You should require ALL of your executives to make one cross-country trip every year - and assign them random routes so they aren't all going to the same chargers that others before them have found to be reliable.
Agree. Or better yet why doesn’t out of spec Dave just stop at Reston Virginia on one of his trips from Connecticut to Florida and interview him and show him the lucid. It would be interesting to see the lucid charging there at the headquarters to find out if the yo-yo is only a lucid architecture problem.
Wow! What a great Ad! That is NOT the typical experience I have seen online & in person. I have seen many units (signet) throttled down due to “updates”, Broken handles, out of order units, graffiti, Slow units, etc. etc., etc. This is not the case at Tesla Superchargers. Good luck taking over as this company definitely needs a change! Your 2nd order of business…..Look at what Tesla is doing right. They just work! Period. Again, Great Ad!
If the software crashes on a charger, it should be detected and restarted automatically. No need for someone to waltz up confused and have to call your call center just to hit a reboot button. Fix that!
I hate Otto (Airplane reference), it can also shut down a session it 'thought' was bad and if you are not there to restart... 🤥 IMHO all dispensers should report home every few minutes with their status (waiting, rate, vehicle, SOC. When a Rivian only get 50KW at a low SOC, an alarm should pop as CS)
Like others, I'm happy to see the transparency surrounding throttled or non-functional chargers. I recently switched to a CCS EV after eight years of Tesla, and the charging experience is incredibly worse. I've never been stuck, but in my experience over the few months I've had the new car is that only 40% of the EA stations I've been to were 100% functional. If you have the time, borrow a Tesla and try the same trip. In eight years, I never once encountered a non-functional supercharger. You already have a head start with the number of stations, you just need to get them to work.
I've encountered non-functional Tesla superchargers, but the fact that there are so many of them makes it a non-issue. The whole Tesla supercharger experience is seamless.
Incredible transparency from EA to make note of the difficulties they ran into along the way. Many other companies would have edited out encountering slow/malfunctioning chargers. Credit to Rob and the team for taking the time to do this and share their experience honestly. Gives me faith that they are truly working to improve the infrastructure
@@JosephHerzog I hope you aren't planning on road tripping with the lightning.. Except you wanna queue at EA Station thinking you're crossing the border back from Mexico..
Well, no excuses now. He's experienced the problems firsthand. Let's see if he will turn things around and improve the horrendous Electrify America experience. I won't hold my breath.
Are you serious, Kyle? With all the trouble you guys had on your recent cannonball trip and the hell your dad went through on his CT-FL-NJ trip, how can you give EA such an easy pass? You have been telling your viewers not to buy CCS cars (buy Teslas only), primarily because of the EA charging unreliability. And now you're patting EA on the back for a great video??? Very disappointed. 😠
@@dpsingh6421 you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. it is much easier to get what you want by being polite rather than by being rude. The CEO admits to the work they have cut out for them. You don’t need to throw it in their face
@@Jeddin I completely agree. There is no need to be rude. However, that doesn't mean that EA should be given a free pass either. Kyle and crew (including his dad) have done a great job documenting this situation for several years (not just with EA, but the other CCS charging providers too). But instead of seeing improvements, we see further deterioration. Just go back and watch their road-tripping videos for just the last year. And for EA to put out a PR video that glosses over the problem, under the guise of addressing these issues, is very disingenuous. I don't see anything wrong with holding these service providers accountable, as long as it's done in a civil manner.
Props to Rob for stepping into the shoes of their customers and experience the good and bad of their network first hand. Look forward to seeing how he can turn things around!
It looks like Rob was about as transparent in this video about network issues as you could reasonably expect a CEO to be. He’s not going to trash talk his own network for a hundred different reasons including that it just wouldn’t be productive for him to do as the leader of the company that needs to get everyone motivated to work on this stuff. From what I saw though it’s clear that he and the company are aware that there are issues and I’m hopeful that they can make some progress in the near future. Am I confident that they will? That’s a different question and on that I’m not as sure. I don’t doubt they WANT to fix this stuff, now I just want to see the results. Can they execute?
@@ultrastoat3298 I think it’s a bit in between. I’ve done about 7k miles of trips off the Tesla network over the past two years. EA mostly works and never left me stranded. It has definitely had issues and caused frustration, but I was always able to charge eventually.
