1,000 Electrify America Chargers Coming to 200 TA Rest Stops Across the U.S.

[Marchin_MTB]

this negative ? this was nothing more than a lighthearted jab it’s a known FACT that EA chargers (at least with Rivian) are very unreliable and often times don’t work. So much so that people will sometimes skip them altogether.

I was simply stating that instead of a new roll out that that they should pour money into EXISTING infrastructure. As current/future EV owners it does us zero good if half the new AND the old chargers are broken when the time comes vs. old ones that work now and new ones that work later.

EA (and others) need to bring maintenance and repair operations in house. And they need to invest in reliability where that reliability is defined in a user-centric way. Still, it’s good to see more locations rolling out as well. All these things are important.

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[Marchin_MTB]

I always thought it would be genius for Starbucks to have chargers. They are everywhere and I think the perfect target audience for EVs and charging. They were way ahead of the game on free wifi, figured they would do the charging too.

I did hear they were working on it.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90730929/starbucks-wants-to-become-the-gas-station-of-the-future-for-evs

 

[NC-Rivian]

Agree, but the Texas spelling police offer a friendly amendment that it is Bucc-ee's. And it would be fantastic if Bucc-ee's (which has super clean rest rooms and good food) added chargers to its stations.

Buc-ee's (only one "c", not two) is installing Tesla SC. Haven't see a CCS at one.

 

[zefram47]

Agree, but there are no Buckey's with charging stations that I am aware of. Nor are there any Buckey's on 287 running north to Amarillo. If they put a few charging stations at TA centers on that route heading to New Mexico and Colorado, this will be a huge win for us in DFW.

There are supposed to be some coming.

 

[Autolycus]

I’m sure this expansion will tap into all the federal funds sent to states for the chargers every 50 miles initiative. Whatever it takes though.

Maybe, maybe not. It will be a state-by-state question. Some states will do piecemeal deals that might work out for this type of EA-TA partnership. Others will contract out the whole thing to their main power company or to a single specific vender. I hope most states do a mix. Funds for EA-TA partnership, funds for other national networks, funds for some towns, etc. will help get coverage in better places faster.

 

[zefram47]

Honestly, I'm shocked that none of the big truck stop operators have done this until now. They're kind of the ideal place to put chargers, especially since they know they'll have a captive audience for 15-60 min. EA partnering with TA is nice, but we've also got EVGo/GM partnering with Pilot/FlyingJ which is great. At least once EVGo builds out their side we may have a second CCS network for cross-country travel. At the moment we're all dependent on EA for that. Now we just need to get Love's in on this action.

 

[Alchemy8279]

Maybe, maybe not. It will be a state-by-state question. Some states will do piecemeal deals that might work out for this type of EA-TA partnership. Others will contract out the whole thing to their main power company or to a single specific vender. I hope most states do a mix. Funds for EA-TA partnership, funds for other national networks, funds for some towns, etc. will help get coverage in better places faster.

I’m all for the states using the funding to fund stations along the interstates and awarding funds to companies like EA. I just hope there are uptime or other performance metrics tied to the stations that are using our taxpayer dollars to get built and fund private entities.

 

[Autolycus]

I’m all for the states using the funding to fund stations along the interstates and awarding funds to companies like EA. I just hope there are uptime or other performance metrics tied to the stations that are using our taxpayer dollars to get built and fund private entities.

Agree 100% that any state that doesn't include some sort of up-time and reliability standards with enforceable penalties is super foolish.

 

[atrusler]

so far on my handful of road trips the EA chargers have been the best in terms of speed. I hit the Walmart outside of Waco last week and used the new EA charges. Hit a peak speed of 408 while charging and the slowest was 170 once I was over 70% charge. Much faster than the older units.

 

[Tucker74]

The Buc-ee's news is fantastic, looks like Dallas, Houston & San Antonio will covered by a Buc-ee's from Austin.

 

[zefram47]

so far on my handful of road trips the EA chargers have been the best in terms of speed. I hit the Walmart outside of Waco last week and used the new EA charges. Hit a peak speed of 408 while charging and the slowest was 170 once I was over 70% charge. Much faster than the older units.

Reference kilowatts (kW)...miles per hour is meaningless when talking about charging.

 

[atrusler]

Reference kilowatts (kW)...miles per hour is meaningless when talking about charging.

How is it meaningless when talking about how quickly you're able to charge? My point was that on the new EA chargers it took me about half the time to charge as normal.

 

[azbill]

Honestly, I'm shocked that none of the big truck stop operators have done this until now. They're kind of the ideal place to put chargers, especially since they know they'll have a captive audience for 15-60 min. EA partnering with TA is nice, but we've also got EVGo/GM partnering with Pilot/FlyingJ which is great. At least once EVGo builds out their side we may have a second CCS network for cross-country travel. At the moment we're all dependent on EA for that. Now we just need to get Love's in on this action.

There are already Loves truck stops with EA charegers.

 

[Autolycus]

There are already Loves truck stops with EA charegers.

If half of all Loves, TAs, and Pilot truck stops got good chargers, we'd be in pretty good shape along all the interstates and busiest US highways.

 

[TexasCrane]

I wouldn’t hold my breath for ccs fast chargers at buc-ees. The Bastrop one on the linked map only has Tesla superchargers. It also looked like super chargers going in at the temple location when I stopped there in December. Maybe they’re adding ccs chargers in addition to the Tesla ones?

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