Electrify America question

J

Jim In Tucson

Well-Known Member
First road trip. First use of public charging. And free electricity all in the same day. Discovered that the EA screen is almost impossible to see in the extremely bright AZ sun. I could not not find a screen that showed the charging speed. Also I could not figure out how to use the option to have the charger send me a text. I thought maybe it was a touch screen, but apparently not.

First charge went fine. Charged from 40% to 80% in about 20 mins. On the return trip I stopped at the same charger plugged in and went to lunch, but apparently it was only charging very slowly but I did not know that. Spent an hour and a half charging to finally get to 60%, enough to make it to the next EA station.

Third charge went as planned and speed seemed appropriate. However, I never was able to get the EA app to connect to the charger on any of these.

So, my question is, has anyone run across a really good set of instructions or video on using the EA charger?


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
 
Jim In Tucson said:
First road trip. First use of public charging. And free electricity all in the same day. Discovered that the EA screen is almost impossible to see in the extremely bright AZ sun. I could not not find a screen that showed the charging speed. Also I could not figure out how to use the option to have the charger send me a text. I thought maybe it was a touch screen, but apparently not.

First charge went fine. Charged from 40% to 80% in about 20 mins. On the return trip I stopped at the same charger plugged in and went to lunch, but apparently it was only charging very slowly but I did not know that. Spent an hour and a half charging to finally get to 60%, enough to make it to the next EA station.

Third charge went as planned and speed seemed appropriate. However, I never was able to get the EA app to connect to the charger on any of these.

So, my question is, has anyone run across a really good set of instructions or video on using the EA charger?


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
Click to expand...

I've only ever used EA with my Porsche Taycan. This video has a very small part on the actual EA steps.

When it comes to EA all I do is just plug in. As long as the individual charger is working properly I get juice.

Hopefully you can find something helpful in here:

 
GvilleGuy said:
If you have a smart phone and create an account on the EA app, you can start the entire process from your phone and see the progress there, I believe.
Click to expand...
The app also now supports AppleWallet. So you can tap your phone to the NFC reader on the charger to start a session. Much easier and less fault-prone than the old method of waiting for the app to open, and swiping to start the charge.
 
GetOffYourGas said:
The app also now supports AppleWallet. So you can tap your phone to the NFC reader on the charger to start a session. Much easier and less fault-prone than the old method of waiting for the app to open, and swiping to start the charge.
Click to expand...

I should caution that there are *TWO* NFC pads on an EA charger. One is built into the credit card reader, and if you try and use that, it will try and activate/pay using Google Pay or the Apple equivalent. If you use the *OTHER* one, then the charger will activate using the EA app, and using whatever account/payment info you have stored in your EA account. To make use of this, you need to configure NFC in the EA app ahead of time.

For people that don't have NFC on their phones, I guess you need to use the EA app to locate the charger, and swipe the little icon to start charging. That's always a sort of fallback if nothing else works. I always find this a pain in the neck as you need to find the correct charger in the app. But apparently it is considered the most foolproof, as this is what EA support recommends to people who are having trouble.

Finally, there is a credit card reader on the chargers - that can work as well, but if you have any kind of special plan associated with your EA account, it won't be able to use it. And you won't have the charging sessions associated with your account, so you won't get receipts. In the past, people had trouble with broken readers - I gather that this is less of an issue these days.

The EA app is now Android Auto capable (+Apple equivalent), so you can see it on your headunit. It will help you find specific chargers, see the current status, and you can then ask it to navigate to a selected charger.
 
I’m going back to the AE chargers at night the next time I need to top off. That should allow me to better be able to read the screens.

I got confused by the initial screen that says “Plug in First”. So, I dutifully did as instructed. But, then you can’t use the app. Next time I will try the app first.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
 
Jim In Tucson said:
I got confused by the initial screen that says “Plug in First”. So, I dutifully did as instructed. But, then you can’t use the app. Next time I will try the app first.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it does tell you to do this, and usually that works. When I use NFC and the app, the steps are first plug in. Then wait 15 seconds or so for the charger to communicate with the car. Finally unlock the screen on the phone and hold it over the NFC pad (not the one on the credit card reader) for a few seconds. That's pretty much it.

The fallback of using swipe in the app to start oftentimes works better if you do that first before plugging in. I think the main reason is that if you plug in first, the charger oftentimes times out while you are fooling with the phone to find the correct charger.
 
When I tried to access the app after plugging in first, the app responded that the charger was already in use.

My hat will be off to whomever is first to invent a charger that is as simple to use as filling up at a gas station.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
 
Jim In Tucson said:
When I tried to access the app after plugging in first, the app responded that the charger was already in use.

My hat will be off to whomever is first to invent a charger that is as simple to use as filling up at a gas station.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
Click to expand...

The behavior you mention is exactly how EA works with my Porsche Taycan. I plug it in and it starts charging. No buttons, no choices, nothing. Even simpler than at a gas station.

My car is known to the EA system because VW/Porsche/Audi own EA. I believe Ford also worked out the same vehicle direct access for the Mach Es.
 
Novadar said:
The behavior you mention is exactly how EA works with my Porsche Taycan. I plug it in and it starts charging. No buttons, no choices, nothing. Even simpler than at a gas station.

My car is known to the EA system because VW/Porsche/Audi own EA. I believe Ford also worked out the same vehicle direct access for the Mach Es.
Click to expand...

My e-tron doesn't have that feature. Very jealous since it would save a lot of time.
 
Novadar said:
The behavior you mention is exactly how EA works with my Porsche Taycan. I plug it in and it starts charging. No buttons, no choices, nothing. Even simpler than at a gas station.

My car is known to the EA system because VW/Porsche/Audi own EA. I believe Ford also worked out the same vehicle direct access for the Mach Es.
Click to expand...
This feature is known as Plug-and-Charge. There is a standard across automakers, and hopefully it will become common in the next few years.

Tesla pioneered this behavior years ago with their Supercharging network. Of course, their problem is far simpler because Tesla controls the whole ecosystem. As soon as you get multiple companies and some (often poorly-written at first) standard in the mix, you are bound to have teething issues.
 
Actually it is extremely easy and you don't even need the screen of the charger. In my video you can see at my first charge stop how easy it CAN be. My second and especially third charge stop wasn't that great:
 
polyphonic said:
My e-tron doesn't have that feature. Very jealous since it would save a lot of time.
Click to expand...

Hmm. Doesn't your e-Tron have the 3 free years of free charging? They call it "Porsche Charging Service" but it is EA. The chargers are listed at the top of the list when searching for stations in the navigation.

I did have to set up an account in my profile right before the car was delivered. It required a credit card but stated a "promotion" applied. I'm sure that without doing that step it would not be "Plug and Play".
 
Nope, 1000 free kWh though. Mine is the SUV, not the GT. I believe the SUV was supposed to come with plug and charge at launch, but as far as I know even the latest model years do not have it.
 
Hello fam! Could you please help us Kansans? We are lagging behind the rest fo the country in DC Fast Charging. Could you please like or retweet the following? Would really be AWESOME if we could make a mark in the MidWest. Thank you so much.

Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) to administer $2M from Volkswagen settlement to build 12 DC Fast Chargers
https://twitter.com/kdothq/status/1436398635500068866?s=21
 
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