Electrify America needs to get their game going

[Rt1AWD]

That is yet another problem.... Demand for the EVs has been declining... Now it's not a production limitation but a demand limitation on increasing sales numbers.

Charger availability is one of the key factors that affect demand

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[ChasingCoral]

That is yet another problem.... Demand for the EVs has been declining... Now it's not a production limitation but a demand limitation on increasing sales numbers.

Down from when to when? Year on year EV sales continue to climb. Are you just talking about the perturbation to some brands due to the tax credit changes in the IRA?

 

[heisnuts]

Charger availability is one of the key factors that affect demand

While I do think charger availability is a factor, I think the much bigger factor is right now an EV costs a lot more to produce and therefore are a lot more expensive than a comparable ICE vehicle. For someone like me the huge performance difference is worth it, but for the typical consumer who is looking for a daily driver the cost to purchase weighs a lot more than performance, carbon footprint, and savings in gas. Then add all the other disadvantages of an EV like charger availability, time to recharge, and the effects of cold weather and that will take a lot of the general public out of the EV market.

I will be very surprised if the industry can turn this around by 2035. I have a feeling as we get closer to that date you will see all of these mandates being changed to dates a lot further out in the future.

 

[Nikos]

I am so glad you took the time to sit down and put this in a concise understandable message. When I bought my Mach-e back in December I had no idea the learning curve I would be on and not even knowing that Electrify America is owned by VW. Thanks again for your input.

VW owns 51% of EA. 49% is something else. The regulators wanted it that way. Always on the hook for what they have done. Marketing and selling the Green Diesel Lie to every one driving a VW or an AUDI, here and in Europe. Yes, they pulled that lie in Europe also.
I wonder if EA is the least bitter medicine to swallow than going bankrupt from the penalties/fines that they(VW) incurred.
Whatever the case may be, it had a good start.
Now, I wonder.

 

[heisnuts]

Down from when to when? Year on year EV sales continue to climb. Are you just talking about the perturbation to some brands due to the tax credit changes in the IRA?

You might be right, but I am going off the fact that for the past year manufacturers couldn’t make EVs fast enough and there were no cars on the lots for sale. Now you have a lot of new EVs in stock, the F-150 Lightning does not need a reservation any longer and with used car prices down people are not buying just to flip anymore.

 

[mkhuffman]

The OP was very confusing and poorly worded, but public charging sucks. We all know it.

I personally hate the public charging experience. There is always this nervous fear about what I will find when I arrive at the DCFC station that I need to get to my next destination. Will the chargers work? Will there be a line of people waiting for the only working charger? Will the charge speed be slow or fast or what? No normal person wants to deal with it. If I didn't love my car so much, I would be back driving an ICE for sure.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Down from when to when? Year on year EV sales continue to climb. Are you just talking about the perturbation to some brands due to the tax credit changes in the IRA?

Yeah. US EV sales are up for Q1 2023 vs Q1 2022, by almost 45%, and you can see how the tax credit changes have impacted certain brands. And the total can't be accounted for just by brand t's pricing scheme. They only account for <32,000 more sales this year than last year, while there were >80,000 more sales overall.

And this doesn't account for orders, just sales, so, for example, Ford's improvements to the Cuautitlán assembly plant mean a decrease in Mustang sales in this first quarter, but we'll see an huge increase in the next few months.

https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/q1-2023-ev-sales/

 

[AZBill]

Maybe I am an outlier, but since I have owned my Mach E, I only had one EA charger fail to work, and I had one outputting low power. I actually charged in El Centro and Indio late last year with no issues. In fact Indio was full and all chargers were working.

I just picked up a used Rivian and took it to a local EA station to test it, worked perfectly got 154kw on a 150 charger with all four full. We gave our son our old Bolt and he used a different EA site, said it was full, but after waiting charged successfully on his first try, using a credit card.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Maybe I am an outlier, but since I have owned my Mach E, I only had one EA charger fail to work, and I had one outputting low power. I actually charged in El Centro and Indio late last year with no issues. In fact Indio was full and all chargers were working.

I just picked up a used Rivian and took it to a local EA station to test it, worked perfectly got 154kw on a 150 charger with all four full. We gave our son our old Bolt and he used a different EA site, said it was full, but after waiting charged successfully on his first try, using a credit card.

I, too, have had far, far more success than failure at EA's DCFCs.

That said, we charged in Indio last year and two of the four chargers were inoperable, one was ICED, and there was a line. Fortunately the ICED one was next to one of the inoperable ones, so two were usable.

Most of the time, though, I have no trouble with charging at public, mostly EA DCFCs. I've only been to ones in AZ, CA, NM, TX, and NV, though, so perhaps it's a southwest/west coast thing?

 

[timbop]

Maybe I am an outlier, but since I have owned my Mach E, I only had one EA charger fail to work, and I had one outputting low power. I actually charged in El Centro and Indio late last year with no issues. In fact Indio was full and all chargers were working.

I just picked up a used Rivian and took it to a local EA station to test it, worked perfectly got 154kw on a 150 charger with all four full. We gave our son our old Bolt and he used a different EA site, said it was full, but after waiting charged successfully on his first try, using a credit card.

