EA charging FAIL FAIL FAIL

[redrocket]

just in case you haven't seen some of my diatribes from this evening let me relate to you my disastrous 500 mile road trip this weekend.
ponte vedra beach FLA to tampa FLA. about 220 miles each way. the car itself ran fine, the guess o meter was accurate, but I was only going to go about 207 miles on a full charge at the outset.
the problems began at my first attempt to charge heading south, we stopped at bushnell fla, an EA site. I couldn't get the car to initiate a charging session on a 350kwh unit, I called EA support and we jockeyed the car from unit to unit and finally got a 150kwh unit to work, time wasted, close to 45 minutes plus a slower charging session. made the 4+ hour trip into a 5.5 hour trip.
on the return trip today we set out with about 120 miles of range on the car and headed east on I 4 to an EA charger in haines city on FL24. 8 units not one would link to the car or charge the car despite each on being reset remotely. it got to the absurd level when I called porsche and got roadside because tech support is CLOSED on sunday. road side offered to have the car "towed", I hope they didn't really mean tow, to a porsche dealer, who are closed on sunday. and the absurdity was when I said to the porsche agent, now that you would take the car for service where does that leave me? she said I was on my own and maybe the tow truck driver would allow both my wife and I to ride with him. I said thanks but no thanks and came up with a plan B which was a greenlots CCS 50kwh unit a few miles away, after an hour or so of charging I took a gamble to move on. the plan was to get to an EA charger in melborne FLA which is only about 75 mile from my home and if the car was stranded it would be better to take a 75 mile uber ride than a 170 mile ride but somehow I was able to get a 150kwh to link with the car on the first try with no assistance. whew it only took 7 hours to make a 4 hour trip.
my wife now refuses to get into the car for any sort of trip that would require charging. this lack of reliability of the EA chargers has rendered my brand new taycan 4s a very expensive limited range EV, I could have gotten 3 or 4 bolts, 3 leafs for what I spent for this otherwise great car. but it the car cannot find a dependable source of fast charging on the road it is kinda useless to me.

Herein lies the problem with the Taycan. If it’s purpose is not a ‘burb car, don’t buy it. EA is totally unreliable, one EA charger left my car stranded after the fuses in the car blew during the connection process. I now charge exclusively at my house or on scattered slow chargers around town. If we go on trips my wife’s X3 is the vehicle of choice. I would never even think of taking the Taycan on a trip that mandates use of a fast charger away from home. Maybe one day EA will get their act together. I sure hope they do the the sake of owners of VW, Audi, Porsche, MB , BMW, Ford, you name it. EA is a total embarrassment, and IMO hinders the advancement of EV’s in the US. The hapless person that doesn’t research EA’s track record before they buy an EV in the US is in for a world of hurt.

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[kort]

@kort - It's unfortunate that it was your first road trip with a really bad experience. Don't bother calling Porsche. They will be clueless as you discovered regarding the EA chargers. Hopefully, the EA representative who tried to reset the chargers will report the location and get a technician out to get the stations working. In less than a year, the EA network has grown a lot. There is even a location less than 10 minutes away from my house in Georgia that wasn't there when I first got the car. Fingers crossed that my experience will become more of the norm.

the EA people can put in all the hardware that they care to, but if it isn't reliable it doesn't matter.
porsche sold a car with the promise of reliable fast charging, at this point it is a failed promise.

based on the promise of the ability to charge my car fast while on an extended road trip I embarked on such a trip only to be frustrated and practically stranded.

this is a fail, there is no way to pretty it up with promises of what is to come. I bought and paid for a car and it's capabilities today, not what might come in the future.

tesla rolled out their superchargers with the introduction of the model S in 2012, the network was sparse but it worked. I was able to drive from NJ to FL on day one of my tesla ownership and while there were some nail bighting range anxieties from the spacing of the superchargers I did make it without running out of power nor encountering out of service chargers.

Porsche needs to attain that level of reliability or they need to stop promising the fast charging capabilities of the car because as per my experience, and that of many others, the promise of fast reliable charging anywhere in the US is a false promise.

the reality is that maybe you'll be able to charge but maybe you won't be and you'll spend hours charging at a slow unit to be able to limp home.

 

[kort]

Herein lies the problem with the Taycan. If it’s purpose is not a ‘burb car, don’t buy it. EA is totally unreliable, one EA charger left my car stranded after the fuses in the car blew during the connection process. I now charge exclusively at my house or on scattered slow chargers around town. If we go on trips my wife’s X3 is the vehicle of choice. I would never even think of taking the Taycan on a trip that mandates use of a fast charger away from home. Maybe one day EA will get their act together. I sure hope they do the the sake of owners of VW, Audi, Porsche, MB , BMW, Ford, you name it. EA is a total embarrassment, and IMO hinders the advancement of EV’s in the US. The hapless person that doesn’t research EA’s track record before they buy an EV in the US is in for a world of hurt.

are you claiming that VW/Porsche are making false claims about the abilities of their cars?

 

[tigerbalm]

Do we know are people experiencing similar levels of "refusing to charge" at Europe's Ionity network or is this a EA specific issue?

 

[redrocket]

are you claiming that VW/Porsche are making false claims about the abilities of their cars?

Huh? I’m talking about EA!!