@@ultrastoat3298 What a bunch of nonsense. Ask people who aren't trying to get clicks or trying to pump Tesla stock who have taken CCS road trips. My experience, and the experience of people I've talked to, has been similar to his. Inconveniences are hardly a "dumpster fire".
@@brendykes1202 I agree. Made a trip from Salt Lake City, to Nashville, and then to Tampa in a Rivian and while there were a couple of frustrating EA stations where a few of the chargers were down. The majority of the time it worked after a attempt or two to charge. The bigger issue I had was with the EA phone application not wanting to communicate that the payment was successful to the charger. It was about 2,200 miles. I waited in line twice (once because of a full station, and once because 2 of 4 chargers were down). At no point did I really think that I was not going to be able to get a charge.
We are constantly striving to be the best network we can be for our EV drivers. Staying in touch with what a real customer experiences is an important part of that! -ZA
+1, need to go to the tourist locations like Florida. Hertz in Orlando rents Polestar EVs and tourist try to use a credit card and fail. Need to remove the credit card readers and force people to use the app or fix the cc readers. I’ve talked to many that tried an EV and were turned off because they couldn’t charge. Usually only one charger out of 6 at a charge location have a working CC machine. Also need webcams at chargers. Hate that app will say 3 avail then get there and there are 3 people struggling to charge and long line to charge
I would like to see idle fees come back. There are far too many drivers who don't bother to unplug or move once their session is done, and it does nobody any good to have spots occupied by people that aren't even using the thing.
Hi, Eric. While Electrify America does reserve the right to charge idle fees, we are not activating them at this time. We are continuously evaluating our idle fee policy and may elect to reinstate them or make changes in the future. We hope the more we educate our EV community the more likely they will be to understand the etiquette that comes along with being part of it. -ZA
@@electrifyamerica That is a recipe for disaster. Without penalties, inconsiderate drivers (of which there are far too many) will have no incentive to unplug and move along.
+1 on this. Sadly, this is becoming necessary to encourage charging etiquette. In a perfect world, if you were waiting at a charger for someone who is idling, the idle fees would be credited to your account ;)
@@electrifyamerica Idle fees is a MUST also idle fees needs to be very high like $5 a minute. This will force people to pay attention to their car and move them when finished. This ONLY helps EV drivers.
Rob is leading by example by choosing to drive from LA to Virginia. He didn't have to make this long exhausting drive, but in doing so he learned a lot about the network from first hand experience, and that insight can only lead to better things to come for EA. I'm rooting for the team to succeed and conquer the challenges the network has had.
As a Rivian R1T owner, I absolutely want EA and other companies to succeed. It’s a two way street, in that they have to have infrastructure where I want to be, and I have to use it so they can get a return on their investment. I’m hoping more Sheetz in PA will incorporate charging stations, definitely my preferred destinations!
We appreciate your support, David. Your site request has been sent over to our team for further review. We always want to be where EV drivers needs us! ⚡️ -ZA
@@electrifyamerica please stop putting your charger in Wal-Mart. Many EV are very expensive and some EV even cost more than 100k dollars. People who drive luxury EV in Mercedes, BMW and Porsche brand absolutely do NOT want to hang out at Wal-Mart parking lot or its store. Why u cannot partner with Target, Costco and Whole food?
I absolutely disagree. I think partnering with Walmart and other grocery chains is definitely the way to go. Grocery stores are ALL over America. You have to remember about mom and the kids charging safely too. Buy groceries and charge your car at the same time. Makes sense to me!
@@cynthiarafferty7662 I don’t object to other places, but I only need charging help when I’m road tripping and away from home. When driving through PA, saw many Sheetz signs close to major highways.
@@str8ballyn because he’s tested tons of locations in depth and can provide useful criticism to improve the network. We all want EA to succeed.. knowing what to fix and improve is a great start to doing that, and Kyle can help to prioritize based on his extensive experience.
