Toronto to Montreal And Back - Barely Survived the Ivy Network

[MellowJohnny]

This is my third trip in the Mach-E from Toronto to Montreal since June. It seems like in less than six months the Ivy network, featured at almost all ONroute rest stops along the 401, has gone from rock-solid reliability to an Electrify America-style crapshoot.

In June my charging experience was perfect - not once did I encounter a failure or a de-rated charger. It was wonderful. Two weeks ago I hit my first snag when the Napanee chargers were completely off-line, I was at 16% SOC, and had to rely on an hour-long, de-rated Petro-Canada station for a charge. After waiting an hour for another Mach-E to also limp along at 40 kW.

This week-end's trip was proof that things are getting worse, not better.

<rant>
Thursday, Nov. 2
- First stop: Trenton South. All chargers down. When I pulled in there was a Mach-E charging at the first 100 kWh dispenser, at 55% SOC, and an Ioniq 5 plugged in to the other 100 kWh. When I looked at the Ioniq's screen it was showing the "Welcome" screen and I thought "weird, that guy's not even charging". Went in to the bathroom thinking I'd wait it out, and when I came out both 100kWh screens were now showing the "Welcome" screen and had stopped charging. Both 50 kWh were offline, so I drove an extra 15 km to backtrack to Trenton North: First dispenser had a broken card reader (I supposed it would have activated with the App). Moved to the other 100 kWh and was able to charge, but all this dicking around this added at least 45 minutes.
- Second Stop: Mallorytown. First 100 kWh dispenser would not initiate, showed a cryptic "safety error". Moved to the second dispenser which was decent.
- Third stop for a top-up (I can't charge at my Mom's house) was at the new 180 kWh Circle K in Lancaster / Alexandria. Pulled in and there was a Leaf trying to charge, with a very confused driver. I asked him if he needed help and realized the dispenser he was parked at did not have a ChaDaMo plug. So I swapped with him. Tried three times to initiate a charge before the dispenser said "Offline". Leaf Guy felt bad, but I was at 46%.
- Went down the road to the first rest stop in Quebec and used the rock-solid Circuit Electrique chargers, but they are only 50 kWh. At least I was charging.

Got to Montreal 2 hours later than I expected....

Saturday Nov 4
- First Stop: Ingleside. No issues! Things are looking up, baby!
- Second Stop: Napanee. Two weeks ago these were completely off-line, so I was a bit worried. Plugged in and watched the car pull 67 kW, then quickly de-rate to 31. Switched to another spot and got....17 kW! Called the service line, guy reset all four chargers, made no difference. Told two other drivers who had just pulled in (an eTron Q4 and a Leaf) about the issues - they both left.
- Decided to backtrack *again* to go try Odessa (a 40-ish KM round-trip waste of time) only to arrive and find the first dispenser charging at ~30 kWh, the second with a frozen screen thinking it was still charging (at ~30 kW) the third with another broken RFID reader:

Ummm...nobody is plugged in....

De-rated to 33 kW.

I had high-hopes for this one as it had a brand-new, longer cable (the Ivy cables are ridiculously short). Maybe the cables in the bad dispensers have bad sensors and this new one will work! Then I got this error, and after using the App to start the session I pulled...31 kW.

So I stuck around long enough to get to 55% and left. Made a final stop in Trenton North which was decent, but stayed until 95% SOC to ensure I could make it back to Toronto without stopping again. The last 15% SOC was at 27 kW but I didn't care (I was the only one charging), by this point I just wanted to get home. Again, a full two hours longer than it should have taken. Also come to the conclusion that there are zero metrics or telemetry from these boxes back to HQ. Customer Svc. has no idea about any errors until we call and tell them. And it's DAYS before anything is seemingly looked at. Maybe months, I'm not travelling the route often enough to know.

Arrived back in Toronto with less than 50 km of range, happy to be home.

Just wrote a nice email to Ivy, full of constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement Let's see what they say. I told them I don't want to hear back from Customer Service, I want a response from Engineering. One can hope, right?
</rant>

Bottom line is it is unlikely that I'll take the Mach-E to Montreal again, with winter on the horizon, shorter range & sketch as hell Ivy charging I'm not willing.

Next trip will be when we get Supercharger access.

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[avdonr]

I’ve had a similar experience with Ivy. Even with their new “2.0” network it’s still very hit and miss. Petro Canada isn’t any better, I find their chargers always de-rate to 30kW or just stop charging after 5 min.

Personally, I’ve always exclusively used Electrify Canada chargers along the whole way up to Montreal/Quebec City and back down to Toronto. Made the trip 3 times in the last 2 years and it’s been pretty solid every time.

