The truth about Electrify America's progress and Traveling with the Mach E

[fmtexmme]

Any ideas why I-20 east out of Dallas thru Shreveport and Jackson is a desert for DCFC locations?

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[JayLove]

Any ideas why I-20 east out of Dallas thru Shreveport and Jackson is a desert for DCFC locations?

As a Louisianian, I would love to know myself!

 

[DeafGryphon1967]

I generally agree with what you're saying here.

I think that most people buying BEVs today are NOT doing so to do long road trips, but rather to use them for local commuting, and doing all (or almost all) of their charging at home. Until the public-charging infrastructure is VASTLY better, most BEV owners won't be using their BEVs for long road trips (or only occasionally so). Key problems that I see BEV owners reporting over and over and over again regarding public charging are: (1) not enough charging stations (meaning that one often has to drive out of the way to find one); (2) charging times vary a lot by charging port/"pump", and can be frustrating; (3) all too often, all chargers are taken, requiring longer waits; (4) all too often charging "pumps" are broken or not working; (5) accessing charging pumps can be aggravating because each company owning the pumps has its own access procedure (there should be one single system, or it should be possible to just insert your credit card); (6) charging costs can be exhorbitant (way more than gasoline costs sometimes). When I buy my first BEV, it will be for local commuting only, and charging only from home, at least for the first few years, but I'll still buy one as a daily driver because of the advantages that BEVs give when not worrying about public charging.

Another reason why I'd not want to do road trips in my BEV is that I'd not want to use the high-charging DC pumps because of how they are known to degrade battery life. Yes, I know that doing it only occasionally should not be a big deal, but people who do lots of long-distance road trips in their annual lives are not going to want to deal with all the hassles and degradation that comes from high-intensity public charging.

The big charging issue for now is NOT highway public charging, but rather local public charging -- for those many many drivers who do not have a way to charge at home (i.e., no garage, park on the street in cities, etc.). The masses are not going to buy BEVs until **local** public-charging infrastructure is in place first, so that charging is as easy as going to a gas station in the cities and suburbs and towns. The only way I see this working in cities is having every parking place have a charging station (maybe combined in places with parking meters) -- but this is hugely problematical because of the high costs of installing so many charging stations, unless power companies agree to underwrite the costs in working with cities and towns (and then the charging costs at urban public-charging sites must be kept low for the masses who will possibly not pay more than gas costs for electricity).

(Bawwks)
This is EXACTLY the way I feel about charging an EV that isn’t a Tesla, or able to use the Tesla Supercharger Network.

I wish Ford and Tesla would have reached some kind of agreement to be able to use the Supercharger network for the MME. I mean didn’t Elon make the plans for the network available for anyone to see how it worked?

And besides, those Superchargers run far better and are far more reliable than all the other third party network, not eve; counting the sheer number of spots to charge at each location.

That’s one thing that Tesla has done right, no matter what way you look at it....

-Gryphon <><

 

[eastern refugee]

(Bawwks)
This is EXACTLY the way I feel about charging an EV that isn’t a Tesla, or able to use the Tesla Supercharger Network.

I wish Ford and Tesla would have reached some kind of agreement to be able to use the Supercharger network for the MME. I mean didn’t Elon make the plans for the network available for anyone to see how it worked?

And besides, those Superchargers run far better and are far more reliable than all the other third party network, not eve; counting the sheer number of spots to charge at each location.

That’s one thing that Tesla has done right, no matter what way you look at it....

-Gryphon <><

BULL.

EA is GREAT!!! enough said

 

[macchiaz-o]

(Bawwks)
I wish Ford and Tesla would have reached some kind of agreement to be able to use the Supercharger network for the MME.

I suspect any major auto manufacturer would take one look at Tesla's terms for sharing and determine them egregious.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a35030461/why-other-car-companies-dont-use-tesla-superchargers/

 

[DeafGryphon1967]

I suspect any major auto manufacturer would take one look at Tesla's terms for sharing and determine them egregious.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a35030461/why-other-car-companies-dont-use-tesla-superchargers/

(Bawwks)
Ya know, that’s a great point.... thank you for this.
I learned something quite new... ^^

 

[DeafGryphon1967]

BULL.

EA is GREAT!!! enough said

(Bawwks)
Ok I may have been mistaken in what I said...
Thank you for straightening me out in this... ^^

-Gryphon

 

[dbsb3233]

(Bawwks)
This is EXACTLY the way I feel about charging an EV that isn’t a Tesla, or able to use the Tesla Supercharger Network.

I wish Ford and Tesla would have reached some kind of agreement to be able to use the Supercharger network for the MME. I mean didn’t Elon make the plans for the network available for anyone to see how it worked?

And besides, those Superchargers run far better and are far more reliable than all the other third party network, not eve; counting the sheer number of spots to charge at each location.

That’s one thing that Tesla has done right, no matter what way you look at it....

-Gryphon <><

Tesla built the Supercharger network (at great expense) because they had no choice, being the first major BEV manufacturer to put a lot of vehicles on the road almost a decade ahead of the others. There was no EA back then, or hardly anything else.

