Electrify America Chargers

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Ev050 said:
My first and last time as well, I was driving my car prior to pull up to the 150kW and It only charged at about 28kW, I paid 30
Bucks for about 20% charge which is ridiculous. Costumer Service was blaming the Kona Battery management it seems like I should’ve gone to the EVgo chargers
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This is the problem with DCFC in the wintertime. The cars will restrict the charging rate to protect the batteries, and when you are paying by the minute, you can pay through the nose.

The last time I tried a 50kW charger, I started out at 28kW. After about 5 minutes, the charge rate jumped up to the mid 40's. After 15 minutes of that, it dropped back down again. This charger happens to be free, so other than wasting a bit of my time, there was no actual cost to me.
 
So after a GREAT road trip (except for the pricing) that should have cost about $70 US but ended up costing over $150, I canceled my EA membership.

After many emails and phone calls, I decided the only way to get their attention was to cancel my membership. I did a follow up to let EA know why I canceled and I will let the forum know if there is any follow up from EA.
 
Joev said:
So after a GREAT road trip (except for the pricing) that should have cost about $70 US but ended up costing over $150, I canceled my EA membership.

After many emails and phone calls, I decided the only way to get their attention was to cancel my membership. I did a follow up to let EA know why I canceled and I will let the forum know if there is any follow up from EA.
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I'm not even planning any longer road trips to areas where I would have to pay Tier 2 rate.. I don't have a paid membership, so it would have no impact if I would cancel my pay as you go membership.. I do use their 50kw chargers in South Florida as they are cheaper AND faster than EVgo but I avoid their > 50kw units at any cost. Driving my wife's ICE van would be cheaper than using the Kona on the > 50kw EA chargers..
 
If you go to the News section there is a post there that there will be an interview with EA and any questions asked in the discussion area will be asked in the interview. Why don't you do there and explain the charging rates, etc. and see if you can get an answer. I haven't used EA yet but have a Niro EV and expect I will have the same issues.
 
RDA said:
If you go to the News section there is a post there that there will be an interview with EA and any questions asked in the discussion area will be asked in the interview. Why don't you do there and explain the charging rates, etc. and see if you can get an answer. I haven't used EA yet but have a Niro EV and expect I will have the same issues.
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I *know* they are aware of the issue. I ran into the CEO of EA when I was charging, and he was well aware of the issue. At the time (2 months ago), he said that EA and Hyundai were working on a resolution - what I took that to mean was they were pointing fingers at each other. Each hoping the other would do something to resolve the issue. That strategy has not yet yielded a solution however - someone is going to have to step up to the plate.
 
Well this article in the News section says the interview is with the CEO and someone else from EA, no holds barred and they would answer any questions. Still think it would be a good idea if you posted the questions in the discussion section.
 
https://electrek.co/2019/12/24/cali...lling-tesla-superchargers-will-need-displays/

Well, this is progress. California (my state) has decided to ban per-minute billing, stating:
"The Department concludes that the primary commodity delivered by EVSE is electricity, not parking space accessibility, parking space rental time, or accessibility to the EVSE itself. The Department considers those as “other services” of the transaction. The Department clarifies that time is not an acceptable unit of measure for dispensing and billing electricity as motor vehicle fuel."

This change becomes effective on Jan 1, 2020.

I hope the rest of the country adapts this standard as well.
 
ITown said:
https://electrek.co/2019/12/24/cali...lling-tesla-superchargers-will-need-displays/

Well, this is progress. California (my state) has decided to ban per-minute billing, stating:
"The Department concludes that the primary commodity delivered by EVSE is electricity, not parking space accessibility, parking space rental time, or accessibility to the EVSE itself. The Department considers those as “other services” of the transaction. The Department clarifies that time is not an acceptable unit of measure for dispensing and billing electricity as motor vehicle fuel."

This change becomes effective on Jan 1, 2020.

I hope the rest of the country adapts this standard as well.
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Flat fee billing like in most of europe or per kwh billing are the best option in my opinion..
 
ITown said:
https://electrek.co/2019/12/24/cali...lling-tesla-superchargers-will-need-displays/

Well, this is progress. California (my state) has decided to ban per-minute billing, stating:
"The Department concludes that the primary commodity delivered by EVSE is electricity, not parking space accessibility, parking space rental time, or accessibility to the EVSE itself. The Department considers those as “other services” of the transaction. The Department clarifies that time is not an acceptable unit of measure for dispensing and billing electricity as motor vehicle fuel."

This change becomes effective on Jan 1, 2020.

I hope the rest of the country adapts this standard as well.
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Doesn't it say any new level 2 has to comply starting 2021 and 2023 for DC/Fast charging?
 
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Chris-Ca said:
Doesn't it say any new level 2 has to comply starting 2021 and 2023 for DC/Fast charging?
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Is it the the not displaying of kilowatts that is grandfathered in until 2030 or or is it the charging by the minute that grandfathered in for 10 years?
 
