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Electrify America completes 400 EV charging stations – about twice as fast as Tesla Supercharger rollout

Feb 3, 2020

Electrify America confirmed that they completed the installation of their first 400 EV charging stations only 20 months after starting the deployment. Their rollout is about twice as fast as Tesla’s Supercharger network.

The EV charging infrastructure company, which was started by Volkswagen as part of its settlement with the US over the Dieselgate scandal, plans to deploy one of the most extensive electric car charging network in the US.

They started deployment less than 2 years ago and today, they confirmed that they have already achieved their initial goal of deploying 400 stations, including over 1,700 charge points.

Brendan Jones, COO of Electrify America, confirmed the news to Electrek, but he clarified that while all the stations are deployed, some of them still need to be activated and are awaiting approval from the local electric utility.

The deployment is impressive.

For comparison, Tesla’s Supercharger network, which is arguably the world’s best EV fast-charging network, had only 225 Supercharging stations two years into the start of the deployment.

Giovanni Palazzo, president and CEO of Electrify America, commented on the announcement:

“We are laser-focused on providing our customers with a high-quality charging experience. Today’s drivers need assurances that they will have access to fast and reliable charging services, and that’s what we’re working to deliver. We are incredibly proud of our progress to this date, and we’ll continue to build out our brand-neutral network to be able to serve even more EV drivers where they live, work, and travel.”
It’s only the start of Electrify America.

Jones told Electrek that there are currently more than 100 stations permitted and another 150 in various phases of design and engineering.

All of the company’s fast-charging stations are equipped to charge vehicles at up to 350 kW – even though most electric cars on the road today can’t receive that much power.

The company says that they are planning for the future EV fleet as much as 5 years ahead.

As we previously reported, Electrify America has many partnerships with companies to deploy charging stations, like Walmart and Target.

On the auto industry side, the company is partnered with several automakers, like Lucid Motors, Porsche, Audi, Ford and more.

They are also working with Tesla to deploy Powerpacks at over 100 charging stations in order to reduce their demand charges, which is an important part of their operating cost.

Via Electrek
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theothertom

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Yeah, but only 50% of them work by my experience . Very poor execution IMO. I've called EA every time I've had a problem. Not fixed yet....
 

Billyk24

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Congratulations on starting this network from scratch as EA had to develop the actual charging units in addition to creating the network that features CCS speeds from 150kW to 350kW. Now for the network, still a lot of empty spaces such as Northern Wisconsin-Michigan which has zero fast charging stations in the UP-Minnesota and it looks like North Dakota is empty too. Help is needed to get more stations and/or allow non-Tesla vehicles to use the Superchargers.
 

theothertom

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Congratulations on starting this network from scratch as EA had to develop the actual charging units in addition to creating the network that features CCS speeds from 150kW to 350kW. Now for the network, still a lot of empty spaces such as Northern Wisconsin-Michigan which has zero fast charging stations in the UP-Minnesota and it looks like North Dakota is empty too. Help is needed to get more stations and/or allow non-Tesla vehicles to use the Superchargers.
Didn't all the networks (EVgo, Chargepoint, Tesla, etc)have to be created from scratch? Somehow the other networks are reliable but EA is not. Seems like EA didn't cover all their bases during the testing phase. Since they are funded by an automotive company, I would think they were familiar with FMEA.
Yes, there are several charging deserts across the US, some of which are in major metro areas where you would think there would be chargers. I hope EA is working on that.
 

timbop

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Didn't all the networks (EVgo, Chargepoint, Tesla, etc)have to be created from scratch? Somehow the other networks are reliable but EA is not. Seems like EA didn't cover all their bases during the testing phase. Since they are funded by an automotive company, I would think they were familiar with FMEA.
Yes, there are several charging deserts across the US, some of which are in major metro areas where you would think there would be chargers. I hope EA is working on that.
There is an article (too lazy to google it) in which EA CEO talks candidly about the issues they've had. Essentially they decided to put >=150kw chargers out there instead of the other network's 50kw chargers because it would drive the industry forward and allow non-tesla BEV's to be more competitive on charging speeds. Since there were no manufacturers making >50kw chargers, they had to design and have their chargers custom made. For redundancy and to foster competition, they contracted with 4 different vendors to have them made. The result was inconsistency and 4x the number of bugs/issues. However, he felt that they've made very good progress and 3 of the 4 vendors are now performing to his satisfaction. The author of the story felt that meant they would be dropping the 4th vendor, but who knows.

They don't call it the bleeding edge for nothing
 


theothertom

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Tesla chargers are >50kW, and they work. Tesla started from scratch and figured out how to make chargers. Yes, some EA chargers are better than others but I don't see any effort to fix/replace those that don't work properly. And there are a lot of them. That's the real problem now. The mistakes they made to get them in this mess is another matter, but I don't see the effort to fix what's broken.
Just to be clear, I'm pulling for EA to get things right. Ford, VW, and Chevy are depending on EA to work. If they don't get it fixed, there's going to be a lot of unhappy EV owners, and that's not a good thing.
 

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The same article from the ceo also mentioned being able to monitor chargers remotely for repair and other.
 

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Tesla chargers are >50kW, and they work. Tesla started from scratch and figured out how to make chargers.
Sure, but they didn't start with 150KW chargers, though. They also only had to support "their" cars, not "everybody's" cars. I'll reference the same article mentioned by @timbop above where they discuss having to test with literally every single vendor. They hint, but don't outright say, that some of the vehicle vendors needed some bug fixing as well.
 

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The same article from the ceo also mentioned being able to monitor chargers remotely for repair and other.
Good. But unfortunately they haven't been able to fix them remotely. At least not the ones I've reported. EA made mistakes "getting there". So now they need to fix those mistakes. I don't see that happening.
 

Billyk24

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Sure, but they didn't start with 150KW chargers, though. They also only had to support "their" cars, not "everybody's" cars. I'll reference the same article mentioned by @timbop above where they discuss having to test with literally every single vendor. They hint, but don't outright say, that some of the vehicle vendors needed some bug fixing as well.
90kW was the initial Tesla value for superchargers.
 

timbop

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The point wasn't the power, but the fact they had design the hardware from scratch. Of course it needs to work, I was just suggesting that we give them a chance
 

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Live station (location) count: 412
102 more are coming soon
1407 CCS, level 2= 94 CHAdeMO= 412
 
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Ken7

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Congratulations on starting this network from scratch as EA had to develop the actual charging units in addition to creating the network that features CCS speeds from 150kW to 350kW. Now for the network, still a lot of empty spaces such as Northern Wisconsin-Michigan which has zero fast charging stations in the UP-Minnesota and it looks like North Dakota is empty too. Help is needed to get more stations and/or allow non-Tesla vehicles to use the Superchargers.
That sure wouldn't make Tesla owners happy. That would likely cause a wait time at many SC locations where one doesn't currently exist.
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