Electrify America - extremely bad first experience

[hack-e]

I had a similar situation where P&C on EA was repeatedly failing...also tried multiple stations. It wasn't until I looked at my email and noticed that it had sent me an email telling me that my credit card information was out of date. So I quickly updated my credit card info with Ford and then it worked. Why they can't say that on the screen is insane.

I had a similar problem a few months later at an EVgo sight where I attempted to autocharge+ (like P&C) but it started to dispense then stopped and told me that the station was reserved. I moved to another station and it did the exact same thing. I went to 2 more stations and same message. I thought wow...how can that be that all the stations were reserved. So I called EVgo and they clued me in that my credit card information was out of date. Once I updated my credit card, it worked flawlessly. I told them it was dumb to show the wrong message on the station screen. If it had simply stated that payment was declined or something, it would have saved me 20 minutes of trying 4-5 different stations in the rain.

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[Mach-Lee]

You should probably test out the chargers yourself before having the whole family in the car if you're new to EVs and haven't used them before. Never assume a charger will work. It has a high PlugShare score, so there's probably an issue with the way you're using it or your specific car.

It's possible you weren't plugging in the cord far enough. Hold it until the car latches onto it.

Check for active customer satisfaction programs in the service section of the FordPass app. If you have any charging CSPs, have those done at your dealer.

 

[Krom2040]

You should probably test out the chargers yourself before having the whole family in the car if you're new to EVs and haven't used them before. Never assume a charger will work. It has a high PlugShare score, so there's probably an issue with the way you're using it or your specific car.

It's possible you weren't plugging in the cord far enough. Hold it until the car latches onto it.

It is possible that I was plugging it in wrong, but I’m assuming the fact that it failed four times through the FordPass app and then worked (though poorly) through the EA app may indicate the a problem with the FordPass app or integration or how I was using it.

In any case, I don’t really do a lot of solo road trips, so it seemed like a road trip would be a pretty reasonable opportunity to use fast chargers. I had used ChargeUp chargers on the Florida Turnpike once before without issue.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

I apologize for making a post that's probably been made a million times by now, but I felt like I would share it anyway as it's a first for me.

I just bought my MME last month and I've been enjoying it, but it's almost all been charging at home. I took it out for a fairly quick day trip yesterday, and decided that I would top it off just to avoid getting home at <5%. I looked up chargers in the FordPass app and found an Electrify America charger stop at a Walmart that was basically on my route.

I get there and it's empty, with six stations. One of them was offline, but the rest were at least nominally functional. I had 250kW of free charging through the FordPass app, so I tried to use that - I activated the charger through the app, and was prompted to put the handset in and start charging, which I did. After 30-60 seconds, it just failed, with an error like "charger fault" or something, and the charger ring on the MME port started flashing orange. and the app notified me of the failure. Tried again, same result.

Moved to a different station and repeated, and same result.

Tried a third station, and again, same thing.

At this point, I thought that maybe the problem was with the FordPass app, so I started the process of downloading the app, setting up an account, entering billing info, etc. I have my wife and my mother and my newborn with me, so this is starting to feel like an ordeal - after all, I was the one who pushed for an EV when my wife was more hesitant about it.

I get the app set up and go about the same basic process of activating the charger, and starting charging. This time it actually seems to start working! Except... then it fails. The app reports a failure and suggests retrying. But I take a look at the charger port and see that it looks like it's still charging. I look over at the station and verify that it does indeed seem to still be going, even though the app thinks otherwise.

But I look at the station, and notice that it's already charged me $13 before I've really even started charging. The screen literally shows me that it knows my battery was 30% at the start of charge, but for whatever weird failure of code, it's decided that I owe them money for the 30% of the battery that was already charged when I showed up.

Anyway, I charge to about 50% (from starting at 30%) and stop charging. It charged at a rate of around ~100kW, which is fine. I thought maybe it was just a UI glitch, but sure enough, I proceeded to get a bill for $22 for charging 20% of my battery.

I called Electrify America and find that their billing department is closed. I've called back today and I've had to spend like a half hour on hold - I started talking with a guy, I explained the situation, he put me on hold, came back, put me on hold again, and then came back and explained that it was actually MY FAULT, and then I had to explain again what happened and offer to send photo evidence. I'm on hold yet again and still not sure whether this is going to get resolved.

This is frankly just a nightmare scenario and honestly makes me feel like I may have inflicted a big a impediment on my family by buying an EV if this is going to be a recurring theme. I'm optimistic that the Tesla integration will help to avoid this kind of BS, but just feeling pretty uncertain about the whole highway charging experience now.