 

[Torv]

just in case you haven't seen some of my diatribes from this evening let me relate to you my disastrous 500 mile road trip this weekend.
ponte vedra beach FLA to tampa FLA. about 220 miles each way. the car itself ran fine, the guess o meter was accurate, but I was only going to go about 207 miles on a full charge at the outset.
the problems began at my first attempt to charge heading south, we stopped at bushnell fla, an EA site. I couldn't get the car to initiate a charging session on a 350kwh unit, I called EA support and we jockeyed the car from unit to unit and finally got a 150kwh unit to work, time wasted, close to 45 minutes plus a slower charging session. made the 4+ hour trip into a 5.5 hour trip.
on the return trip today we set out with about 120 miles of range on the car and headed east on I 4 to an EA charger in haines city on FL24. 8 units not one would link to the car or charge the car despite each on being reset remotely. it got to the absurd level when I called porsche and got roadside because tech support is CLOSED on sunday. road side offered to have the car "towed", I hope they didn't really mean tow, to a porsche dealer, who are closed on sunday. and the absurdity was when I said to the porsche agent, now that you would take the car for service where does that leave me? she said I was on my own and maybe the tow truck driver would allow both my wife and I to ride with him. I said thanks but no thanks and came up with a plan B which was a greenlots CCS 50kwh unit a few miles away, after an hour or so of charging I took a gamble to move on. the plan was to get to an EA charger in melborne FLA which is only about 75 mile from my home and if the car was stranded it would be better to take a 75 mile uber ride than a 170 mile ride but somehow I was able to get a 150kwh to link with the car on the first try with no assistance. whew it only took 7 hours to make a 4 hour trip.
my wife now refuses to get into the car for any sort of trip that would require charging. this lack of reliability of the EA chargers has rendered my brand new taycan 4s a very expensive limited range EV, I could have gotten 3 or 4 bolts, 3 leafs for what I spent for this otherwise great car. but it the car cannot find a dependable source of fast charging on the road it is kinda useless to me.

Your story (and many others I have read) encapsulates my biggest worry about buying a Taycan. As a Tesla owner who has never had an issue at a Supercharger, I find both EA and Porsche's inept responses to these issues deeply troubling. Let's hope they get their act together before someone brings a class action lawsuit which forces them to fix what is apparently an extremely flawed system.

 

[Yves_0016]

I have the impression, limited sample of personal use but in general also less fuss, that IONITY (Euro version of EA) is a lot better.

Have tried 2 high speed Ionity myself. 2 times no issue at all.

 

[baldybot1]

I go to Gridserve in Essex which is a new charging forecourt, the first in the UK and my car has never charged first time on the 350kw. There are about 12 350kw and 12 150kw. Usually I have to try 3 stalls. It’s always the car is not communicating. I think it’s the handshake with the car is hit and miss

 

[tigerbalm]

I've only used 350kW chargers a few times and they have all been at my Porsche Centre (I live near it). The chargers (from Siemens) are free to use and hence have no billing or activation associated with them.

I wonder to what extent complicated billing handshakes are playing a role here?

 

[kort]

Huh? I’m talking about EA!!

they are both intertwined. the problem is the interconnect between the two. you need to link via the porsche app to start your session.

 

[kort]

Your story (and many others I have read) encapsulates my biggest worry about buying a Taycan. As a Tesla owner who has never had an issue at a Supercharger, I find both EA and Porsche's inept responses to these issues deeply troubling. Let's hope they get their act together before someone brings a class action lawsuit which forces them to fix what is apparently an extremely flawed system.

the class action will be because of porsche's claims of the car being able to be charged quickly and reliably which it isn't.

 

[kort]

I've only used 350kW chargers a few times and they have all been at my Porsche Centre (I live near it). The chargers (from Siemens) are free to use and hence have no billing or activation associated with them.

I wonder to what extent complicated billing handshakes are playing a role here?

apples and oranges. the issues are with the EA network. the ones found at porsche facilities are a different system

 

[4STOY]

I have used the Bushnell EA facility several times without issue. I did have issues with Haines City on the one occasion I used it. It would be good to know which app you used to initiate charging. The Charging America app usually works well for me but at times fails to see all "available" chargers. I mistakenly used the Electrify America app one one occasion. It worked flawlessly. I paid for the charging of course.

 

[kort]

I have used the Bushnell EA facility several times without issue. I did have issues with Haines City on the one occasion I used it. It would be good to know which app you used to initiate charging. The Charging America app usually works well for me but at times fails to see all "available" chargers. I mistakenly used the Electrify America app one one occasion. It worked flawlessly. I paid for the charging of course.

at bushnell with the assistance of EA I was able to get a 150 kw unit to charge but it took over 20 minutes of moving the car from unit to unit until we found one that could be remotely activated.
I used the porsche charging america app. I suspect that the glitch was with the porsche connect app and would advise to trying to reboot that app before trying to initiate a charge session because after I charged at a greenlots unit I rebooted the porsche app while sitting there and upon arrival at an EA charger in ormond beach the car was able to charge on the first try.
that is anecdotal and may or may not of had an effect.

 

[daveo4EV]

@kort - recommend you contact Porsche NA about purchasing your vehicle back since you feel they have mislead you about how a 3rd party charging network was supposed to be 100% reliable.

If you’re right once word gets out how badly Porsche lied to you and others Taycans are going to be worthless - you should get out now before word spreads.

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