@@str8ballyn Because Kyle probably the most qualified to give real feedback to the issues. He just did a Cannonball in a Lucid, and EA was a nightmare with the 800Volt cars. He knows more about EV's than just about anyone. I mean The CEO of Polestar loaned him his personal Polestar 1 from there Heritage Museum, they tossed a new battery in it... Just so he could use it as a spotter and Charger check car... Porsche loaned him a Taycan to so a Cannonball Run.. Who else is given that access???? nobody.. EA just does not want to talk to them,.. because he is very critical of the dumb shit they have done.
Glad you had no major issues, wish that was everyone's experience. While I had minimal problems driving from CT to FL, your Brunswick GA location is in serious need of help. In February when I did the trip it took me over and hour on three separate chargers and five sessions to even charge my Ioniq 5 to 50%. I know of many people that continue to have problems there. In Jacksonville FL, you just put all new chargers in and they were great for a week. I have seen speeds there of over 240Kw at times, but at other times I struggle to get over 75KW even with no other cars there. It too needs some TLC to figure out what is wrong. Also when the mall is open at the Avenues mall it is impossible to safely back into the chargers - get some video of it and see what is wrong with the layout.
We appreciate your honest feedback, Howard. Since February we have done some maintenance to our Brunswick, GA site and it should be running as expected. We also have active investigations into chargers at our Jacksonville, FL site as well addressing charging speeds. Your feedback in regards to the layout of the station has also been sent to our team. Feedback like yours ensures we can become the reliable and easy-to-use network the EV community deserves. Thank you for taking the time to reach out. -ZA
@@electrifyamerica Regarding the Brunswick, GA site. This site is NOT working properly and hasn't been since February. The units are still derated to 50kW and are not delivering that much power to vehicles. I was at the chargers today and an Ioniq 5 driver was getting 25 kW on the 350 kW chargers. I believe they tried all 4 chargers and finally just decided to sit on the 2nd 350kW charger and accept the slow charge. I told them the Pooler, GA EA stations should be much, much better. The family was going to get just enough charge to get to Pooler. ALSO, the nice folks from Out Of Spec reviews (Out of Spec Dave), just put up a video naming the Brunswick, GA EA site the worst he's ever experienced in all the years of his EV ownership. What he shows is exactly what we have all been seeing here in Brunswick, GA. I think the EA team needs to take a new look at our site and truly fix this glaring sore point for EA on the eastern corridor. By the way, your phone customer support has always been fantastic and we truly love EA, just not at our home town. - Lee
Congratulations on the new role, Rob! Seems like a fun road trip, and you chose a great car for it. I love the "Undercover CEO" call. 🙂 I've also provided a lot of feedback to EA over the years, but I would give some general feedback here for some things you want to consider: -No more than 100 miles between stations on ALL Interstates and U.S. highways (e.g., we still have 300+ mile gaps in California of all places). -Increased emphasis on full, pull-through stalls and canopies. What we've seen so far has been great, but we need more of it. -Set a 10-stall minimum site size for heavily trafficked Interstate corridors (e.g, along the busiest sections of I-5, I-10, I-40, I-80, I-90, I-95). -Limit "free-to-charge" programs by setting limits that prevent owners from abusing that access and squatting at chargers.
My recommendations for electrify america. #1. Please implement something similar to evgo autocharge for those of us that don't support plug in charge (hyundai ioniq 5, genesis gv60, chevy bolt to name a few) where you fingerprint the cars hardware and attach it to an EA account so it automatically charges the payment method on file. #2 implement battery storage to lower peak demand charges to possibly lower electric pricing for people charging OR to make it more profitable to improve reliability of current infrastructure. #3 Add canopies that provide light, shelter AND solar panels
Rob, thanks...I have had an VW ID4 for 2 years now....keep it up and increase the quality and reliability...you have a good start to a fantastic infrastructure...big supporter here!