RDA said:
... the interview is with the CEO and someone else from EA, no holds barred ...
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I sent Mr. Moloughney mail, as an alternate to posting a comment. Apparently
the interview is already done, and while EA supposedly intends to adjust the
tiers to better accomodate the Kona etc, he reports "they are definitely sticking
with a pricing structure based on time". However, if states mandate otherwise
then they'll have to walk that back too. Along with EVgo, CP, etc..

He mentioned the idle/hogging issue in his reply too, and I suggested that
time-based fees do make more sense for idle or "ridiculously slow charging"
scenarios that are arguably an abuse of the resource. But concessions may
have to be made in cold weather and/or where drivers have no alternative.

_H*
 
This is great news in general, but I suspect that EA & EVgo will simply add a substantial margin on top of the raw cost of kWh from the utility to make sure they are pulling in the same level of revenue. (E.g. utility cost is $0.18/kWh + EA "convenience" fee of $0.40/kWh = $0.58/kWh).
 
TheLight75 said:
This is great news in general, but I suspect that EA & EVgo will simply add a substantial margin on top of the raw cost of kWh from the utility to make sure they are pulling in the same level of revenue. (E.g. utility cost is $0.18/kWh + EA "convenience" fee of $0.40/kWh = $0.58/kWh).
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They might, but they would get damned few customers if they approached it in this manner. At the end of the day EA is a subsidiary of VW, and eventually VW will want a charging network that doesn't seem like a total ripoff.

We have quite a bit of Chargepoint in our area, that I use quite a bit. We have a 80kW EVgo charger as well that charges 30 cents a minute, and that is sometimes tempting. The throttling of charging in cold weather is something that is really sticking in my craw however, as it is something we have little control over (charging after a long drive is probably the only mitigation).

Here is another question - how much extra would you pay to use a charger that is > 50kW? Or how much is your time worth is another way to look at t.
 
ericy said:
Here is another question - how much extra would you pay to use a charger that is > 50kW? Or how much is your time worth is another way to look at t.
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That is a good question! For a Level 2 charge, I’d be willing be a 15% premium over what I pay at home so that’s about $0.28/kWh. For Level 3, I’d be willing to pay about 30% premium so that’s about $0.35/kWh.

While I get the fact that the provider needs to recoup the cost of the EVSE station, I don’t feel that Level 3 should be that much a premium since they ultimately make more money due to the increased volume compared to Level 2.

How about you?
 
I usually don't pay for Level 2 charging outside my home at all. Too many free options just about everywhere.. I pay 5 cents per kwh at home but I think that up to 6 times that... 30 cents per kwh is fair. $12 for 40kwh of charge for Level 3
 
I do like greenlots pricing.. $12 per hour for a true 50kw charger.. 1 hour gets you over 40kw of charge on those.
 
ericy said:
For the most part. But it could lead to people hogging chargers (charging past 80%, for example) when there are people waiting.
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That's not really a concern to me at this time. I've never heard of an EA charging station having a queue of even one person waiting for a station to become available. I've never encountered that with EVGo either, and their chargers tend to be fewer in number and slower in charging rate.
 
ITown said:
That's not really a concern to me at this time. I've never heard of an EA charging station having a queue of even one person waiting for a station to become available. I've never encountered that with EVGo either, and their chargers tend to be fewer in number and slower in charging rate.
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Most Electrify stations have plenty of chargers and it's unlikely that there will be lines waiting for availability, at least not in the next coming years... So far, every time that I went to an EA station, I was the only one charging there at the time.
 
I recently took a 600 mile each way round trip to SC and stopped at 2 EA chargers in both directions. In both cases the chargers worked well, topping out at about 76-77 kW max rate, though that was for a very short period of time. From what it looked like to me, the car was restricting the speed of charge below 30% and of course again once you get around 70%. Each of my 4 total stops lasted about an hour, and in each one I got about 45 kWh of juice. I signed up for the + pricing plan before leaving, for obvious reasons.

All in all the cost was not ridiculous, but I agree with everyone that has mentioned it before, they should charge by amount of electricity delivered not by time. I don't mind the penalties if you don't leave within 10 minutes, or a penalty if tying up a charger at a very slow rate, but otherwise their pricing structure really sucks. But EA was by far my best and easiest option for this trip, I must admit. In fact they might have basically been my only option, outside of renting a ICE vehicle.

Of my stops, 1 had 4 chargers (and 1 of those was down for service) and the other location had 10 chargers. Out of the 4 stops (2 at each location) , only once was another vehicle charging, it was a BMW electric and was gone by the time I got back from my lunch. At that same location 2 jerks in diesel trucks parked next to me blocking one of the chargers. One was there when I arrived, then he left and another showed up and parked in the same spot. They were both so busy being assholes that neither one noticed they'd both managed to "block" the only 1 of the 4 chargers that wasn't working anyway :D:D:D:p:p:p
 
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