regular Visa card range to the point of sale, although sometimes it won't depending on how the authorization is requested. Visa handles the balance on the backend during authorization.

 

Frankly a 50KW charger would be fine in the right location, if you didn't have idle fee's. Outside a movie theater, grocery store, department store, but the charging costs should be much lower.

 

The charge by the kWh here, I think that's reasonable.

Outside to the cost of demand charges, I can't see a good reason why one should pay less for charging at a 50 kW charger.

Anyhow, I think a 50 kW charger would be OK at the grocery store or any other place where you would visit for an hour or less. However, they need to be maintained. We have one location that has been vandalized out-of-order, and another is out-of-order due to EVgo's waiting to find money to upgrade it to 350 kW.

 

Perhaps not articulated well. They need to charge less period. The EA/EVGO/et.al here are charging >$0.50 and up for a kw of power. The highest I would pay at home, summertime, on-peak is ~$0.25. Current winter peak rate at home is ~$0.11. Off-peak around $0.07. The powers that be want to shove EV's down everyone's throat, and then the poorest among us who have no access to power at home get to pay above premium pricing for the power to run their vehicle. For me it's a huge win because I can charge at home. Fine, I'll screw over poor people. At some point we need to figure out how to re-coup the lost road-tax revenue from gasoline sales. That $0.50 is purely the spread, roughly double actual commercial cost, and should reach better parity as the cost of building out the infrastructure improves, and the reliability gets better.

To your point, it's sad a $150K charging pedestal is unreliable. I think there is an engineering issue everywhere, which again will get worked out, but maybe we should do that before we create laws that are going to break the back of most working class folks. Here's the issue from the provider end. If we get the cost of the pedestal down to $100K, and on-average I can deliver 100KW/hour from my pedestal, and I have a 0.25 spread on the power, I can net $25/hour while the thing is operating. *IF* I can keep it operating 12 hours a day, and I never have to touch it, it will take a year of pie in the sky luck to pay the thing off in a year. We haven't started talking about space leasing or the amortization of building out the power to the pedestal.

This needs to proceed slowly, the equipment needs to stabilize, and the locations need to be much better thought out. It will happen, but if we try to force it it's going to way more expensive and keep the costs high for a longer period of time.

Smaller chargers are much less expensive and burdensome on the grid. A bank of 4 decent 50KW chargers can be installed almost anywhere commercial 3-phase is available without being overly disruptive, and the equipment is dramatically less expensive. You can buy a commercial 50KW today for under $20K. Since your capital cost is reduced you should be able to pay off the capital expense in a short time-frame, which plays to my point: Drop them at places people use for 20min-1hour and reduce the per KWH charge cost. Create a long "idle" buffer, so if your at the grocery and decide to go over to the barber next door and get a haircut, you don't get dinged. 1 hour on a 50KWH charger would charge most EV's from 50% to full with a bit of idle time.

Along the highway you need the superfast chargers so you can get in and out while traveling. In town you just need decent, and a way to plug in close to where you shop and/or work. It does not have to be one size fits all.

 

We have a few public L2 charging stations that currently charge $0.21 per kWh. Unfortunately, they get vandalized.

The state of Washington charges BEV owners a $200 per year EV road tax, whether you drive 1 mile a year or a million. Currently, 50 bucks of that tax is going to fund EV infrastructure.