 

[MellowJohnny]

I’ve had a similar experience with Ivy. Even with their new “2.0” network it’s still very hit and miss. Petro Canada isn’t any better, I find their chargers always de-rate to 30kW or just stop charging after 5 min.

Personally, I’ve always exclusively used Electrify Canada chargers along the whole way up to Montreal/Quebec City and back down to Toronto. Made the trip 3 times in the last 2 years and it’s been pretty solid every time.

I'm going to try it - can't be any worse

 

[DaMeatMan]

I honestly had high hopes for IVY as did many others. They are strategically placed at all OnRoute rest stops on the 400 series highways. However the execution is absolutely HORRIBLE, and I honestly have no idea why they would even bother with the upfront investment, if they were not going to properly support these stations. I had a great experience when they first came out, but after a year or so, virtually every single station is debated to 35kw or something absurd like that, and or they fail to work entirely!

Honestly the business model for charging is completely broken. If these stations were run like gas stations where individual owners and operators put up their own capital to built out these stations, and can guarantee you they would be fixed IMMEDIATELY upon any issues, because it means they are not getting paid.

Instead what we have is absurd way of charging customers via (time taken to charge) rather than actual KWH dispensed, and from that perspective they are actually incentivized to derate them because they make more money on a charge that takes longer, than they would on a charge that was fast and a good experience for the driver.

Add to that these initiatives receive funding grants from various levels of Government, and or partnerships with hydro providers, and you again don't have allot of skin in the game as an owner or operator to keep these things running. Not to mention the nightmare of red tape in terms of who's responsible for upkeep and paying for maintenance issues as they crop up.

I hate to say it, but I say let Tesla take over the charging Infrastructure. At least these folks have built out a business model that makes sense, is profitable, and more importantly for the customer (an incredibly reliable experience!)

Until these things are really privatized and run as REAL BUSINESSES that need to be viable and stand on their own two feet, we are always going to have a crappy charging infrastructure, because there is never incentive in Government to be be efficient with public funding, and these Government subsidized chargers with so many hands in the pot are really no different.

 

[bellyer]

We made a trip from Chicago to Cooperstown, NY over the summer that we took by way of Toronto and Niagara Falls. By and large, our charging on the trip was quite good, with the glaring exception of the Ivy network, which was abysmal.

 

[MellowJohnny]

I just came across the original press release from 2020 announcing the Ivy network and it mentioned that Greenlots (now owned by Shell) would be managing the network.

Let's just say I'm less than skeptical that Big Oil is going to really want an EV charging network to succeed. Petro-Canada seems to be bending over backwards to ensure theirs is an absolute failure. So far it's Mission Accomplished.

And I think Government can actually do it - just go look at what Hydro Québec is doing with Circuit Electrique. Other than their original 50 kWh dispensers, their network is fantastic. Never had an issue once.

 

[Val Drey]

I’ve had a similar experience with Ivy. Even with their new “2.0” network it’s still very hit and miss. Petro Canada isn’t any better, I find their chargers always de-rate to 30kW or just stop charging after 5 min.

Personally, I’ve always exclusively used Electrify Canada chargers along the whole way up to Montreal/Quebec City and back down to Toronto. Made the trip 3 times in the last 2 years and it’s been pretty solid every time.

Doesn’t anyone know what’s the update with the deal that Ford made with Tesla? When will we be able to use Tesla’s superchargers and where can we buy a good quality adapter in Canada?

 

[avdonr]

Doesn’t anyone know what’s the update with the deal that Ford made with Tesla? When will we be able to use Tesla’s superchargers and where can we buy a good quality adapter in Canada?

Should be sometime next year, but no specific dates were given yet. You can currently buy an adapter from a company in Quebec. There’s links to it on this forum, but there’s no OEM direct adapter as of yet.

 

[MellowJohnny]

I honestly had high hopes for IVY as did many others. They are strategically placed at all OnRoute rest stops on the 400 series highways. However the execution is absolutely HORRIBLE, and I honestly have no idea why they would even bother with the upfront investment, if they were not going to properly support these stations. I had a great experience when they first came out, but after a year or so, virtually every single station is debated to 35kw or something absurd like that, and or they fail to work entirely!

Honestly the business model for charging is completely broken. If these stations were run like gas stations where individual owners and operators put up their own capital to built out these stations, and can guarantee you they would be fixed IMMEDIATELY upon any issues, because it means they are not getting paid.