Good luck being the CEO. Allow me to share my experience. Personally, I have to frequently travel from Nyc to Pittsburgh using the I-80. Roughly twice a month back and forth each time. Let me just say the experience with EA DC charging is not the best. I have had more bad charging experience than good ones. I wish there's more maintenance to the chargers as it seems they are, just like everything else, suspect to wear and tear. A lot of times the chargers just disconnects out of the blue and stops charging the car, without anyone touching it. I am supposed to relax for a bit while traveling, but with situations like this I am focused on ensuring that the chargers don't disconnect charging and it's getting to the point it's annoying and time consuming. I feel this is something that has to do with the quality of the charging cables, possibly from the wear and tear on them.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Omar. We understand the importance in providing a relaxing experience for the EV community and are always happy to receive feedback. Our team is working hard to improve our network and feedback like yours helps us get closer to achieving our goals. Thanks again and have a great rest of your day! 😊 -CS
This was fantastic to watch and we've visited many of those same stations! We'd love to have you on our channel again and talk some more about EA's expansion, uptime standards, and more!
I love it. This is a good way for the CEO to experience the state of electric charging. I use EA almost exclusively and there some very nice charging stations such as the one in Baker California and the one at Walmart in Barstow. Needles is a disaster and has been so for a whole.
Yes. This road trip seemed to be the exception to what the normal EA charging experience has been for most users. I hope the trip back opens his eyes to rhe real experience.
Kudos for taking the trip and sharing your experiences. Encourage your direct reports to do the same. ---"An organization only does well those things the boss checks." General Bruce Clarke
Bravo for the courage to road trip on your network. EA is my go-to network, so I will be pleased to see it improve over time. I noticed a lot of night shots-which is what happens to me when I road trip in my Audi e-tron. When it works, it is magic. When it doesn’t, it is 45 minutes on the phone rebooting the station with customer service. That really extends a day. That said, technology improves over time. And yes, on the station canopies-rain, snow, glaring sun-it would be nice to charge up where EVs are customer #1, not wedged into a parking lot for the actual business. I look forward to seeing the direction of EA under your leadership.
Great video! I loved the undercover boss style. Was great to see a cross county trip accomplished and that it can be done with Electrify America chargers.
Rob, thank you so much for this. It's so refreshing to see a CEO literally get in the car to see what his business is really about. We just took trip in our EV from LA to Chicago using Electrify America. We followed many of your stops with 1 or 2 revisions. It was one of the most fun things we've ever done! I'm happy to share our documentation of the trip with you to help your efforts.
Great to see Rob on the road using the stations while on a road trip, I wish him all the best. I truly hope this is a change in direction and leadership and not just a PR stunt.
I know I’m watching too many @OutofSpecReviews videos when I start recognizing EA charging stations! Seriously, congrats on the promotion and let’s see if we can kick the service up a few notches…👍
Charger stations definitely need covering like gas stations have. Not only is it nearly impossible trying to plug in while holding an umbrella in the rain, but the extreme heat here in LA causes many of the units to break down constantly. We need a roof structure to park under.
Mr. Barrosa ... I wish you much success in your new position at Electrify America and thank you for being a hands-on CEO. With all due respect to your comments about your recent cross-country trip, I wish you had spent more time discussing the EA charging experience and less describing the lovely vistas and your delicious food experience. Please advise the itinerary for your next trip because I want to tag along and enjoy an almost faultless charging experience. Seriously, I'm not sure how you enjoyed such a productive cross country charging experience because more often than not I am inconvenienced with my EA charging experience.
Before I even started watching this video I thought: Electrify America knows his route and will make sure every stop is perfect so this video will just be a "See, everything is perfect" kinda video. But he had a couple of issues along the way, so props for their honesty. Of course he didn't have as many issues as I've seen Kyle Connor have on his Out of Spec channel. But none the less, he sees some issues and room for improvement.
I'm satisfied with his experience. Same thing happens to all of us: some days are great, some days you're sitting there wondering why the chargers don't reset themselves instead of me having to call. Oh and.....the dang lack of canopies. Hopefully we all see some important changes because, man, it is very scary when you are with your family in your car and the only available station for miles does not work
Thank you for taking that trip. I'm wondering if you'd be able to share some stats? * At what percentage of the stops were all stations working? * At what percentage of the stops were you able to pull over 200kW, since that car will take that much easily? At what percentage of the stops were all the issues already known by telemetry? (Why would you have to call in?)
Rob this was a great video. I think you should continue to do this. People respect this kind of leadership, and also the way you honestly showed issues with some chargers.
This feels like this could be a Netflix doc! Love the camera work, narrative, and overall vibe of this video. More stories like this please! Go Rob and Electrify America!
