Electrify America Chargers

My experience with EA is very limited. That will change next month when I plan to drive about 1100 miles and have mapped out where I plan to charge, mostly at EA locations. I am hoping that having 8 chargers will be enough that at least 1 is working!

Near me there is an EVgo DC Fast charger that is extremely unreliable. It often shuts off after a partial charge, or is down altogether. I was hoping EA might be more reliable.... guess I better not hold my breath.

 

"Near me there is an EVgo DC Fast charger that is extremely unreliable. It often shuts off after a partial charge, or is down altogether. I was hoping EA might be more reliable."

The EVgo around PDX have been solid on the Chademo 50kW for the Tesla. As have the Chademo 50kW's at EA. Never had EA problems. EVgo will sometimes not go up to full 50kW. Call them when it happens and they fix it over the phone.

Hoping Tesla follows through on giving Model 3 owners the CCS adapter by this year so I can try out the 150kW EA CCS chargers. All new ones around here.

 

EVGo will always shut off after 45 minutes.. You have to re-initialize after 45 minutes.. This is really a pain in the butt.. Not sure why they do that..

 

Because they're out of touch with the capacity of today's EV batteries, and
believe that they have to intervene in an access arbitration process that
the humans on the ground can solve on their own. It's ivory-tower
ignorance at work, and people need to keep CALLING them on it.

_H*

 

With you on avoiding EA. I am firm with the kWh fee, time based just robs $ from the slower charging EV.

A betterr route planner,used first time this summer. It had me drive a weird country road instead of the highway. The little town we stopped in had ONE EVgo DCFC. Thankfully it worked. think ABRP calculated terrain,and sent me on the route for the Kona. Returning home, I drove highway,and ignored EA.

 

Click the link? It's Hyundai domain. I am speaking to capability. If it has the capacity, just unlock it for Kona owners

 

It's unlocked (kind of).. However it's only unlocked for regeneration. Regeneration does allow 100kw of charging..

 

There has to be some disincentive to using a DCFC to charge to 100% (when the charge rate has tapered). Or for that matter, a disincentive to not unplugging and moving once the charge session is complete.

 

Letter I sent to EA about my experience using their chargers.

Electrify America:

I have been driving an EV for over seven years. When I found out earlier this year that Electrify America was going to create an infrastructure of charging stations throughout the US I looked into purchasing a new vehicle (HOW EXCITING!).


I purchased a 2019 Hyundai Kona EV anticipating a road trip with it from Long Island New York to St Petersburg Florida. After much planning and consideration, watching many YouTube's and following many forums, a few phone calls to Electrify America to figure out the cost for charging along the way, we left for Florida.


At the first stop to charge in New Castle Delaware, I was quite surprised and VERY disappointed to find out, after calling your support team that your tier selection for my vehicle had changed. I understood it is based on the highest negotiated expectable Kw’s the Kona would accept at the time based on many variables like SOC, OAT and other contributing factors at the handshake to the charge station. Somehow when communicating with my Kona, it automatically puts me in the next tier pricing.


Prior to the trip I called customer support and specifically asked them if I would be in the 1-75 kilowatt range anticipating 15 to 18 cents per minute. They confirmed that it would be at that rate based on my Kona. I mentioned to them my upcoming road trip and they said that I would not have any issues at that tier pricing as a Pass+ member and if I did to just give them a call.


Your courteous customer support team does a GREAT job answering questions every time I call with accurate information. Unfortunately, it has been very difficult to recommend using your stations under the circumstances. Many people stopped by to ask questions while we were charging, and we had to honestly give them the facts.

When they heard the fees, they wondered why we would spend so much more for electric, rather than owning a gas vehicle.


It is just sad that we had anticipated advocating EA and their Kw tier basis pricing structure and were very disappointed with the outcome! I certainly did NOT get what I paid for using your services! It should be more accurate pricing for Kw supplied rather than minutes connected and charging! (I do like the idle fee for staying at the station more than 10 minutes after the charge is complete, keeps people moving on).


If you look at my account and can make ANY price adjustment at stations where I was below the 75Kw threshold, as I was expecting, please do so and let me know.


Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions regarding this situation or want more feedback about my charging experience with EA.

 

I am wondering if anyone has tried tinkering with the setting in their Kona to see if it them "communicates" a lower threshold with EA chargers? I think I read that we can limit amps manually, and although I don't completely get the conversion between amps and Kw, I do know they are directly related. So it seems like if you manually restrict the amps, that would force the max kilowatts that the car can take to lower as well, those knocking you down to the lower tier, which I think we all agree is the objective given that in real world testing nobody is charging Konas at 100 kW right? The key of course, even if this does work, is finding the right amp number to set the car at to hit the lower tier but still allow max or close to max charging speed.

 

Did you get a response back. Your letter was very well written.

 

You can't limit for DCFC, which is idiotic on Hyundai's part. It would
be SIMPLE to do in firmware; all the BMS has to do is tell the charge
controller "only this much please".

_H*

 

You know what, I think you're right. I wasn't thinking about that but I noticed the option to manually turn down the amps when I was investigating using my Tesla adapter, which of course was all AC not DC. So that it good to know that we can't change the DC setting. I did get the monthly membership just now so at least I'll save a few bucks on the better rate, I expect to use their chargers at least 5 times in the next month.

 

I'm not sure why they have to make things so difficult. Why not just charge kW x time, like if I averaged 50kW of charge over 45 minutes, then charge me whatever the 50 kW rate is times 45 minutes. Does it matter if the charge was briefly as high as 60 or as low as 40kW? I can't imagine it does. The average should be what matters, multiplied by the time that average was being drawn from their charger.

Maybe I'll be writing them a letter, too, after my upcoming trip.

 

I'm going on a 1 day 425 mile road trip (round trip is 425 miles) to Fort Lauderdale again this Friday (going there and back on the same day). Planning on using the EA charger at University Blvd in Davie which is a 50kw charger, so I will be charged the Tier 1 rate by default.. There are other EA chargers in the area but they are all 150kw+ and the higher Tier 2 rate..

 

I think that's the only true way to control it. Unfortunately on my trip I don't think there are any of the 50kw chargers at the locations I'm stopping at.

 

At the Ft. Lauderdale area, there are about 6 or 7 EA charging stations and 2 of them have 50kw chargers. (Coquina Plaza and Target on University Dr.).
The other ones are all 150kw and 350kw units at 59 cents per kwh.
There is a FREE 24kw DC Fast at a Harley Dealership where I could charge but 24kw is a little too slow for my taste.. I'll probably top up when I leave the area to make it home... 210 miles without a Level 3 charger (HWY 27) and only 1 24 hour Level 2 charger at about 2.5 kw speed in Sebring.. There are like 4 Level 2 chargers in Sebring but all but 1 only operate during dealership hours and I'll drive through late at night, so I need to make the 210 mile trip on one charge.. I've done it twice before with no issues.. Don't expect running out of juice.