Electrify America PlugShare Trends by Region: Sept 1 Update

[Budman]

UPDATED ~Sept 1, 2024:
* Originally posted in June with 2 months of data. Updated charts around Sept 1st to now show a 5 month trend line.

* Sept Update Notes:
- The Plugshare averages show consisted difference by region.
- Generally steady or decreasing scores across all regions, no region showed improvement in the 5 month trendlines.
- Perhaps a season trend seen with lower scores in the hottest months, will be more clear as we head to fall and winter.


* Disclaimers on charts:
- I'm limited in Plugshare to define a rectangular area for the geographic region, so some areas of the US and even entire states get left out.
- The date for the data summarization is approximately the 1st of every month but could be +/- 5 days from the 1st.

Original Post: (charts have been replaced with the new Sept 1 update)

The Elon Musk Supercharger team hack job motivated me to become more interested in the performance of Electrify America, the 2nd largest nation wide fast charging network. Anecdotal reports suggest the reliability has improved recently. I'm not a fan of anecdotal, I wanted something a bit more quantifiable.

As imperfect as it is, PlugShare is our best resource to judge charger reliability. I partitioned the United States into 9 regions and used the PlugShare score filter to get the number of stations with scores of 10, 9, 8 etc. I did this on or around the 1st of May and 1st of June. I plan to continue doing this on the first of the month into the future. Hopefully people find it useful and maybe applies a little more consumer pressure on EA to continue striving for better reliabilty.

A lot of graphs below.

The top line result is shown here; the average PlugShare score by region. A lot of regional variability..... The central US and Mountain regions fares well while Southern California not so much. As a resident of the Upper Midwest this make sense, as everything is better in the Upper Midwest.... But I suppose you could argue that the equipment in Southern California is older on average and gets heavier use so is more likely to malfunction. But I will stick with "Everything is just better in the Upper Midwest".

Next are charts showing the percent of stations in a given region getting PlugShare score of 10, 9, 8, etc.

Lastly, screen shots of the PlugShare page showing the boundaries of the regions I'm using;


NorthEast Region

SouthEast Region:

NorthCentral Region;

SouthCentral Region:

\

Mountain North:

SouthWest Region:

Washington and Oregon:

SF to LA:

LA to SD:

Sponsored

 

[RedRaiderRivian]

Thank you for posting. This is a great analysis and information. I concur with the EA ratings in the South Central region as I have never had to leave a station without successfully charging. I have had to try multiple chargers a few times but I am usually successful at the first charger.

 

[jjswan33]

The fact that the west coast has the lowest scores suggests these ratings are due to the stations being busy more than them being broken in my opinion. People are more likely to report a broken charger if they have to wait or leave without charging.

 

[SANZC02]

The fact that the west coast has the lowest scores suggests these ratings are due to the stations being busy more than them being broken in my opinion. People are more likely to report a broken charger if they have to wait or leave without charging.

@Budman Thanks for posting, it is interesting to see most of the averages are 8+, will be interesting to see this over wider ranges in the future posts

I agree, the biggest issue at least from what I see in Southwest is there are so many cars with free charging that the stations are usually full with people charging to 90%+.

I frequently drive by several EA chargers in Orange County, CA, during the day they are usually full so the stations are working just not available.

 

[COdogman]

Great idea to look at this. Thanks for putting in the time.

I haven't used any EA stations outside of my Mountain North region (CO front range), but I would have to agree with their high ratings. Only a couple times have I had to wait in line and/ or found chargers offline. I wonder what, if anything they do differently here that helps? This part of CO has high EV adoption and lots of them get free charging at these stations yet they are still avoiding some of the issues seen by CA. Probably just a difference of overall volume.

 

[edman007]

The fact that the west coast has the lowest scores suggests these ratings are due to the stations being busy more than them being broken in my opinion. People are more likely to report a broken charger if they have to wait or leave without charging.

I think it can be both. The oldest stations, with the most use, were built in the highest demand areas. So it's not just they are busy, but they are undersized, and built with old unreliable HW.