Plus all they sell is BEVs. It's 100% of their sales rather than 1% for the ICE manufacturers.

You're right that they're more dependable. That's because they're proprietary, meaning they only have to work with Teslas. Much easier to get it all to work well when it's your own products. But it's a whole different matter trying to get your product to work well with dozens of other manufacturer's products. Tesla is basically like Apple - proprietary phones and computers that only run their own software. While everyone else is like Android (or Windows) - designed to run other developers' programs, and run on any manufacturer's hardware. Much harder task. But a much better model overall because it's not one company's monopoly.

Every BEV manufacturer building their own Tesla-like charging network would be terrible for consumers. They would surely either lock out other manufacturers (as Tesla does), or implement favoritism in pricing, power level, etc. We don't want that. DCFC needs to be like gas stations now - separate from auto manufacturers, and generic to work with any vehicle manufacturer. We're almost there with the CCS standard. Tesla is the one that will soon be looking in from the outside as Ford, GM, VW, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, FCA, and all the others create demand for CCS chargers (EA, ChargePoint, EVgo, etc) that will soon pass Tesla and then greatly exceed them.

 

[rodhx]

As a Louisianian, I would love to know myself!

There were none in Alabama in 2019. The EA network here all opened in 2020. I keep that thought as hope they will move west from Birmingham soon but their site doesn’t show any “coming soon”. I find it baffling why I-20 B’ham to Dallas has been ignored to date. Living just north of Birmingham filling the I-20 gap would mean I could go just about anywhere in an EV.

 

[jgcom]

As a Louisianian, I would love to know myself!

My guess is that Louisiana's chargers are only along the I-10/ I-12 corridor so that Texans can get to Florida and vice-versa. There are some Tesla superchargers in I-20, and I hope and expect that somebody will serve that market when enough of us start spending money on charging. I don't have my Mach-E yet, but I think that the only reasonably direct way to drive one from where I live in south Louisiana to Memphis is to charge using a lone greenlots charger at the McDonald's in Winona, MS, which seems sad.

 

[All Hat No Cattle]

Electrify America's DCFC network has a very good coverage of the US currently.

EA Status:

• 406 locations in the USA with 1400 stalls with 70 more locations coming this year (supposedly)
• Average of 4 stall per location
• 150kw up to 350kw capability
• Along major interstates and roadways, typically near Points of interest.
• Coast to cost travel, east - west and north-south possible

By the end of this year when Mach E's are delivered, we should have roughly 480 chargers to pick from in the USA which is continued to grow.

The quote is from Post # 1, from last year. I resurrected it because I just came back from my local Walmart store, and this popped up. 8 chargers total??

It still has a chain link fence around it, but I could see the Electrify America decal on the chargers.

I wonder how many of Walmart's 4,700 stores will have these?

 

[theo1000]

Every BEV manufacturer building their own Tesla-like charging network would be terrible for consumers. They would surely either lock out other manufacturers (as Tesla does), or implement favoritism in pricing, power level, etc. We don't want that. DCFC needs to be like gas stations now - separate from auto manufacturers, and generic to work with any vehicle manufacturer. We're almost there with the CCS standard. Tesla is the one that will soon be looking in from the outside as Ford, GM, VW, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, FCA, and all the others create demand for CCS chargers (EA, ChargePoint, EVgo, etc) that will soon pass Tesla and then greatly exceed them.

I agree. The closed network is one reason I would never buy a TSLA. You are at their mercy, witness the the delete of radar. All those thousands of folks have no choice, there goes their radar. If they want the charge network they now drive a car more primitive that a 1991 BMW.

One thing EA demonstrated is that any reasonably organized group can built a charging network. So several groups have raised money to fill in the gaps to duplicate EA. As with all things TSLA, just give them time and they will screw their charge network folks. Their charge network hemorrhages money esp. as Mr Musk promised free charging for life to way too many folks. As with all other TSLA 'cost cutting' improvements, cost cutting will come to the charge network as well and its not going to go well. Right now it is coasting under benign neglect, while TSLA is hopelessly distracted with self driving.

If that EV charger bill is passed I wonder if TSLA will be forced to switch to CCS-1 and open their network in exchange for cash. Even DC politicians won't be dumb enough to give them free money for a proprietary network. If it is going to be money only for an open network I can see EA doubling and tripling in size to fill all the gaps the Federal round 1-5 charging corridor maps displayed so far.

The TSLA network is great if you don't have any competition and folks are willing to ignore the convenience of the gas station network. What is going to kill TSLA is that they never fleshed out the network to cover the 90% of of the population for local travel. Its a great network if you are blasting through town but not for much else.

 

[timbop]

The quote is from Post # 1, from last year. I resurrected it because I just came back from my local Walmart store, and this popped up. 8 chargers total??

It still has a chain link fence around it, but I could see the Electrify America decal on the chargers.

I wonder how many of Walmart's 4,700 stores will have these?

The confusing thing about EA charging stations is that each has 2 connectors, but only 1 can be used at a time. For whatever reason they put short cables on them so they have to put a connector on each side of the station so they can reach bot left and right ported cars. So, 8 cables still means only 4 chargers, unfrtunately