I, too, have had far, far more success than failure at EA's DCFCs.

That said, we charged in Indio last year and two of the four chargers were inoperable, one was ICED, and there was a line. Fortunately the ICED one was next to one of the inoperable ones, so two were usable.

Most of the time, though, I have no trouble with charging at public, mostly EA DCFCs. I've only been to ones in AZ, CA, NM, TX, and NV, though, so perhaps it's a southwest/west coast thing?

It seems a LOT depends on which brand/model dispensers and cables are at a location. In 2021 my wife and I drove from NJ down to Florida by way of atlanta, and I spent a great deal of time mapping out my charging stops so I knew I would have an alternate if a whole site was down. Doing that research I noticed several sites that were typically problematic that often had some dispensers out of order. At 2 of those locations I happened to be there when EA had techs there working on them, and indeed at the one with the worst plugshare score only 1 charger was working. Talking to the tech at that site he said he was there constantly, and his experience as a tech is precisely why he would NOT by an electric car. It was obvious to him that the particular brand/model was unreliable, but EA is too cheap to replace them so instead spends a bunch of money and time sending techs periodically to get them working. IMHO that kind of shortsighted philosophy is why public charging is in the state it is; EA just wants to put stations on the map and doesn't care if they are usable or not.

It's clear that chargepoint has a different philosophy (if you watch Kyle's deep dive video)

 

[Nikos]

Maybe I am an outlier, but since I have owned my Mach E, I only had one EA charger fail to work, and I had one outputting low power. I actually charged in El Centro and Indio late last year with no issues. In fact Indio was full and all chargers were working.

I just picked up a used Rivian and took it to a local EA station to test it, worked perfectly got 154kw on a 150 charger with all four full. We gave our son our old Bolt and he used a different EA site, said it was full, but after waiting charged successfully on his first try, using a credit card.

The numbers you describing used to be the norm during 2021 and most of 2022 here in the SE.
We had to wait 25 to 30 min to charge to 80%.
I wonder if CA gets preferential treatment.
Either way, my last couple experiences were horrendous. Easter weekend with super slow speeds, and two weeks ago when I had to tow my camper to the East coast. A 5 hour trip took 8+ hours. Try to take 100KW of power at 50-75KW rate of charge. That is from 350KW Charge station. It was a bit excruciating. You end up playing games to kill time or talk to EA customer service to give them your truthful feedback.
I am still a customer of EA.
Wonder what would happen when someone else makes a genuine effort to build a half way descent network and not promise the moon.

 

[AZBill]

It seems a LOT depends on which brand/model dispensers and cables are at a location. In 2021 my wife and I drove from NJ down to Florida by way of atlanta, and I spent a great deal of time mapping out my charging stops so I knew I would have an alternate if a whole site was down. Doing that research I noticed several sites that were typically problematic that often had some dispensers out of order. At 2 of those locations I happened to be there when EA had techs there working on them, and indeed at the one with the worst plugshare score only 1 charger was working. Talking to the tech at that site he said he was there constantly, and his experience as a tech is precisely why he would NOT by an electric car. It was obvious to him that the particular brand/model was unreliable, but EA is too cheap to replace them so instead spends a bunch of money and time sending techs periodically to get them working. IMHO that kind of shortsighted philosophy is why public charging is in the state it is; EA just wants to put stations on the map and doesn't care if they are usable or not.

It's clear that chargepoint has a different philosophy (if you watch Kyle's deep dive video)

I agree about the brand of dispensers, I have never had a Signet unit fail. But El Centro has the old ABB units, and when I charged in Indio, those were ABB, and I had no issues with ABB units in Tucson. The low power unit was an ABB in Tempe, and that site has been upgraded to the new units. I heard Indio was updated recently, I will be using those again this summer.

We now have two sites in Phoenix with the newly designed chargers but I have not used them yet. I want to try the Rivian on those, since it will charge at over 200 kw.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

It's clear that chargepoint has a different philosophy...

Since ChargePoint doesn't have any 100+ kW DCFC stations on any routes that I have driven so far or plan to drive in the next couple of years, their reliability is pretty irrelevant to me compared with the EA stations I do have access to.

The three nearest fast (>74 kW) DCFC ChargePoint stations are 310, 375, and 385 miles from me in an area I haven't yet taken my Mustang. The nearest has one of four chargers working. The next has two of four chargers operating. The third, again, only two of four stations are working. Based on that admittedly very limited search, I don't think I'd search out ChargePoint any more than EA if I were to travel to a location where they were common.

That said, I'd sure like to see many more networks expanded. It would be great to have more competition.

...(if you watch Kyle's deep dive video)

I generally don't watch videos; not my learning style. If they ever publish a transcript or article, I might read it.

 

[AZBill]

ChargePoint tends to only install lower power (125kw or less), so they do not need cable chillers. But even then, there reliably is no better than EA. Plus many of their sites only have 1 or 2 chargers.

 

[agdad]

5 Electrify America chargers in San Marcos Texas at the outlet mall.......4 were not working last week !

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