Electrify America Sucks

[Bob Foster]

I've had my GV60 for 8 months now and have taken 3 trips, one from Foley Al to Nashville Tn and 3 trips to Orlando, Fl. And on every trip, I've encountered numerous problems with every charging location. On the average 40% of them are not working, one had a lot of fluid leaking from the pump, a broken screen, and most recently in Franklin, Tn only one 150kw station was working. I was there attending a funeral, so I was already upset. I called the Genesis dealer in Cool Springs and asked if I could come over and use their charger. They said yes and that it wasn't being used at the time. When I got there a women came out to help me and the end result was there charger wasn't working either. So, I ended up next door at the Hyundai dealer and was able to get enough miles to get me to my next destination. Like other owners I have three years of free charging, but it doesn't do much good if a lot of the time the card reader isn't working, and I have to get out my credit card to pay for it. Electrify is good about refunds, but they do an initial $50 charge each time and on one trip that happened four times ($200). And if you need help with a charging station, you'll be waiting a long time to get someone to help you.

Twenty-five miles from my home there is a Buc-ee's but all they have is 20 Tesla stations. I've read where supposedly Genesis will be able to use Tesla stations with an adapter after the first of next year. Bottom line here is I really like my Genesis, but I hate the complete lack of "reliable" charging stations.

 

[skiingj]

Like other owners I have three years of free charging, but it doesn't do much good if a lot of the time the card reader isn't working, and I have to get out my credit card to pay for it. Electrify is good about refunds, but they do an initial $50 charge each time and on one trip that happened four times ($200).

In NorCal and Reno the EA chargers are no better. EA either does not care, they do not have the parts or manpower, or they are not funding maintenance. A few new chargers in my area have been coming soon for months.

In regards to using your credit card. Do you use the EA app to start the charge? If so you don't need to use a credit card or even touch the screen or reader.

 

[steveinarizona]

I met someone the other day in a GV60 (first time) and she said they have done several long trips without a problem. But I have concluded that for me, the charging network is not ready for prime time except for Tesla and I won't drive a Tesla. I don't do a lot of trips and plan to rent an ICE car for the trips. Eventually I expect there will be an adequate supply of working fast chargers but that might take a while.

For me, range is not an issue. As I said, I plan to rent for trips and, even driving like I stole it, I still have plenty of electrons for my local driving needs. But if I had to make a lot of trips (for example, someone with a sales territory), I would have stuck with my PHEV. Since I do need nor care about range, I love my GV60P.

 

[jeff585]

In the Northeast there has been a definite improvement versus a few months ago. Not saying all is well or that they are anywhere close to Tesla's Supercharger reliability, but before you could pretty much count on there being an issue with one or more dispensers at any given station at any time. The other thing I noticed is when an individual dispenser is not working there is now a much greater chance EA's Customer Service can quickly reset it. Also in the past it was not unusual for a charging session to fail to start without multiple attempts being made. That's now the exception versus the rule. Finally I noticed this year EA seemed to be far less affected by very cold weather, and this year (especially the last month) has been much colder versus last. Part of the improvement might be that I'm more adept at using EA now versus a year ago.

 

[Husky]

Sounds hopeful. Maybe all the bad press is having an effect.

 

[Grayson]

I always read plugshare comments to see if a station has fast charging and plan accordingly. For the road trip this past weekend, I used the EAs at Abingdon MD and Somerdale NJ and both were fast. I peaked at 235 kW at Abingdon and 197 kW at Somerdale. I do wish that every EA would charge fast so that I don't have to pick stations beforehand.

 

[jeff585]

I always read plugshare comments to see if a station has fast charging and plan accordingly. For the road trip this past weekend, I used the EAs at Abingdon MD and Somerdale NJ and both were fast. I peaked at 235 kW at Abingdon and 197 kW at Somerdale. I do wish that every EA would charge fast so that I don't have to pick stations beforehand.

Yeah I often find Plugshare comments to be useful too.

 

[Husky]

We need more of this!

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/241?utm_id=Harrison+St

 

[Artie Shane]

We need more of this!

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/241?utm_id=Harrison+St

I agree.
And more attention paid to stations that already exist.

 

[Looney100]

I’d be happy if the existing ones just performed as they’re supposed to.

