Free charging @ EA

[RSM]

Nice! Is that the Target EA station off the 78?

No...close tho....Target on business park...

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[Ochroma]

I checked this morning at the EA station in Charlotte, NC and no free charging . None of the units showed free charging or a complimentary session. So it does appear, as EA said, this is not a network wide opportunity. Hopefully they provide free charging for New Years weekend.?

 

[tfitzgex]

WOW. This would be AWESOME. We have a road trip coming up 12/27-1/2. Of course, I just paid $4 for the plus pass.

I just called EA. It’s not every station. It is random. According to the support person they don’t know what stations are free…

 

[Logal727]

I just called EA. It’s not every station. It is random. According to the support person they don’t know what stations are free…

Solid plan lol

 

[BadgerGreg]

I love that EA doesn’t even make a pretense at trying to be profitable. So is VW still subsidizing this, or where is money coming from now?

That's exactly what was on my mind as well. Most of the EA stations charge well below what they need to break even. Even Tesla charges a heavily-subsidized rate (although they recently had a price hike). My guess is that this business model needs a few more years to mature before we land at a realistic charging fee.

Paying $0.31/kWh (EA member rate) is still a reasonably good deal compared to the cost of gas, but I doubt that EA will make any profit with that rate until their charging stations are closer to full utilization.

 

[Logal727]

That's exactly what was on my mind as well. Most of the EA stations charge well below what they need to break even. Even Tesla charges a heavily-subsidized rate (although they recently had a price hike). My guess is that this business model needs a few more years to mature before we land at a realistic charging fee.

Paying $0.31/kWh (EA member rate) is still a reasonably good deal compared to the cost of gas, but I doubt that EA will make any profit with that rate until their charging stations are closer to full utilization.

Which is why we needed govt intervention for more charging infrastructure. What if EA hadn’t been required to be built? We’d all be worse off with what, EVGO?

 

[Tbird]

I just used EA to charge. It did not say it was free and showed me the cost at the end of the session. However, no charging was billed to my EA account and no KWh were deducted from my free account. Plug and charge was enabled.

This was a test to see of the 21p22 update allowed me to keep charging past 80 % and it was a success. Charging rates were not reduced after I hit 80 %. Rates were running at 42 KW for the entire session from 61% to 83%. Outside temp was 27 degrees.

Update: After 24 hours EA has now billed my individual account and deducted the KWh from my Blue oval account. I assume the individual account charge will no continue to process but I will follow up.

 

[ConejoRed]

It definitely was not free yesterday when we charged at the Quartzite EA stations and in fact it seemed to double charge us, both for the charging session and subtracted the Kwh from our hours balance! Waiting to see if the “pending” charge converts to an actual charge and will then call EA if it does!

 

[SnBGC]

I love that EA doesn’t even make a pretense at trying to be profitable. So is VW still subsidizing this, or where is money coming from now?

I am pretty sure EA is interested in increasing the percentage of time the plugs are in use so they can appeal to potential buyers when they are allowed to sell the network.

 

[SnBGC]

Which is why we needed govt intervention for more charging infrastructure. What if EA hadn’t been required to be built? We’d all be worse off with what, EVGO?

Without EA we would be left with Avis or Hertz etc.

 

[PrimeFuture]

Free at the Walmart in Houston at 111 Yale St, Houston, TX 77007. Wife drained the car working today so glad to take advantage of the free charge.

 

[i8iridium]

Looks like it was free at both EA in Hagerstown, MD and Bedford, PA on my road trip with P&C enabled. Guess we’ll see. Also nice to have the cliff changed with the last update. 80% to 90% charging at 44kw.

update: it was free

 

[Anvesh11]

It definitely was not free yesterday when we charged at the Quartzite EA stations and in fact it seemed to double charge us, both for the charging session and subtracted the Kwh from our hours balance! Waiting to see if the “pending” charge converts to an actual charge and will then call EA if it does!

That’s weird. I had a free charging session at quartzite yesterday (12/24) evening. But, free charging was still still not activated on 12/22 though.
I was traveling on the 22nd where my FordPass free miles were used at quartzite and I was pleasantly surprised with free charging at the Palm Desert Target location a couple of hours later. Free EA charging might have been activated at some point between.

On a side note, plug and charge worked flawlessly at both locations and, blue cruise did wonderfully well to reduce physical strain all through the interstate.

 

[methorian]

So I stopped by my local EA station on my way home from this evening to take advantage of the free charging. I had already seen the notice from EA on PlugShare that the Chademo plug was offline. No worries for me obviously…

Get there and rollup to one of the 150kW stations and see the message that the sessions are free, so yay! Plug in and station shows a screen saying the station is unavailable. Bummer… Move to a 350kW station, plug in and it’s just “connecting to vehicle” forever. Mach-E says station fault. Tried about 4 times with no luck. Decided maybe I needed to turn off plug and charge. Opened up FordPass and go to Blue Oval Charging, but low and behold there’s no way to turn P&C off. App acts as if I’m not the owner of the car…

Bolt owner showed up and grabbed the only other free station so I gave up and left. Now I have no means of turning off P&C that I can find. Website has no options and FordPass gets me nowhere. I’ve had no issues in the past with EA, but I’ve only them them (or any DC fast charging) on a few small road-trips.

 

[shutterbug]

That’s weird. I had a free charging session at quartzite yesterday (12/24) evening. But, free charging was still still not activated on 12/22 though.
I was traveling on the 22nd where my FordPass free miles were used at quartzite and I was pleasantly surprised with free charging at the Palm Desert Target location a couple of hours later. Free EA charging might have been activated at some point between.

On a side note, plug and charge worked flawlessly at both locations and, blue cruise did wonderfully well to reduce physical strain all through the interstate.

I got the same thing. Charged at Love's. Totally free at Desert Hills Outlets on 12/22. Since then free at Ralf's in Sherman Oaks (inside the garage, so not bothered by rain) and Target in Van Nuys. So far I used 36kWh of my free 500 kWh and driven about 600 miles on that.

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