Thank you to the CEO for making this trip. Please prioritize reliability of your existing stations and make sure when new sites come on line they work flawlessly. In Palo Alto, CA a new site opened about a month ago (Mid town shopping center) and within a week 2 out of the 4 stations broke. Thanks. Keep improving!
I’m super impressed! I had to watch the whole video and respect what you did after getting hired as CEO. Traveled from Tahoe to Montana with Lightning and did just fine with EA.
I appreciate that you did this. Have you seen the Out of Spec Cannonball trip? Would be worth watching to see how the Signet machines really struggled to reach adequate speeds. Also, please talk to your Canadian compatriots and ask them to put in more of your chargers here.
I will say, this video gives me hope for the future of this network. Please also add a few North American Charging Standard (NACS) handles at each location- it’s not going anywhere, and as a Tesla owner, there’s often an EA in a more convenient location for me than a Supercharger. For example, by King’s Island in Ohio, there’s a great Electrify America site by a grocery store where I can get food for the hotel that night, but to get to a Supercharger would be a 20 minute drive.
@@a106glimmerman I have it, it works great! But each stall at that site has two CCS1 cables, only one of which can be used at a time. Considering that NACS is the standard used by the majority of EVs in the US, it makes sense to replace one of the two cables at each stall with a NACS cable. 🙂
@@a106glimmerman I think their new stall design looks really cool, and I hope they can make at least half of their stalls NACS in the future. In this case though, I am referring to the specific site in Mason Ohio which still has the two cable design. Thank you for the link though.
@@AlijahSimon while I agree they are actively replacing all the old chargers like your talking about with the new ones. It would cost more in programing I am sure to do what your asking about. But I do get why you want it.
This was a great video, very well done. It is good to see the new CEO experiencing the product first hand, and interacting with customers directly. However, I would have liked to seen the process for payment and connecting to the car. How did he pay? Credit card? Fob? App? All of the above? I hope it was the last one. Seeing how long it takes, or if retries were needed, would convey the actual experience better.
So great to see this! Nothing like an actual hands-on, long-distance-trip to bring home the reality of the current user experience. I have great hopes for the network with Robert at the helm.
This was such a refreshing video seeing the CEO get out of the conference room and on to the streets. ❤ Would love it you had more charging stations in the greater Boston area.
Thank you for your feedback, Sephora! We have shared your request for more chargers in the greater Boston area with our team for review. We appreciate your input as we continue to improve and expand our network. -CH
@Electrify America YOU'RE VERY WELCOME ELECTRIFY AMERICA TEAM.🙋♂️🙏❤️😁THANK YOU! FOR YOUR TIME IT'S MUCH APPRECIATED. 😉👍PLEASE KEEP POSTING VIDEOS ON THE GROWING COMPANY. EVERY COMPANY NEEDS YOU ESPECIALLY LUCID YOU'LL BE A HUGE HELP TO THEM. TOGETHER AS ONE LUCID FAMILY LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO LUCID✨️WOOHOO!🙋♂️🙏❤️🥳🥳🥳🥳🎉🎉🎉🎉🕺🕺🕺👏👏😁✌️
Thanks for sharing this video! Some of the scenery in the background really makes me wish I had time to take a road trip in my new R1T. I do live in Northern Virginia, so maybe I should take a "road trip" to the EA office, LOL. 😆
Good and intense video Rob! Brought back memories for me of this past January trip (1700+ miles) from Texas to Southern California in my Ford Lightning!
Great video - as others stated I appreciated the balanced / transparent experience charging. Perhaps it would be helpful for more EA staff to have this experience this first hand, how many staff drive electric? With all the EV trucks on the market these sites really need to support people with trailers!
We are so happy you enjoyed our video, Paul! We have sent your feedback in regards to more staff testing and the need for trailer friendly spaces over to our team. We hope to see you charging up with us soon. 😎⚡️ -ZA
As others have said I thought this was more than fair and I'm excited for the possibility of significant improvements in the future. I never had range anxiety as after about 2 to 2 1/2 hours of driving I'm ready to stop and stretch anyway. It's always been charging anxiety.
