EA (Electrify America) Sucks - that is all

[Genyosai]

Well, I can't wait to take my "well charged" Taycan GTS which should show up today or tomorrow out to nearby charging stations and see what happens. For the most part, 99% of the time, the car is an "in town" car for me and will just be charged at home, so I'm not worried about it much. But i need to discover if this stuff works or not.

Congrats. And good luck.

Yeah, if this were mostly an in-town, or in-state car for that matter, I wouldn't have this complaint.

My e-tron GT is a brilliant machine. I LOVE it. It charges really fast if you use the in-car route planner so that preconditioning happens. I can literally travel in it in the same time I'd travel someplace in my ICEVs (based on my travel habits, and when EA is working). But because we spend ~60% of our time on the road, the EA issues make ownership really hard..

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[ClubIsolation]

Congrats. And good luck.

Yeah, if this were mostly an in-town, or in-state car for that matter, I wouldn't have this complaint.

My e-tron GT is a brilliant machine. I LOVE it. It charges really fast if you use the in-car route planner so that preconditioning happens. I can literally travel in it in the same time I'd travel someplace in my ICEVs (based on my travel habits, and when EA is working). But because we spend ~60% of our time on the road, the EA issues make ownership really hard..

It will be interesting to see how your experience changes/improves over the next year or so. Things have to be getting better over time, not worse, right? Else we are all setup for failure.

 

[ClubIsolation]

Mostly I just travel between my offices, I may just have to put an outside charger at each one.

 

[Genyosai]

It will be interesting to see how your experience changes/improves over the next year or so. Things have to be getting better over time, not worse, right? Else we are all setup for failure.

One would hope so. At this point I've given up on EA getting better. We're on the 2nd hardware upgrade (Gen3 stations by Signet or BTC) and they seem to be a step backwards from the 1st hardware upgrade started back in September of 2020 (Gen2 Signet units... the most reliable units to date).

Prior to the 1st hardware upgrade (replacing the Efacets), they were worse than bad. The Gen2 Signets gave me hope that EA was finally getting it right. Now there's Gen3 going backwards with broken stations within 2 weeks of installation, stations delivering no more than 35kw, and worse... stations blowing up / bricking EVs.

EVGo is partnered with GM to build-out a nationwide network. This could be good, for back in 2020 EVGo never failed me when I needed them as a backup to EA.

There's also talk of Kempower coming to the US next year. Kempower is excellent in Europe from what I can tell watching Bjorn Nyland reviews. Perhaps Kempower can save us non-Tesla EV owners? Else, like you stated, we are indeed setup for failure.

 

[thecoloradokid]

I figure I would balance six pages of whining about Electrify America with a positive post.

I had to take a 3 month pause from road trips as I underwent radiation treatments, but that finished up and I finally started to feel good enough to hit the road. I very recently did a Denver to Scottsdale round trip run in my '22 CT4s.

I never waited one second for a charger, nor did I get slow charging speeds. I think the longest stop was 20-25 minutes. I used the recently installed BTC chargers in Anthem, AZ and the car did not blow up/brick/$hit the bed. I was lucky enough to avoid conversations with a new MB EQS owner, a guy in a new Audi Q-4 e-Tron, and some tool in a Model X who thought he would be cute by using the J1772 charger at the hotel and looked at me funny as I connected my TeslaTap to the Tesla destination charger and charged my Taycan.

At this point, we all get EA is not perfect. The 30 previous posts in the past two years on the subject can confirm that. However, when it works as designed it is makes long distance road travel in a Taycan a breeze. First picture below is my car in Wagon Mound, New Mexico. Second picture is going from 20% to 80% charge level in 16 minutes at the new BTC chargers in Anthem, AZ.

 

[Toodal00]

did you try deleting and reinstalling the app - that cleared some fault up for me -but then you can run into other problems.

I did, two different times on two different phones. real disappointment

 

[Genyosai]

@chenner Have you seen this latest statement from Elon?

This leads me to believe that unless non-Tesla EV manufacturers adopt the NACS (as Tesla is calling it) and builds cars using the Tesla connector, non-Teslas with CCS connectors may never be able to use Tesla superchargers.

 

[chenner]

@chenner Have you seen this latest statement from Elon?

This leads me to believe that unless non-Tesla EV manufacturers adopt the NACS (as Tesla is calling it) and builds cars using the Tesla connector, non-Teslas with CCS connectors may never be able to use Tesla superchargers.

I saw that they released all the specs on their charging connector. It's actually a smart move and puts the ball in other manufacturer's court - but I can't see the industry moving away from CCS to the Tesla standard even if it made sense not to mention having a less bulky cable.