I'm in the northeast, and the chargers close to NYC really suck as do many of the ones in the best spots. I think the problem is a lot of them were city projects 5-10 years ago, so they put in 2x 50kW chargers if the highest traffic spots every. Now those chargers are practically always half broken, always in use, and when they work, it's always a miserably slow experience.

I think it's partly a plugshare scoring issue, a pair of 50kW chargers shouldn't have the same plugscore as the lot across the street with two dozen 350kW chargers. The plugscore is only supposed to track if the charger works or not, but users want to know if it's worth charging there, and they rate them low when the experience sucks.

 

[jjswan33]

I think it can be both. The oldest stations, with the most use, were built in the highest demand areas. So it's not just they are busy, but they are undersized, and built with old unreliable HW.

I guess I could also dispute this assumption. I don't believe that the hardware on the west coast is older. Many of the sites have either been newly installed or replaced with new cabinets within the last couple years.

In my immediate area:

Sandy, OR - New
Madras, OR - New
Troutdale, OR - Updated cabinets
Bend, OR - Updated cabinets
Hood River, OR - Updated cabinets

I am sure I could find some older cabinets around Portland but I couldn't tell you where without hunting them down.

 

[KBabione]

We use the EA chargers when traveling in PA and surrounding states. I'd give them a 10 for all of the experiences we've had based on:

• Not having to wait for a charger (we used the charger in Clarion, PA twice on a trip to Erie and only saw one other car charging)
• Being able to get a 350KW unit most of the time, and a 150KW the other
• Paying a $7/month membership to save more than that the first time we add 40% to the battery

Now - one of the EA chargers we frequently hit is at the EA headquarters in Reston, VA (where my father lives). We drive 2.5 hours there from PA, plug in, and walk over to the nearby Wegmans to use the facilities and pick up anything we need. 20 minutes later we walk back to the car and we're pretty much ready to go. They also have over a dozen L2 chargers in the lot. If I had an issue about which I could whine, it's that they don't always seem to recognize the EA card in my Apple Wallet. I used the EA charger in Haymarket VA on Sunday and finally had to tap my credit card (which meant no membership discount) on the reader to be able to charge. We only needed about to add about 15% so the total charge was about $10 so missing the discount wasn't a big deal.

 

[spryde]

This thread compelled me to register. Where does Michigan lie in those regions as neither NE or NC have it listed?

 

[Budman]

This thread compelled me to register. Where does Michigan lie in those regions as neither NE or NC have it listed?

My apologies to the wolverines, Michigan did not get surveyed. The PlugShare filter craps out if more than 250 sites are in the region of the map being viewed. To keep it under 250 all the time and to have clearly defined geographic boundaries I could replicate each time, a few states got excluded.

 

[Blueassassin]

Is there anyone tracking average fast charging pricing? Would love to see that in graph form and by region everyone knows gas is more in CA but is Charging cheaper there vrs Indiana?

 

[Hillbilly]

Yeah... Confirms that EA sucks down here in the South. Wonderful that some of you have had great experiences, but didn't try and suggest that your experiences are the norm.

 

[COdogman]

Is there anyone tracking average fast charging pricing? Would love to see that in graph form and by region everyone knows gas is more in CA but is Charging cheaper there vrs Indiana?

The EA station that I use the most is $.56/ kWh (pass price) and average gas prices in CO are $3.28 right now.

 

[Cycliste]

Thank goodness for RAN in California (the California Adventure Network) because EA is not so good.

I’m checking Groveland status every day, and Lee Vining once Tioga Pass opens.

 

[BigSkies]

Thank you for compiling this! It’s good data.

I am somewhat pleased to see that what I’ve been anecdotally telling people is actually supported by data. That is, the chargers in the west are pretty good, except LA sucks (my personal experience).

I only wish historical data was easily available. The problems at EA were clearly worse a year ago, but I can’t think of a good way to quantify that.

Sponsored