That's why I got a Tesla for my long-range car 3 years ago. In 3 more years when I retire I plan to trade that for an ID. BUZZ, so I'm really hoping EA will be as reliable as the Supercharger network by then.
This depends on where you live and drive--charging anxiety with CCS cars is very real almost everywhere in the US, but range anxiety as well depending on where you live. A good example is the I20 corridor through Mississippi/Louisiana (think Atlanta to Dallas), or the I22 corridor between Memphis and Birmingham. I've recently driven the 258 mile stretch between Memphis and Birmingham in each direction with a Rivian, but had to watch speed carefully the whole way. Most CCS cars today would struggle with that gap.
@@joeschmoe280 Sure, but what I'm saying is once you know your vehicle range and have driven it awhile, you know when you need to stop and charge. If I had confidence that the chargers would work where I stopped, I wouldn't have any anxiety. Assuming there are sufficient charging options on your planned route of course. Range anxiety to me is only if someone isn't planning their charging stops appropriately.
@@patrick7228 It's not just general planning since the situation is dynamic and constantly changing. Lines can form at any time; chargers can go down at any time. If you just used the app, even it can stop working at any time. ultimately, the answer is to build in more redundancy. Hopefully companies other than EA will put up lots of chargers as incentivized by the IRA?..
Welcome! The EA user community appreciates you taking this head-on, reliability and usability will be paramount going forward. Thank you to the EA team - we look forward to an ever-improving network and user experience.
Sorry this video seems highly edited . I wish the new CEO luck but customers know how truly unreliable the charger network is. He has alot of work to change that perception.
If the CEO calls into their support call center, does he get priority attention? As a Tesla owner, a major decision to purchase a tesla vs any other EV was the charging infrastructure. I was pleased to see this video didn't hide the issues experienced. Kudos to the transparency.
Charging locations should have all the same services and infrastructure that a gas station has. Let's step up the game and let's get EV drivers the experience, and services we deserve. Reliability is a serious problem. In the EV deserts these chargers have to work. There is no plan B when you roll into a charger and it isn't working. Get off the beaten path and you are gonna have serious range anxiety. Let's get the charging situation fixed. Things are pretty bad. I suggest you follow "Out of Spec Reviews" and the entire group of Out of Spec channels and rate your charge effort. There are going to be a lot more EV's on the road soon and we don't have the infrastructure to support them. The issues with CCS are so bad people are buying Tesla's just because of the charging network. That needs to change.
Rob, No Bueno is correct in Lincoln, Nebraska. I am surprised that you were able to use charger 3 even 86kw. This video must have been filmed months ago. Charger 1 is not working and hasn’t for over 3 months. Charger 2 is a 350kw limited to 50. Charger 3 is a 350kw limited to 50. The only charger that is working as planned is charger 4. This is my main charger and unfortunately I feel ashamed of it. Thanks for taking this road trip. It show you are committed to understanding the issues. The best feedback is real world experience not just data and reports. Hopefully Casey’s 30 in Lincoln is on your radar to get fixed.
Thank you for sharing your experience at our site in Lincoln, NE, Mark. We understand how inconvenient this would be. Rest assured, our maintenance team is aware of these concerns and has active work orders in place to restore these chargers to their full potential. We hope to see you come back again soon. -CS
@electrifyamerica This response is exactly what is wrong with the company. Zero commitment to make it better. When I contacted customer I get the same response. Charger 1 in Lincoln Nebraska has be decommissioned. 2 and 3 a work order has been submitted for almost six months. The final charger doesn’t see over 100kw in my ioniq 5. What is the plan? Give me a date to when you will get it fixed. That is how you hold people accountable. Set a date and communicate it.
This is really good. I would hope you and your leadership of the company would regularly plan to drive the networks and use the chargers. See the experience your customers are having. Most times, I haven't had an issue and have ALWAYS been able to get a charge, but there have definitely been some bumps in the road. Most recently, the station in Franklin Tennessee is horrible. 1-2 stations down, 1 screen dead and the other chargers getting consistently very slow rates of charge for all vehicles there. The station at the Mercedes plant in Tuscaloosa however is completely the opposite in that it was probably the best charging experience I've had on your network. Please keep working to improve it and add more stations, especially like your flagship station. Those with EV trucks that tow would greatly appreciate more stations like that!
