Mini rant on DC charging.

[stevenschwartz]

My wife and I went from Tucson to Phoenix for a quick overnight trip. We have done this multiple times in the MME. It is about 250 miles RT, so a charge is needed. Yesterday on the way up stopped in Phoenix at an Electrify America location we have used multiple times. As usual 2 out of the 8 chargers down, but got one after about 10 minutes. Pull in and hook up to find it charging at 35kW. Only 3 times what I do at home. Pulled it out, but my wife remembered that Ford locations now have public CCS chargers. Went to the dealer where I bought the car - 4 charging cables on 2 posts. The the chargers directly in front of the Ford Dealership are not part of the blue oval charge network - so the chargers sitting in front of a Ford dealership have to be activated manually through the app. No labels on the posts. Finally figure out (and someone warns me the listing in the app is wrong - east post is actually west and visa versa) plug in the exorbitantly expensive chargers (25% more than any other public chargers) and it stops charing after a couple of kilowatts. Charger broken.

This morning drove to a not too far Tesla charger. 16 chargers, 8 or 9 free, one with side access. Plugged in and it worked immediately.

Some months ago we took a trip from Tucson to southern CA in the MME and also found the Tesla chargers to be totally reliable. I'm grateful Ford supplied me with a reliable adapter, but these private companies providing CCS charging should be collectively ashamed. Never again - only going directly to Tesla chargers. Hate to give Elon the money for the kilowatts, but it's not worth the agita to try anything else.

Steve

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[ipca204]

your mistake was not just using the tesla chargers to begin with....lol

 

[RickMachE]

When EA is at 35kW, that's a derated charger. Moved to a different one.

The dealership cost should be listed on PlugShare. If not, update it.

 

[stevenschwartz]

The solution of moving to a new EA charger is only practical if there is another EA charger available. The cost for the dealers charger makes little difference if it does not work. Ipca204 had the right of it.

 

[AhardFSU]

I’m not sure why this is some sort of revelation. Most know that non-Tesla stations can be hit or miss. The jury is still out on Ionna but I have more faith in them bc they’re using Aplitronics.

Tesla isn’t perfect either as I found out during my last couple of road trips…..4 out of 12 stalls down at several locations, however, the day before the stations were working. But they tend to be more reliable and the stations typically aren’t full, so if 4 are down there likely are more empty stalls that you can charge at.

 

[zvez]

I’m not sure why this is some sort of revelation. Most know that non-Tesla stations can be hit or miss. The jury is still out on Ionna but I have more faith in them bc they’re using Aplitronics.

Tesla isn’t perfect either as I found out during my last couple of road trips…..4 out of 12 stalls down at several locations, however, the day before the stations were working. But they tend to be more reliable and the stations typically aren’t full, so if 4 are down there likely are more empty stalls that you can charge at.

I will say, tho I can't speak from experience, just from going on posts here over the years, EA seems to have lots of issues with chargers down for extended periods.

 

[AhardFSU]

I will say, tho I can't speak from experience, just from going on posts here over the years, EA seems to have lots of issues with chargers down for extended periods.

That’s true. But it’s not something that most of us don’t know. That was my point. That’s why I mentioned Ionna and the chargers they’re using. The Alpies are proven more reliable than the chargers EA and EvGo use. So let’s see how Ionna handles out of service chargers.

 

[stevenschwartz]

I’m not sure why this is some sort of revelation. Most know that non-Tesla stations can be hit or miss. The jury is still out on Ionna but I have more faith in them bc they’re using Aplitronics.

Tesla isn’t perfect either as I found out during my last couple of road trips…..4 out of 12 stalls down at several locations, however, the day before the stations were working. But they tend to be more reliable and the stations typically aren’t full, so if 4 are down there likely are more empty stalls that you can charge at.

I guess I'm just naive and foolish. Why i look at such a website for deeper wisdom.

 

[AhardFSU]

I guess I'm just naive and foolish. Why i look at such a website for deeper wisdom.

In general, the answer is more nuanced. Are there some EA and EvGo stations that are reliable? Yes. Has EA has gotten better over the last year? Yes.

But there are still too many stories of EA and EvGo chargers that go on in a broken state for too long. Now I assume, perhaps wrongly that someone visiting this site is likely aware that those chargers aren’t yet up to the reliability standard that all of us would like.

And so knowing that information would lead some people to conclude that visiting Tesla superchargers first, if that is an option, would be the best choice for a worry-free trip.

 

[RickMachE]

We've driven to 31 states and a province over 4 years. Based on our experience, despite not liking Elmo, Tesla SuperChargers are what we prioritize on our trips. Reliability coupled with number of chargers per location.

While EA has gotten better, many of their locations are 4 chargers only (some are less). A few are more, but not enough.

 

[superdave80]

I've mostly given up on non-Tesla chargers (but I barely every DC charge anyways). Last time I tried to give EA my money, I rolled up to three full chargers, one empty one... with two cars waiting in line (clearly the empty one was broken). I barely slowed down as I drove past them to the plentiful and operational Tesla chargers a few blocks away. I refuse to waste more time on my trip than I need to due to incompetence and indifference by others.

 

[67 Stang Convertible]

EA has "improved" but now that there newer chargers have been in the ground for a few months to even a year; it seems like there are more outages.

Tesla's reliability and the shocking quickness of the handshake makes me want to seek them out on a road trip.......that said, i'm normally 50-50 on a road trip between EA and Tesla........At least in my destinations, the Tesla chargers have no so great surrounding infrastructure. Stukeys!!!! YUCK!!

I don't share the same "hang-ups" as most of you guys express with Elon. I won't get into the weeds as I'm sure the Admin would "suspend me" from the thread......LOL

 

[Jimrpa]

your mistake was not just using the tesla chargers to begin with....lol

Some people prefer to avoid Tesla superchargers when possible.

 

[SonicBlue]

I guess I'm just naive and foolish.

Funny, that’s exactly what I thought when I got to the bit of your post about “hate to give Elon the money for the kilowatts”….

 

[TheVirtualTim]

EA have a mode they fall into when not everything is working correctly (e.g. the cooling system is not working) but they still have power.. So they fall back to this slow mode where it technically works … but isn’t very fast.

Whenever you have an EA station that will only provide around 35kW (somtimes it’s 38kW -it is always less than 40kW) the station is in that mode.

I have — once or twice — called EA and they reset the station only to find it is working normally (e.g. the computer on the station “thinks” it needs to de-rate and a simple reboot fixes it). Other times the station actually does have a problem — in which case a reset does nothing.


The difference between Tesla SuperChargers vs. EA is that Tesla maintains their equipment and EA … basically does not. I visited an EA site with 4 dispensers. One was completely off. Two were de-rated. Only one worked correctly. Several months later I came by to use the same site and the same broken charger was still completely dead and the same de-rated chargers were still derated.

At Tesla, this doesn’t seem to happen. I don’t own a Tesla but have a good friend who does (or did … I think he sold it). He said that while finding a broken charger at a Tesla site isn’t common … it does occasionally happen. But if you come by a week later, that broken charger will have been repaired. (Although this was before all the lay-offs. I don’t know how fast they are these days).

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