Instead what we have is absurd way of charging customers via (time taken to charge) rather than actual KWH dispensed, and from that perspective they are actually incentivized to derate them because they make more money on a charge that takes longer, than they would on a charge that was fast and a good experience for the driver.

Add to that these initiatives receive funding grants from various levels of Government, and or partnerships with hydro providers, and you again don't have allot of skin in the game as an owner or operator to keep these things running. Not to mention the nightmare of red tape in terms of who's responsible for upkeep and paying for maintenance issues as they crop up.

I hate to say it, but I say let Tesla take over the charging Infrastructure. At least these folks have built out a business model that makes sense, is profitable, and more importantly for the customer (an incredibly reliable experience!)

Until these things are really privatized and run as REAL BUSINESSES that need to be viable and stand on their own two feet, we are always going to have a crappy charging infrastructure, because there is never incentive in Government to be be efficient with public funding, and these Government subsidized chargers with so many hands in the pot are really no different.

Sent an email this morning to our local MPP (Stephen Crawford) and copied the Environment Minister, Andrea Khanjin.

I suggest others do the same if you've been encountering the same issues with Ivy. If they don't hear it from us, nothing will change.

 

[music_cities]

Thanks for the trip report. With hindsight, I think you should have used PlugShare to filter on chargers with a rate > 50kW, plugscore > 8, and dining nearby. What time did you depart? It looks like if you have the larger battery and departed with 100% you could make 350kW charger at 325 Stewart Blvd at the PetroCanada at Brockville after about 3.5 hours with ~12% remaining, charge to 97% while you enjoy a leisurely lunch at, say, Sunset Grill, and then arrive in Montreal with plenty of charge to spare.

If 3.5 hours and down to 12% isn't to your liking, you could have stopped half an hour sooner, e.g. there's a Petro Canada 350kW charger in Kingston at 1586 Centennial Drive that has an A&W next to it. If you charged up to 90% there while hanging out for 40 minutes it looks like you could have made Montreal with 17% or so, topping up at one of the many great chargers in Montreal before hitting your mom's house.

After picking charging stations in Plugshare, I'm using ABRP to estimate charging speed and SOC, starting my plans near High Park in Toronto and ending at McGill. I'm planning with the GTPE. Perhaps you have the smaller battery. But, anyway, I'm thinking Plugshare's filters might be helpful for this trip.

 

[thekat03]

On my trips through Quebec and Ontario (albeit further north in Ontario), I've definitely had better luck with Electrify Canada and Circuit Electrique (though the latter really needs to fix their 100-350 kW chargers in Magog, QC). ChargePoint also has worked well for us, as has Flo. We did not have good luck with Petro-Canada, and I think we just avoided Ivy based on warnings from others. My hope is Tesla's Superchargers will provide good competition, and the bad chargepoint operators will either get better or go away altogether.

 

[MellowJohnny]

Thanks for the trip report. With hindsight, I think you should have used PlugShare to filter on chargers with a rate > 50kW, plugscore > 8, and dining nearby. What time did you depart? It looks like if you have the larger battery and departed with 100% you could make 350kW charger at 325 Stewart Blvd at the PetroCanada at Brockville after about 3.5 hours with ~12% remaining, charge to 97% while you enjoy a leisurely lunch at, say, Sunset Grill, and then arrive in Montreal with plenty of charge to spare.

If 3.5 hours and down to 12% isn't to your liking, you could have stopped half an hour sooner, e.g. there's a Petro Canada 350kW charger in Kingston at 1586 Centennial Drive that has an A&W next to it. If you charged up to 90% there while hanging out for 40 minutes it looks like you could have made Montreal with 17% or so, topping up at one of the many great chargers in Montreal before hitting your mom's house.

After picking charging stations in Plugshare, I'm using ABRP to estimate charging speed and SOC, starting my plans near High Park in Toronto and ending at McGill. I'm planning with the GTPE. Perhaps you have the smaller battery. But, anyway, I'm thinking Plugshare's filters might be helpful for this trip.

I appreciate your suggestions, but two things are against me - the SR battery and the fact that I live west of Toronto in Oakville. So at 100% SOC my first logical stop is Trenton, maybe Odessa if I want to push it. But if Odessa has issues Kingston is an awful option, and I don't like to temp The Fates. I will never charge at a Petro-Canada again. Awful - and customer service is useless, they can't even reboot the stations remotely. So if it's down, you are SOL.