I'm glad you did this drive... it really means a lot from a reliability and convenience standpoint if the CEO's of charging companies experience the best and worst of their networks. EA is top-tier, but the reliability issues in recent years have been ramping up... Hopefully Rob fixes these issues while making EA more profitable.
EA, please continue to improve the reliability of your stations. They are not acceptably reliable yet. I can go to any gas station and know I can quickly fill up my tank. Currently with my experiences with EA chargers I show up expecting a degraded experience with the knowledge I may not be able to charge at all while hoping there is an available spot that just works. that experiences makes it hard to trust you. I, we all, need you to be better.
We know how important it is to build and maintain a reliable charging network for the EV community and we are working hard to accomplish just that. This being said, we have reported your feedback to our team for further review. Thank you! -CS
I have to say it was brave to take the plunge and go for the trip and video it. Glad you could experience the challenges first hand but while I greatly appreciate the EA charging network and use it when ever I can, my luck has not been as good as your percentage of positive charging sessions on the trip as seen in the video. As a Rivian owner my vehicle can take a pretty high speed charge but I don't seem to get that more than 50% of the time lately. Thanks for the transparency on the trip and that you didn't just say there is no reliability issues with the network. One easy(?) fix needed though is the accuracy of the app, it's hard to trust the status info right now.
Glad he got to see firsthand what kind of charging experiences customers have to deal with, for both good and bad situations. I hope this gives him more insight on where to provide/expand coverage at, along with building more stations as more EV's show up on the roads.
This was actually really cool to see, I actually got to meet a Technician that was repairing an EA station today and he was super friendly and did a great job checking the other stations. Hopefully more EA stations come to Norcal and their technicians have more EV fleets available to them. I’d imagine it’d keep maintenance of EA stations more regular if they were also using them for charging their service vehicles lol
As someone seriously considering an EV purchase, I greatly appreciate the honesty and transparency about the charging technical glitches experienced. I hope Oklahoma will become less of a charging desert in the next couple of years. I hope EA is successful because I think they may be the key to transforming the infrastructure needed to facilitate more widespread EV adoption.
I live in New Mexico. We recently took a trip from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Hobbs, New Mexico in our Tesla Model Y to pick up a Ford F150 Lightning and drive it back to Santa Fe. We used the Francis Energy chargers in Artesia, New Mexico, and that was a great help for the trip. A few years ago you could not get through Southeast New Mexico, in a Tesla, or pretty much any other electric vehicle. Francis Energy is based out of Oklahoma, and they have a lot of DC fast chargers in Oklahoma. Check them out. If you’re not familiar, I think the idea of a charging desert in Oklahoma is no longer true. On the way back, we also stopped in Santa Rosa New Mexico and charged both vehicles successfully on the Electrify America net work. This was about a 700 mile round-trip.
Massive kudos, and a big *THANK YOU* so much for taking on this challenge to drive across the country and experience what those who use CCS vehicles to road-trip in EVs experience. Now make the trip from LA to the Bay Area and back in a Tesla (take the 5 one way and the 101 the other) so that you understand the experience that you're shooting for. I really, desperately, want that same level of integration in the navigation system and reliability of the charging network in all CCS cars so that I feel like I can buy something other than a Tesla in my next car.
The question isn’t, is driving coast to coast possible. This EA post does not address EA’s inability to maintain Charing Station reliability, the ability of the EA app to correctly reflect EA charing station reliability, derated Charging stations, EA notification of what station are being taken down for maintenance, etc…. Notice that the EA post only addresses “highest power level”. Where is the “lowest power level” shown? This post is nothing more than a “at a boy”, which totally ignores the real world EA charing station experience. Also, who is the target of the EA post? It certainly isn’t the owners of EVs. The target of this post are EV manufacturers. Since manufacturers are EA’s true customer, there is no pressure on EA to fix their
I am happy to see that Electrify America is publicly acknowledging their problems. I think EA has impeded the adoption of EVs as much as any other factor. I have seen numerous videos by EV advocates recommending against non-Tesla EVs until the charging network improves.