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[Husky]

That would be nice, they definitely need to put some effort into getting their existing chargers to be reliable.
But I can't help but wonder if this new "flagship" station is a sign of what's to come, where customers have a place to hangout and stay warm (or cool) while they charge, with WiFi, restrooms, etc... At least until we have batteries (and chargers) that can charge in under ten minutes or so.

 

[skiingj]

Looks like you have a single lane to line up when all the chargers are full or broke lol. I like the single lane queue concept. Like others have said it would be nice if the 60 percent of chargers in my area worked and the other 40 percent were really "Hyper Fast".

 

[Husky]

I think we'll see the whole charging experience improve and really evolve in the coming decade. With EVs finally becoming mainstream (and mandated in many areas by 2035), we're experiencing the biggest change to transportation in our lifetimes.
I just had my solar and EV charger wiring installation inspected this morning. I'm in NH, but the electrician was telling me that in Mass, it's code that all new homes have an outlet in the garage for an EV charger. It reminded me of when (20 years ago?) new homes had Ethernet outlets in most rooms. Technology changes fast these days!

 

[Bob Foster]

That would be nice, they definitely need to put some effort into getting their existing chargers to be reliable.
But I can't help but wonder if this new "flagship" station is a sign of what's to come, where customers have a place to hangout and stay warm (or cool) while they charge, with WiFi, restrooms, etc... At least until we have batteries (and chargers) that can charge in under ten minutes or so.

I doubt that many of us will see this in the next 10 years or more.

 

[Husky]

I'm not as skeptical. Ten years is a long time in tech these days. With EV sales ramping up quickly, there will be more opportunity (and profit) to be had in the charging business. Look how far they've come in the last ten years, and look at the slope of that "curve". Imagine extrapolating that another ten years.

 

[skiingj]

CNET just posted an article about the new SF EA station.

This Massive Indoor EV Hub Is the Nicest Charging Station I've Visited

With fast charging, 24/7 security, lounges and free Wi-Fi, Electrify America's flagship station in San Francisco is pretty sweet. Now build more of them!

www.cnet.com

I got a laugh out of this comment: "And because there's an attendant on site, EA expects that this will be one of the best maintained stations in its network, which should improve downtime and help guarantee the fastest charge possible."

haha. Thousands of faulty inoperable chargers in their network which customers contact EA about and there so called operations center and they need an "attendant" onsite to make things better. lol

 

[Bob Foster]

They could use a team of people (1,000) or more to inspect stations on a routine basis. As for calling them when you're at a broken station, well good luck with that. I recently waited for 20 minutes and hung up. What makes the wait time for help so bad is these people work from home! You can believe this or not but a year ago I was on a call with Amazon support and kept hearing a rooster crow. The tech person admitted to me that I wasn't crazy, she was at home, and it was her rooster.

 

[Artie Shane]

They could use a team of people (1,000) or more to inspect stations on a routine basis. As for calling them when you're at a broken station, well good luck with that. I recently waited for 20 minutes and hung up. What makes the wait time for help so bad is these people work from home! You can believe this or not but a year ago I was on a call with Amazon support and kept hearing a rooster crow. The tech person admitted to me that I wasn't crazy, she was at home, and it was her rooster.

True. I have heard roosters on more than just Amazon support calls. I've heard dogs and babies and other 'home' type sounds. Just a bit disconcerting.
Although the bottom line is whether or not they can assist. If they cannot, it's an irritant. If they can, the sounds become somewhat quaint and humorous.

 

[jeff585]

As for calling them when you're at a broken station, well good luck with that. I recently waited for 20 minutes and hung up.

My experiences calling EA's Customer Support have actually been pretty decent. Not once have I had to wait more than a minute or two to speak with someone and none of their agents have had heavy accents. Yes I've had to spend several minutes on hold while they attempted to reboot a dispenser, but with two exceptions they have successfully been able to reboot or they have quickly been able to tell me the dispenser was not going to be rebootable.

My complaint is that if they have the ability to perform a reboot remotely, why don't their systems preemptively notify them a reboot is needed, or better yet automatically perform a reboot? That should be easily achievable with today's technology versus waiting for a customer to report an outage.

Sure sometimes a dispenser cannot be repaired without an in-person repair visit, but much of the time a reboot does work.

 

[Bob Foster]

I think it would be nice if there was a mile remaining miles alert that you could set. With all the technology this would be a nice feature. "Just-in-case"