Ford EV Charging Partner Electrify America Outlines New Quality Pledge

[breeves002]

We'll see what happens. There are charging stations that are broken for months I've been to. Read plugshare reviews people are like we've called every week for the past 3 months. One site did 34kW max on all chargers and a guy with an ID.4 said it was how it has been since he bought his ID.4!

It's a huge problem and I hope they can work it out. There was a brand new site I was at where one was completely dead too. Not even a month old.

Sponsored

 

[gordonf238]

Not sure about other parts of the country, but I've found Chargepoint to have many more locations than EA. And 250kw (or whatever it is) of free fast charging is nice, but it's what - 3-4 full charges?

Nothing compares to Tesla's network.

 

[roamtheworld]

Not sure about other parts of the country, but I've found Chargepoint to have many more locations than EA. And 250kw (or whatever it is) of free fast charging is nice, but it's what - 3-4 full charges?

Nothing compares to Tesla's network.

ChargePoint in Texas are all destination chargers in the 6 kW range. They are mostly businesses and apartments that have them.
Glad they offer larger DCFC versions in your area

 

[breeves002]

Not sure about other parts of the country, but I've found Chargepoint to have many more locations than EA. And 250kw (or whatever it is) of free fast charging is nice, but it's what - 3-4 full charges?

Nothing compares to Tesla's network.

We get a couple of the CP250's that'll do about 70kW max on the MME here, but thats it. Two EA stations in the area where I have seen 150kW+ on. Chargepoint has a lot of slow chargers around like 50kW (125A or roughly 42kW max on the MME I see).

 

[buzznwood]

So send out a press release about quality cap if off with a picture of the 'flag ship' baker CA station a quick look at the app and its currently off line yet again so business as usual for the 'flag ship' then. EA have a very long way to go when it comes to quality.

 

[Chuck]

In this day and age why doesn't the charger diagnose itself and report issues back so that issue reporting isn't by a random check or user call-in? In fact, why doesn't the charger diagnose and fix the problems itself?

 

[RickMachE]

Everytime I've contacted ChargePoint about an issue with a charger (only a handful of times, only a handful of ChargePoint experiences), they have forced me to contact them by phone. In fact, you can't create a case by email.

Their response has been (paraphrased):

"We just sell chargers and the software. The charger's functioning, or not functioning, is the charger owner's responsibility. We'll let them know."

I have received refunds for example when an advertised 50kW charger functioned at 1/2 speed, and charged by the minute, basically ripping me off. I got a full refund of my less than $10 expense.

 

[EELinneman]

I do not understand why EA themselves have to physically visit each charging station to conduct testing?
Seems like they would have built internal diagnostics that report back to HQ with data about how a unit is performing.
Rather than "Performing 20,000 tests", I would much rather see them say "When a charger is having an outage, we guarantee to get a technician there within 2-hours" (or something similar)

Also, when did "ultra-fast" become a marketing term for DCFC? I much prefer the numerical 150kW, 350kW, etc designations for DCFC units because it tells you what you can expect to get.

I recently let EA know about the second of 3 chargers at the location nearest to me being unavailable. They now have had 2 out for weeks. A twitter reply indicated that they are waiting on parts. While they wait, their value, revenue and reputation are degrading. Some sniffing around makes me think they have a cash flow issue right now. I suspect that they were counting on the US Senate sending them the piles of cash that were just approved, but arriving a while ago.

The longer this goes on with multiple stations down, the less people will trust in EA. Their leadership has to know this.

 

[RickMachE]

I recently let EA know about the second of 3 chargers at the location nearest to me being unavailable. They now have had 2 out for weeks. A twitter reply indicated that they are waiting on parts. While they wait, their value, revenue and reputation are degrading. Some sniffing around makes me think they have a cash flow issue right now. I suspect that they were counting on the US Senate sending them the piles of cash that were just approved, but arriving a while ago.

The longer this goes on with multiple stations down, the less people will trust in EA. Their leadership has to know this.

I love how you keep pushing the cashflow issue hypothesis. You have no information to back that up though. On June 28th they announced they had raised $450 million of equity AND that Volkswagen was increasing their capital investment. Is that not cash?

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/190

 

[bshaw]

In fact, why doesn't the charger diagnose and fix the problems itself?

Maybe R2D2 could come out of a door and fix whatever's wrong with the charger? Like just routing around whatever the broken component is, and tada -- your hyperdrive is working again.

 

[FrunkMonk-e]

Additionally, Electrify America employs a team of engineers and software specialists in its Network Operations center, which monitors network performance 24 hours a day, seven days per week. Users can contact the company via its Customer Contact Center at all hours as well, which is there to answer questions or help with technical problems as they arise.

People who have done this say their solution is to try another unit. ?

 

[roamtheworld]

So send out a press release about quality cap if off with a picture of the 'flag ship' baker CA station a quick look at the app and its currently off line yet again so business as usual for the 'flag ship' then. EA have a very long way to go when it comes to quality.

I pasted the Baker location picture from the Ford Authority story that's not from the press release from EA.
Still a cool location I wish they all looked like this. Working correctly is just a bonus

 

[Blue highway]

Testing every two months doesn't seem like enough, honestly.

On average one in three is broken. They don't need a testing fleet showing up once every two months to know this, the stations are networked.

EA needs a fleet of "fix it monkeys", not Ford "charge angels" that simply report when things are broken.

This article makes me feel worse. It is clear that EA is run by dolts that are lying to themselves and others that they are addressing the reliability issue.

 

[Logal727]

On average one in three is broken. They don't need a testing fleet showing up once every two months to know this, the stations are networked.

EA needs a fleet of "fix it monkeys", not Ford "charge angels" that simply report when things are broken.

This article makes me feel worse. It is clear that EA is run by dolts that are lying to themselves and others that they are addressing the reliability issue.

Yeah I'm pretty sure I've seen better response times on vending machines.

 

[roamtheworld]

Yeah I'm pretty sure I've seen better response times on vending machines.

Vending machines probably make more money

Sponsored