Elon would be smart to let everybody else add a Tesla cable rather than trying to outfit all of his supercharging stations with a separate CCS charging cable.

I'm hoping that somebody will come along and make an adapter once we can transact on the Tesla network.

 

[TYKHAAAN]

The Gen3 Signet / BTC units seem to be a step backwards. The Gen2 Signets that replaced the original Efacets seem to be the most reliable.

Gen3s (newest installations), are going offline within a couple of weeks, only delivering up to 35kw, and/or are over-boosting cars and causing charging faults.

These things are still running Windows for crying out loud (photos below are the Gen3 hardware and are located at the recently upgraded station in Greenville, SC where I live)! It's no wonder they're so unreliable. Windows is not robust/ bulletproof / resilient enough for this.



I one pulled up to a stall in Hammond, LA to find it sitting at the Windows Desktop. They hadn't even bothered to disable the start menu via GPO, so I restarted the darned thing myself.

EA is a joke!

Well at least it’s Windows 10 this time. I’ve seen the older units reboot and it was XP!!!!

 

[TYKHAAAN]

"Bad" is an understatement. I've concluded that there are no good EV options. What I mean by that is:

* Tesla hands-down has the best, most reliable, worry-free fast-charging network. Period! But, [imo] the cars are "blah" and service is horrible (I speak from experience, we had 6 Teslas before giving up).

* Other manufacturers offer better built, more stylish EVs, but the fast charging network (as you put it), SUCKS! EA is SO unreliable it's worrisome, especially as much as we travel. You really never know if you're going to get there, and if it's a long distance trip in which we HAVE to be someplace by a certain time, we simply take the ICEv.

What's worse is that EA is now on their 3rd hardware refresh. Gen3 hardware, if you will, and quite frankly, that hardware seems to be a step backwards.

Our first non-Tesla EV was our Audi e-tron 55 Prestige in 2019. Little did we know how bad EA was at the time. We ended up seriously delayed... stranded several times. It got to the place I'd try and find routes to our destinations that had EVGo 50kw stations near the EAs in case the EA station was totally offline (despite what the app said). That was much harder to do for the Columbia, SC to Austin, TX trip we took in 2020. What a nerve-racking experience... not knowing if the next stop will work, so you stop at EVERY EA along the way and charge to 100% just in case.

Well, in September 2020 EA started replacing the HORRIBLE Efacet units with the much newer Signet units. Since then they've been "better", but they didn't replace all the older Signet and ABB units.

Now, they have the Gen3 hardware made by either BTC or Signet to replace the older Signet and ABB units. This is NOT going well!

We recently got back from a 5,934mi trip in our e-tron GT. Even though we encountered many broken stations, and stations that would not deliver the full power, we made it from the East Coast to the Grand Canyon and back never having an issue where we needed to call support.

However! The 3 Gen3 stations we encountered were the most problematic. These brand new stations/hardware already failing in less than 2 weeks after installations.

2 of the new stations wouldn't deliver more than 35kw. At 1 of those stations I had a stall to over-boost (if you will) my car causing it to stop charging with a "charing system error". Thankfully I carry my OBDEleven device with me for foolishness like this. I read the code which stated "incompatible DCFC". I had to clear the code before the car would fast charge again. Then, 1 of the new stations only had 1 working stall, and it was the stall that they DON'T replace because of the CHAdeMO connector. The other 3, brand new 350kw units were already broken.

I'm not the only one having problems with the Gen3 hardware. There are reports of Rivian vehicles being bricked by the over-boost situation, and there are reports of other e-tron GTs and Taycans being affected by the over-boost problem. There's also an F150 Lightening that went berserk after being over-boosted... I haven't seen the latest on that because the vehicle had to be towed from the station.

So Gen3 really scares me considering it's what's replacing all the 1st Gen Signet and ABB units. So much so that, like the Taycan owner that was at the Greenville, SC location with me two weeks ago, I'm considering selling my GT and just driving the ICEVs again until something better comes along.

I hear Kempower is coming to the US. Maybe they'll be better. Bjorn Nyland seems to have 100% success with them in Norway.

In regards to the over boost issue, would enabling the option in the Taycan to limit the car to 200kw for fast charging protect the cars?

 

[Archimedes]

Meh, tried EA again yesterday and it worked perfectly. I’m 4 for 4 now.

 

[Genyosai]

Meh, tried EA again yesterday and it worked perfectly. I’m 4 for 4 now.

