Another EV advantage

[Maquis]

I pulled into Wally’s in Fenton, Mo. for a charge. Had some time to kill so I went inside. They had a Knob Creek barrel pick, so I had to give it a try. It’s really good. If was buying gas, I would have paid at the pump, not gone inside, and missed it.

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[AstralLiving]

"EVs help you find tasty bourbon" is a marketing angle I can get behind

 

[hybrid2bev]

The EA station in Kodak Tennessee is located right next to the Old Tennessee Distilling Co. They have a large selection of Bourbon, Moonshine and Whiskey.

3607 Outdoor Sportsman Place, Kodak, Tennessee, 37764, US

 

[Maquis]

I’ll be passing through Tennessee on my way to Florida in a couple weeks, but Kodak is quite a bit out of my way.

 

[AllenXS]

Bumper sticker now reads “my EV runs on whiskey”

 

[benk016]

@Maquis How was your experience with the Francis chargers there?

 

[KevinS]

Bumper sticker now reads “my EV runs on whiskey”

Sounds like a good way to get pulled over by the police!

 

[DYohn]

MBZ had an experimental SOX fuel cell that ran on vodka, so why not?

 

[Maquis]

@Maquis How was your experience with the Francis chargers there?

Not great. The Francis Energy app didn’t even show they existed. It appears this location is not in the database used by the app. FE rolled out a new app last year that uses EVGateway for authentication. I think that messed some things up. I called support and he had me call up their website and try. The website recognized the location and allowed me to initiate charging, but my logon credentials that work in the app don’t work on their website - WTH? So I had to charge as a guest and enter credit card info manually. Then, I started out on charge station 1. It never got past “initiating” so after about 5 minutes, I switched to unit 2 and it worked. $0.39 / minute plus $1.00 session fee for 60 KW is fairly expensive. Going from 33 to 80% in 49 minutes costed about $19.

But damned, that bourbon is good!

 

[benk016]

Not great. The Francis Energy app didn’t even show they existed. It appears this location is not in the database used by the app. FE rolled out a new app last year that uses EVGateway for authentication. I think that messed some things up. I called support and he had me call up their website and try. The website recognized the location and allowed me to initiate charging, but my logon credentials that work in the app don’t work on their website - WTH? So I had to charge as a guest and enter credit card info manually. Then, I started out on charge station 1. It never got past “initiating” so after about 5 minutes, I switched to unit 2 and it worked. $0.39 / minute pulse $1.00 session fee for 60 KW is fairly expensive. Going from 33 to 80% in 49 minutes costed about $19.

But damned, that bourbon is good!

The EVGateway app is the OLD app that doesn't work anymore. They just moved to the other one a few weeks ago. And it needs a whole new account created. And when you set that up they send you an RFID card.

 

[benk016]

Then, I started out on charge station 1. It never got past “initiating” so after about 5 minutes, I switched to unit 2 and it worked. $0.39 / minute plus $1.00 session fee for 60 KW is fairly expensive. Going from 33 to 80% in 49 minutes costed about $19.

This is my 2nd biggest complaint with Francis right now. They are putting in new chargers pretty agressively, But they are putting in these stupid units that can only deliver 60kw, but still charging b the minute everywhere. My theory is they are doing this on purpose to make money.

The other issue is once those chargers are installed, they don't do any maintenance on them. If it goes down, it'll be down for months or even a year from what I've seen.

Francis has installed them everywhere in Oklahoma using the VW money. And they are quickly falling apart with no maintenance.

 

[Maquis]

The EVGateway app is the OLD app that doesn't work anymore. They just moved to the other one a few weeks ago. And it needs a whole new account created. And when you set that up they send you an RFID card.

Isn’t that sweet! You’d think the support line would know that. I received an email about a switchover last October, and I created my new account, but apparently I neglected to get the new app. I just installed the new app now and my new credentials work. I guess the EVGateway-based app still was able to log me in using the old account. You think they would deprecate that and give an error message when trying to use it. They did not send me an RFID card, though.

Thanks for the useful advice!

 

[Maquis]

This is my 2nd biggest complaint with Francis right now. They are putting in new chargers pretty agressively, But they are putting in these stupid units that can only deliver 60kw, but still charging b the minute everywhere. My theory is they are doing this on purpose to make money.

The other issue is once those chargers are installed, they don't do any maintenance on them. If it goes down, it'll be down for months or even a year from what I've seen.

Francis has installed them everywhere in Oklahoma using the VW money. And they are quickly falling apart with no maintenance.

That’s too bad. I traveled through Oklahoma in June of 2021 and had really good experiences with them.

 

[benk016]

That’s too bad. I traveled through Oklahoma in June of 2021 and had really good experiences with them.

They started out strong. I was pretty excited to have such a strong network here.

it seems to be going downhill pretty bad in the last year. And to be fair, other charging networks have had similar issues, just seems like Francis has no intention of fixing things in any kind of timely manner.

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