Electrify America stations are regularly full now - is EA finally making money?

[Maquis]

The only EA I frequent has 4 hoses and I’ve had to wait only once. But for the last 3 months, 2 of the 4 were out of service. I was there yesterday and both working were occupied and a local guy in an ID4 was waiting to get his free juice. I’d seen him there before and when his free 30 minutes were up, he unplugged and plugged back in.
I diverted to a ChargePoint which meant my charge time doubled, but it was still faster than waiting.

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[The Electric Duo]

We were lucky last year when we stopped at Quartzsite.

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

I was just looking at the I5 station north of LA and Quartzsite, AZ east of San Diego. There are up to 3 1/2 hour waits for an open charging stall. Yeah, it is a busy travel day but that is ridiculous. It seems that EA's pace of adding new stations has slowed significantly and I haven't heard of them expanding any stations.

I don't want to put an oar in the water for EA, but I do have some level of sympathy for all CCS charging networks. There's a crap ton of uncertainty with the future given the Ford/GM/Rivian/... announcements about moving to NACS. Were I in their shoes, I'd be struggling to discern the best course of action vis-a-vis station expansion. (But I can guarantee you I'd be maintaining the fuck out of all stations in my network!)

 

[ARK]

The only EA I frequent has 4 hoses and I’ve had to wait only once. But for the last 3 months, 2 of the 4 were out of service. I was there yesterday and both working were occupied and a local guy in an ID4 was waiting to get his free juice. I’d seen him there before and when his free 30 minutes were up, he unplugged and plugged back in.
I diverted to a ChargePoint which meant my charge time doubled, but it was still faster than waiting.

I thought those vehicles sold with the free 30 minutes put a limit on how soon you can plug back in after getting a charge?

 

[RickMachE]

If one reads the agreements that EA has to live by, I've heard that there are no performance metrics nor penalties for downtime or incentives for uptime (I virtually attended part of an EA hearing in California) where this point was made time and time again.

At least the $7.5B has performance metrics.

 

[ARK]

If one reads the agreements that EA has to live by, I've heard that there are no performance metrics not penalties for downtime or incentives for uptime (I virtually attended part of an EA hearing in California) where this point was made time and time again.

At least the $7.5B has performance metrics.

I'm surprised that they are not better about this for their own business reasons - they must be losing lots of revenue in busy locations where the charger is operating at say 20% of its max output where the electricity is sold by the kilowatt and not by time on the charger.

That being said, I've only once had an EA charger malfunction and charge too slowly.

 

[dbsb3233]

Are people seeing this across the country? In 2021, it was always a ghost town.

While it's certainly getting busier each year and full stations are an increased possibility, it's still mostly a California thing, along with a few chronic stations. Plus you probably picked the worst day of the year to check (the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend).

Out of over 150 EA charges the last 3 years, we've hit full stations twice, IIRC.

And no, I doubt they're anywhere close to profitability yet. Likely still living off the last part of the $2B Dieselgate funding.

 

[AZBill]

We were lucky last year when we stopped at Quartzsite.

A typical weekend line in Quartzsite. My last time is shown in the lower photo.

 

[ARK]

A typical weekend line in Quartzsite. My last time is shown in the lower photo.

That's nuts, I couldn't skip that stop in my SR AWD Mach-E, but it's 219 miles between EA Indio and EA Buckeye, I would absolutely charge as high as I could in Indio/Buckeye on a higher range variant Mach-E to skip Quartzsite.

 

[EELinneman]

Reading this story, I decided to take a look at Denver. See below:

Interesting that at the full chargers, the price is $.56/KW while the others are at $.48. I hope the poor management at EA is investing this into some improvements and scale.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

It seems that EA's pace of adding new stations has slowed significantly and I haven't heard of them expanding any stations.

EA has one more cash infusion from the VW fraud settlement ("DeiselGate"). That payment occurs either in the very near future or in the 1st quarter of next year; I no longer recall just which it is and I'm too lazy atm to look it up. I've not heard of any plans by VW to pump more money into EA. They should though.

 

[Mopey]

I was just looking at the I5 station north of LA and Quartzsite, AZ east of San Diego. There are up to 3 1/2 hour waits for an open charging stall....

I wonder how many 50kw chargers are going unused in the local area while drivers are waiting over 3 hours for the "fast" DC chargers.

 

[bruceski88]

While it's certainly getting busier each year and full stations are an increased possibility, it's still mostly a California thing, along with a few chronic stations. Plus you probably picked the worst day of the year to check (the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend).

Out of over 150 EA charges the last 3 years, we've hit full stations twice, IIRC.

And no, I doubt they're anywhere close to profitability yet. Likely still living off the last part of the $2B Dieselgate funding.

I believe it is mostly a SoCal problem. From Truckee CA on I80 to San Jose CAand then north to Tacoma WA on I5, no waits. Several locations were in limp mode and these were full, but still no line. EA charges $.48 in Washington where electricity is on $.13. Sutherlin OR in the middle of nowhere has 50 Tesla charging stations just waiting for our adapters. EA probably is incompetent enough to be loosing money

 

[Maquis]

I thought those vehicles sold with the free 30 minutes put a limit on how soon you can plug back in after getting a charge?

I think that may have changed at some point. If so, the owners before the change were probably grandfathered in.

 

[dbsb3233]

EA probably is incompetent enough to be loosing money

Them and every other CCS DCFC network. Or at least that's the common assumption. DCFC is a notorious money-loser unless maybe your name is Tesla. They're the only network that got costs way down. And not just down but WAY down. I've seen some reports that they can install chargers at just 1/3rd the cost of other networks. Combination of building their own no-frills chargers, optimizing the installation process at scale, and doing most everything in-house. Plus the fact that they have way more customers generating revenue.

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