I may be a little more exposed than you.

This year alone I've had to use 31 EA stations.

From South Carolina to Maryland.
Maryland to Arizona.
To the Grand Canyon from Scottsdale.
South Carolina to Alabama (every other week).
South Carolina to Orlando, & Cape Canaveral, FL (regularly).

Better than 2019 and first half of 2020. After the 1st, partial hardware refresh that started in September of 2020, reliability was much better. Now, with the current hardware refresh they seem to be going backwards... back to the Efacet days.

 

[Genyosai]

In regards to the over boost issue, would enabling the option in the Taycan to limit the car to 200kw for fast charging protect the cars?

Well, the car already tries to protect itself by stopping the session when it's pushed more than it's asking for. When it does this, I have to clear the error it stores, else I can't DCFC anymore until it's cleared.

This only happens (to me) on the newest hardware that's being deployed right now. Never happens on the older hardware, or the gen2 signets.

 

[thecoloradokid]

I may be a little more exposed than you.

This year alone I've had to use 31 EA stations.

From South Carolina to Maryland.
Maryland to Arizona.
To the Grand Canyon from Scottsdale.
South Carolina to Alabama (every other week).
South Carolina to Orlando, & Cape Canaveral, FL (regularly).

Better than 2019 and first half of 2020. After the 1st, partial hardware refresh that started in September of 2020, reliability was much better. Now, with the current hardware refresh they seem to be going backwards... back to the Efacet days.

I may be a little more exposed than you since I have had multiple Taycans since April 2020, and had an Audi e-Tron for 6 months before that.

Since the fall of 2019 I have gone from Denver to San Diego, Denver to LA, Denver to Houston, Denver to Jackson, WY, Denver to Kansas City multiple times, and to either Vegas or PHX almost monthly - probably 20 trips in total to either of those cities. I have put a lot of miles on non-Tesla EVs, so I have seen and experienced a lot of different Electrify America locations in 15 different states. Hell, I may be one of the only people on this forum who has driven across Utah before the Green River charger was open, so you had to top off in Moab and then again in Price in order to make it up to Spanish Fork. Then, you could reroute south to connect onto I-15.

Once again, the Electrify America charging network is not perfect, we all know this from the 20 different threads that can be found on this board over the past two and and half years. That being said, I have never been stranded, nor been denied a charge at an Electrify America charging location. It also seems that you have done a lot of recent long distance EV travel leveraging the EA network and did not get stranded.

Honestly, your repeated expression in this thread that Electrify America seems to be going backwards with the new hardware is total bull$hit. You mention a couple of cars that may, or may not, have had issues, but no further details have been released to diagnose a cause of the issue. I have used the new chargers in Loveland, CO and in Anthem, AZ and had flawless charging sessions in my CT4s.

You are not the only one who has a lot of miles on a CCS compatible vehicle. So, your repeated negative and unsubstantiated contribution to this thread is getting old.

Let it go.

 

[ClubIsolation]

I figure I would balance six pages of whining about Electrify America with a positive post.

I had to take a 3 month pause from road trips as I underwent radiation treatments, but that finished up and I finally started to feel good enough to hit the road. I very recently did a Denver to Scottsdale round trip run in my '22 CT4s.

I never waited one second for a charger, nor did I get slow charging speeds. I think the longest stop was 20-25 minutes. I used the recently installed BTC chargers in Anthem, AZ and the car did not blow up/brick/$hit the bed. I was lucky enough to avoid conversations with a new MB EQS owner, a guy in a new Audi Q-4 e-Tron, and some tool in a Model X who thought he would be cute by using the J1772 charger at the hotel and looked at me funny as I connected my TeslaTap to the Tesla destination charger and charged my Taycan.

At this point, we all get EA is not perfect. The 30 previous posts in the past two years on the subject can confirm that. However, when it works as designed it is makes long distance road travel in a Taycan a breeze. First picture below is my car in Wagon Mound, New Mexico. Second picture is going from 20% to 80% charge level in 16 minutes at the new BTC chargers in Anthem, AZ.

First, I'm sorry to hear about the radiation oncology appointments, that's a lot for someone (and your family) to go through. I hope all is well and you are feeling back to normal.

A distant second, thanks for sharing the positive charging stuff and providing pics. My Taycan GTS will show up at my house tomorrow and it's my first ever EV, so I've been watching this thread pretty intently and wondering if I may have jumped into EV world too soon from my Panamera. 95% of the time though, I won't be going anywhere where I wouldn't be able to get home on the initial charge in a round trip. So I'm still looking forward to the experience.

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