Hi Dave! I can look into your Mach-E's charging concern on my end. To get started, could you please send a private message over with the name/location of your local Ford dealer and your Mach-E's VIN?

 

[Logal727]

It is possible that I was plugging it in wrong, but I’m assuming the fact that it failed four times through the FordPass app and then worked (though poorly) through the EA app may indicate the a problem with the FordPass app or integration or how I was using it.

In any case, I don’t really do a lot of solo road trips, so it seemed like a road trip would be a pretty reasonable opportunity to use fast chargers. I had used ChargeUp chargers on the Florida Turnpike once before without issue.

Did it say Charge Fault or Charge Station Fault? Charge Station Fault is what it means, the car thinks the station isn't responding like it should. This can also show up if you end the DC charging session by pressing the stop charging button the EA station instead of hitting the DC charge disconnect that's located on the car's charging port.

It is kind of a learning curve, you are in the right spot to help you figure out the issues.

 

[Logal727]

You should probably test out the chargers yourself before having the whole family in the car if you're new to EVs and haven't used them before. Never assume a charger will work. It has a high PlugShare score, so there's probably an issue with the way you're using it or your specific car.

It's possible you weren't plugging in the cord far enough. Hold it until the car latches onto it.

Check for active customer satisfaction programs in the service section of the FordPass app. If you have any charging CSPs, have those done at your dealer.

Yeah, like I mentioned I actually had the issue with the CCS connector sagging recently and ending the session without any sort of errors or faults, and holding it until the car latched fixed it.

 

[GatorGrowl]

Daytona is a mecca for DC charging and that EA location is old and pretty flaky. These red rings to me are often communication failures (other than billing issues - like outdated credit card on file). The top J-1772 pins need to be firmly connected.

FPL Evolution is near the Speedway and backup plan would be the EVGo only 2 miles from there. FPL chargers are 1000000x more reliable than EA stalls.

EA is building a new location on the south side of Daytona and those should be the newer stalls

Ditto on using FPL … also $0.30/kw 40-50% less than other networks.
You *will* need the FPL EVolution app. It’s not part of the Ford BlueOval network.

 

[Logal727]

It looks like this station cluster has a high PlugShare score, so I am prepared to accept that this is some kind of FordPass issue. But that still doesn’t really excuse EA overcharging by a huge amount, or the EA app also apparently bombing out early while the car was still charging.

Go by the reviews not just the score, but like @voxel said this station can be flaky. I've had some EA credits leftover and I haven't bothered going up this way just cause it's an older station, and have ended up just charging at one of the two DCFC near the Speedway.

 

[Logal727]

EA is building a new location on the south side of Daytona and those should be the newer stalls

Where is this specifically ?

EDIT: Nevermind, I see it now! Wow, this will be awesome, right next to my Mom's house

 

[Krom2040]

Did it say Charge Fault or Charge Station Fault? Charge Station Fault is what it means, the car thinks the station isn't responding like it should. This can also show up if you end the DC charging session by pressing the stop charging button the EA station instead of hitting the DC charge disconnect that's located on the car's charging port.

Good info, what I should gave done is take a photo for future reference but unfortunately I can’t recall exactly ??‍

 

[RickMachE]

Go by the reviews not just the score, but like @voxel said this station can be flaky. I've had some EA credits leftover and I haven't bothered going up this way just cause it's an older station, and have ended up just charging at one of the two DCFC near the Speedway.

This ^^

I ignore the score. I read the current reviews.

 

[Tampamike]

The scores are worthless. You need to read the check-ins to get the real scoop. The scoring options for the users are, basically, “I charged“ or ”I didn’t charge,” or pass/fail. From there they assign a number score from 1 to 10. A lot of shaky stations have high 9’s or 10’s because of the dearth of scoring options.

 

[Logal727]

The scores are worthless. You need to read the check-ins to get the real scoop. The scoring options for the users are, basically, “I charged“ or ”I didn’t charge,” or pass/fail. From there they assign a number score from 1 to 10. A lot of shaky stations have high 9’s or 10’s because of the dearth of scoring options.

Also some reason people rate that they charged but then rant about how the station didn’t work lol, gotta do the stupidity factor

 

[bbhaag]

If you want to use Plug and Charge enable it in the FordPass app. You don't need the EA app at all.

The number one mistake noobs make is not having a valid credit card on file in their ford.com account.

 

[leeman]

All I can say is charge as much as you can when you're at home get the car topped off at home and then go finding a public charger these days is getting increasingly more difficult waiting in lines and chargers not working it's very frustrating

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