New EA Chargers Are Failing in the Cold - Fixed!!?

[downranger12]

At least they are consistent!

Christmas weekend trip gave me two easy 350kwh charges at EA Walmart in Madison WI,$ coming and going from Dubuque IA to Milwaukee.
Milwaukee Walmart had 15 chargers of 150 to 350. Tried five of them to no avail. Phoned in to reboot a 350 and got it to work. Spent 1 hour and twenty minutes to achieve 33 minutes of charge. Zero degrees with a 25 mph wind, lot of truck movement in tight quarters not suited well to the R1T left front port. Efficiency down 20 to 33 per cent in cold weather near zero. Still, not a problem if you have access to charge station.

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[Aag12]

After going 1300 miles 'halfway through a 2600 rt road trip, I am not looking forward to my trip back. I told the wife it was a mistake to take the rivian and we should have takn Our other gas car. Taking the rivian added 35% time to the road trip (conservative estimate)

Issues I had on the way: dcfc was much slower than advertised due to single digit weather. Range was low, due to cold, so we stopped a lot more, car fans getting loud and vibrate the car when at 80% (ticket opened), drove slower than I normally would due to range concerns.

Luckily every ea charger we stopped at had a 150/350 available and didn't have any real issues (other than switching spots when the initial one we tried didn't work)

This is just the reality of electric cars. I still love my car, but will keep it for <600 mile trips and not the long hauler trips like I'm on now.

 

[Tahoe Man]

Since we tow in the mountains we've decided to hold off and take a close look at the Ram Revolution when that becomes available. Apparently it will have a 200kwh battery. With the range extender option, towing, cold weather driving and road trips will be the major benefits.
We'll see, but not expecting anything for a while.

 

[NY_Rob]

As evidenced by actual experiences by members here from varied locations across the US, our CCS network just isn't ready for prime time yet.

If you're set on the EV lifestyle and are adamant about road tripping with it... the only safe choice presently is Tesla. Even at negative single digit temps where EA stations were not usable, the Tesla SC stations were working fine.

 

[jjswan33]

As evidenced by actual experiences by members here from varied locations across the US, our CCS network just isn't ready for prime time yet.

If you're set on the EV lifestyle and are adamant about road tripping with it... the only safe choice presently is Tesla. Even at negative single digit temps where EA stations were not usable, the Tesla SC stations were working fine.

You're stating opinion as fact. Just saying.

 

[frostbit3]

New topic on Reddit speaking about how terrible EA as well, has over 650 comments and isn't even 24 hours old. I'd say EA has had and still has an issue.

 

[Ngkgb]

Giving people 2-3 years free charging is a huge issue. Makes people who don’t know a thing about EV or charging buy electric. Last week my wife took her Mach E to Redlands and needed to charge before coming back. The EA chargers she stopped at at two people
Charging with SOC above 95% just sitting in their cars eating lunch. Wife asked if they were done and both were very rude. They were probably just charging to 100% because “it’s free”. People need more education.

 

[NY_Rob]

New topic on Reddit speaking about how terrible EA as well, has over 650 comments and isn't even 24 hours old. I'd say EA has had and still has an issue.

I read 137 posts there and stopped.. 136 negative, 1 positive.

So there is a bright side I guess

One of my favorite posts:
"Quite crazy that EA absolutely fails at all every single aspect of their chargers when it comes to reliability. I mean how do you mess up an RFID reader???????? I honestly can not comprehend how you can get that wrong."

 

[jjswan33]

I read 137 posts there and stopped.. 136 negative, 1 positive.

So there is a bright side I guess

One of my favorite posts:
"Quite crazy that EA absolutely fails at all every single aspect of their chargers when it comes to reliability. I mean how do you mess up an RFID reader???????? I honestly can not comprehend how you can get that wrong."

Crowd sourced opinions on Reddit... even better.

 

[NY_Rob]

Yes, every poster is wrong

 

[RWerksman]

I just returned from a 500+ mile trip over the holiday weekend where I exclusively charged at EA stations, and frankly, while my experience wasn't bad, it sure as hell wasn't positive.

• Most of the stations that I charged at had 'Unavailable' chargers or stations that experienced other issues with payment, card readers, or communication back to the mothership for pricing or membership information.
• Almost every visit had a wait. No station had more than four operational chargers. My final visit had no wait as someone just pulled out. The longest wait I saw was 6 deep. (I arrived 3rd)
• Every station was charging slow. I finally hit over 200kw on the 9th (and final) charger that I connected to after another at the same station topped out at 120kw.

It's also worth noting that the number of people that I saw charging to 100% was entirely too damn high. Lots of new people charging at 15kw trying to burn those free electrons.

 

[Tahoe Man]

I just returned from a 500+ mile trip over the holiday weekend where I exclusively charged at EA stations, and frankly, while my experience wasn't bad, it sure as hell wasn't positive.

• Most of the stations that I charged at had 'Unavailable' chargers or stations that experienced other issues with payment, card readers, or communication back to the mothership for pricing or membership information.
• Almost every visit had a wait. No station had more than four operational chargers. My final visit had no wait as someone just pulled out. The longest wait I saw was 6 deep. (I arrived 3rd)
• Every station was charging slow. I finally hit over 200kw on the 9th (and final) charger that I connected to after another at the same station topped out at 120kw.

It's also worth noting that the number of people that I saw charging to 100% was entirely too damn high. Lots of new people charging at 15kw trying to burn those free electrons.

Sorry about that but thanks for the report.

Can you estimate what the longest wait time was? Over an hour? Were the chargers close to anything worthwhile to do or eat at? Sometimes it's impossible to do that as you have to babysit the charger and make sure it doesn't crap out.

 

[RWerksman]

Sorry about that but thanks for the report.

Can you estimate what the longest wait time was? Over an hour? Were the chargers close to anything worthwhile to do or eat at? Sometimes it's impossible to do that as you have to babysit the charger and make sure it doesn't crap out.

Longest wait time was around 45 minutes. On average, it was 20-30 minutes.

Most of the EA stations were at a Sheetz. One was on the opposite end of a shopping plaza that had a Panera in it.

Over the entire week, I only logged one ticket with no response yet. I don't know if the folks I helped logged tickets of their own. All of the unavailable chargers were already listed as so in the app, but not so in the Rivian nav.

 

[WSea]

Currently on return seattle San Diego road-trip. EA has been great! Did have an issue tonight in Anderson, ca. 1 charger broken, 2 taken by electric buses charging to 100 on delivery trip to Everett, wa and then the typical ID4 charging to 100. Had to wait 40 minutes- first time waiting. Tried to explain to the owner that it would be faster to not charge past 80 at 40kw and just stop in yreka 130 miles north. He got pissy and said he’s charging full.
sacremento rei RAN was awesome. Can’t wait for more!
also, super impressed we were able to do San Diego/Malibu rt without charging

 

[CrazyOne]

EA has defenders? Seriously?

VW fans, may be?

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