This is what more CEO's need to do, LIVE WITH YOUR PRODUCT !!! Experience EXACTLY what your customers experience. I would LOVE you to follow up this trip with a return trip using a different route so you can experience different chargers in different locations. I have used Electrify America stations, one memorable station was located at the back (hard to find) of an Outlet Mall. I had to move from the high powered pedestal (300kw) to the lower powered pedestal (150kw) because the two 350kw stalls were not working (dead, black screen). I met a guy who was charging next to me and he said those two stalls had been down for a month (or two, I don't remember which). Pedestals being down for months at a time is not acceptable! People are relying on EA when they travel. By-the-way, the location was Ellenton Outlet Mall in Ellenton FL.
Glad to see a company exec actually use the network and experience it. I counted at least 4 charging issues he directly or indirectly experienced. I would hope that as CEO he requires his direct staff and next level staff to regularly drive and learn how good and bad their service is quarterly.
Was totally expecting a videography of a perfect trip with zero charging issues, since it's the CEO himself making the drive. Glad it was honest showing the good, the bad, and the things in-between.
Congrat's Rob and also echoing best wishes! You've always come across to me as a 100% genuine guy and have your customers at top of mind. This is just another example of your dedication and commitment to improving the EV experience! Well done and hope to meet up again soon! When you are in the Toronto area, let me know...lunch is on me!
Best of luck as CEO. Couple of items I would love to see (and you actually touched on one in the video) 1. As a Canadian customer and an American customer I would love to see a way to merge the accounts into one instead of having 2 seperate charges for the monthly plan. 2. Canopies, they would be awesome! 3. More pull through designs. My wife and I drive a lot - well over 60,000km a year so we get to use a lot of DCFC stations. Other than that I have been using your companies services almost exclusively (no as a Canadian I do not get free charging on my Ioniq5), I find your network to be pretty good. We are heading out on a 14,000km road trip Oct 22nd from Southern Ontario, down through Las Vegas, to California (Palm Desert) , up the coast to Vancouver BC, and back through to Ontario. We intend to use EA & EC stations pretty much as the norm. Thank you for providing your services and I am sure they will get better over time! Mike and Ally Lippmann
Good to see this video. Respect to the CEO. I own a Tesla and I'm all for Tesla right now because they have the best charging network, but who knows? Maybe in the future I might buy an EV that is not Tesla if the charging station improves. Anything can happen.
And if you would like another suggestion, how about installing wifi points at your chargers. By the time I get out of my car, the handshake with the app will have taken place and I won't have to open my app at all to start charging. Or even allowing us to use an NFC device in our vehicles to activate the pump would work as well. Or an RFID tag would work. Anyway, the handshake process really could be completely automated if you consider a few options.
We are happy to hear you enjoyed the video. 😎 We always want to be where the EV community needs us, so thank you of making sure we know we are needed in the SouthWest! ⚡️ -ZA
Here are more suggestions….drive from LA to Phx on a weekend, especially a holiday weekend. Good luck with the Quartzite location. In that Ioniq 5. That first location you stopped at in the video, should be the standard, not the exception. Y’all are the “best” in show, yet have a long way to go.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. We know that we still have work to do to further improve our network, and we are committed to doing just that! Rest assured, our maintenance team is aware of the concerns surrounding our Quartzsite, AZ location and are actively working to bring these chargers back to their full capacity. Additionally, we have shared your thoughts with our team for further review. Your patience and support is greatly appreciated. -CS
As any CEO should do, tour and audit the experience your customers get! It makes me happy to see this run as CEO elect! I'd like to see the return trip video and what I think would bake the best improvement to the network is to add additional stalls to high usage areas(Las Baños, CA walmart for one). I went on a day trip with my Energica EsseEsse 9 using a lot of EA chargers(as they have been the most stable for my bile to use over any other network) over a total of 370mi!! Keep it up guys and i cant wait for a future where I dont have to manually plan charge stops for road trips, they just happen to be close to high traffic roadways(highway One please!!)
Hi, Aaron, thanks for reaching out. We've shared your feedback about the need for chargers in Las Baños and along high traffic roadways with our team for review. We're dedicated to going where our EV community needs us. Thanks for your support!
