38 at Electrify America for $0? I thought it was 30 minutes free?

[j.w.s]

I charged at the Electrify America location at Valley Fair mall in San Jose, California. I plugged in to a 150KW charger to get just a bit of charge while grabbing some lunch. The charger only output 63KW, but that was fine with me since I really only needed a top-up.

I returned 38 minutes later, and the bill was... $0. I thought we got three years of 30 minute charging sessions, so I expected to have to pay for the last eight minutes.

Was this location special? Is there an algorithm that gave me more minutes free since the charge rate was rather low? What happened?

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[Archimedes]

IIRC, they dropped the limit. I’ve charged for longer multiple times with no charge or cutoff.

 

[WattTurbo]

I charged for 31 minutes and less than $1 was charged on my CC, but this was a couple of months ago.

 

[outie]

EA chargers (individual charger, not the entire station) sometimes offer complimentary sessions. Someitmes you will see this show up on the charging screen, other times you know it’s free when you didn’t get any “authorization complicated” notification on your phone, or never got a reminder that your free session is almost up @25min.

Even if you do get everything (screen doesn’t show complimentary, you get all the app alerts) that seems like you should be charged, you might end up not getting charged beyond 30min. Go figure.

 

[whitex]

Even if you do get everything (screen doesn’t show complimentary, you get all the app alerts) that seems like you should be charged, you might end up not getting charged beyond 30min. Go figure.

Their billing sounds about as reliable and competent as their charger availability. Seems consistent.

 

[RAHRCR]

I had my first EA charging experience this weekend after nearly 2 months of ownership. I wanted to confirm that my account was working and that plug and charge was active. The overall experience was pretty bad. 2 of 6 chargers not working. The other 4 required people to use a different parking space other than the designated spot due to congestion/their port location. The 350kw charger only supported 152kw max. I left early just to give others waiting a break. The least they could do is spot those folks that go through this regularly a few extra mins at no extra cost.

Only good thing was that I met my first fellow Taycan owner in person…

 

[ThePaddyWan]

I've read on other forums of folks testing the free EA charging and it seem they can (though not always) charge you when you exceed the 30-minute limit, immediately replug, or even initiate the free charging for an EV who'se VIN is not associated with the free charging (definitely not something I would do or recommended, but, it has been done).

For example, I've had lots of trouble with getting charing started or getting the full charge rate and needed moved my car to a different stall. In turn, exceeded 30-minutes of charging within the hour. I've also missed getting back to my car in time (31 minutes of continuous charging). No extra charge in both scenarios.

Seems like as long as you're not abusing the program, you'll be okay.

 

[kort]

on a recent road trip I exceeded the 30 minute limit a few times and was never charged. EA was having a lot of issues at the time and I believe that they were not charging for charging.

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