I use PlugShare, the Ivy App and ABRP but I've noticed two "problems": PlugShare does not seem to get used enough by drivers to get an accurate view of charger health - there could be days between check-ins. I also find the PlugShare score a lagging indicator, so almost useless. The second issue is the Ivy app only has online vs. offline status, nothing about derated chargers - so twice I rocked up to what should have been perfectly good charging options per PlugShare & Ivy only to find derated, 31 kW charging speeds. And ABRP almost never shows me charger status - it's usually grey for "unknown". Not very reassuring.

And the issues I encountered in Trenton were happening right before my eyes - before I pulled in the Ivy App showed all chargers up. But it was only until I tried the 50kWh boxes did I find out they were down. And the two occupied 100 kWh boxes were working, and failed while I was there. So the Ivy App is also semi-useless - it's not a real-time view, Ivy doesn't seem to know there are problems unless someone calls in. And to make matters worse, no CarPlay version of Ivy. So if I'm travelling solo I can't (legally) check it while driving.

Ivy has the potential to be the perfect solution - located at rest stops, decent charging speeds, and no need to hunt & peck off the highway for chargers. I will check out Electrify Canada at some point, I just don't find there are many.

Good luck with your trip! McGill is the alma mater of both my mom and my sister. I went to Concordia. And catch a Habs game if you can!

 

[music_cities]

I appreciate your suggestions, but two things are against me - the SR battery and the fact that I live west of Toronto in Oakville. So at 100% SOC my first logical stop is Trenton, maybe Odessa if I want to push it. But if Odessa has issues Kingston is an awful option, and I don't like to temp The Fates. I will never charge at a Petro-Canada again. Awful - and customer service is useless, they can't even reboot the stations remotely. So if it's down, you are SOL.

I use PlugShare, the Ivy App and ABRP but I've noticed two "problems": PlugShare does not seem to get used enough by drivers to get an accurate view of charger health - there could be days between check-ins. I also find the PlugShare score a lagging indicator, so almost useless. The second issue is the Ivy app only has online vs. offline status, nothing about derated chargers - so twice I rocked up to what should have been perfectly good charging options per PlugShare & Ivy only to find derated, 31 kW charging speeds. And ABRP almost never shows me charger status - it's usually grey for "unknown". Not very reassuring.

And the issues I encountered in Trenton were happening right before my eyes - before I pulled in the Ivy App showed all chargers up. But it was only until I tried the 50kWh boxes did I find out they were down. And the two occupied 100 kWh boxes were working, and failed while I was there. So the Ivy App is also semi-useless - it's not a real-time view, Ivy doesn't seem to know there are problems unless someone calls in. And to make matters worse, no CarPlay version of Ivy. So if I'm travelling solo I can't (legally) check it while driving.

Ivy has the potential to be the perfect solution - located at rest stops, decent charging speeds, and no need to hunt & peck off the highway for chargers. I will check out Electrify Canada at some point, I just don't find there are many.

Good luck with your trip! McGill is the alma mater of both my mom and my sister. I went to Concordia. And catch a Habs game if you can!

Thanks for the additional thoughts. I'm new to this, but I already noticed that PlugShare's ratings lag the check-in comments. I'm surprised and disappointed to hear about difficulties at PetroCanada (thanks for the heads-up) but if your want to give them another try the one at Cobourg might be worth checking out — if it doesn't work after 5 minutes you could continue on to Trenton, so you wouldn't have lost much.

I actually don't have my MachE yet — I get it next week. So instead of driving I'm just planning future road trips. Mostly I'm looking for good chargers near good restaurants; 31kW might be bearable if it's a stellar restaurant in a pretty location. If you're driving in the Rockies you must go to the Truffle Pigs restaurant in Field, and spend some time in town taking photos.

 

[MellowJohnny]

Thanks for the additional thoughts. I'm new to this, but I already noticed that PlugShare's ratings lag the check-in comments. I'm surprised and disappointed to hear about difficulties at PetroCanada (thanks for the heads-up) but if your want to give them another try the one at Cobourg might be worth checking out — if it doesn't work after 5 minutes you could continue on to Trenton, so you wouldn't have lost much.

I actually don't have my MachE yet — I get it next week. So instead of driving I'm just planning future road trips. Mostly I'm looking for good chargers near good restaurants; 31kW might be bearable if it's a stellar restaurant in a pretty location. If you're driving in the Rockies you must go to the Truffle Pigs restaurant in Field, and spend some time in town taking photos.

Well welcome to the Club then! Hope you enjoy it as much I have so far - it's been exactly a year.

There is an awful Petro-Canada (40kW from a 350 kWh dispenser) in Napanee with a Michelin starred Denny's just a leisurely two minute stroll down the highway. If you get the chance, I highly recommend skipping it

 

[Jeremy stones 121]

The worst system ever !

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