Electrify America newsflash: A Commitment to Quality and Customer Satisfaction - August 23, 2022

[Tooney]

In this time of expansive growth, we have taken proactive steps to help improve the charging experience. Customers need to be able to count on the convenience, reliability and speed of our charging stations to help instill range confidence as drivers transition to an EV lifestyle. This cross-functional system strives to identify, diagnose and resolve impacts before the customer interacts with the charger.
...
We take pride in the fact that experienced and new EV drivers, along with those just considering electric transportation, can feel a sense of confidence knowing our growing network has them covered for all charging needs. With the expansion of the Electrify America and Electrify Canada networks, quality and customer satisfaction remain the top priority with continuous improvement as our goal
...
Key Quality & Customer Satisfaction Initiatives at Electrify America and Electrify Canada to Provide EV Drivers with a Seamless eMobility Experience:
Performing more than 20,000 tests of chargers a year – In January 2021, we launched a Roaming EV Test Fleet program to conduct intensive field tests of our network. It means that each of our 3,500 plus individual ultra-fast chargers at 800 plus charging stations in the U.S. and Canada are tested almost every two months. The company deploys nine teams of inspectors who complete a full checklist to ensure our chargers will provide a quality experience to our customers. We work to help ensure that each charging cable, all payment methods and more will provide a high-quality charge. The inspectors utilize a fleet of electric vehicles to perform charging tests. In addition, they inspect the stations to ensure all equipment and aesthetics are in top working order including the chargers themselves, power cabinets, transformers, lighting, EV charging parking stencil signage and more.
Network Operations Center 24/7 – In addition to work being done to innovate future EV charging experiences, our Network Operations Center has a team of engineers and software specialists keeping their finger on the pulse. This “mission control” room is in operation 24/7 monitoring our network performance in the U.S. and Canada, around the clock. We strive to ensure drivers always know that we are here for them, 24/7, to support all charging experiences with us.

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/194

Issued by EA one week after JD Power ranked EA 2nd to last (EVGo was last): https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebast...ericas-roaming-ev-test-fleet/?sh=62f8591b6ef5

https://www.jdpower.com/business/pr...-vehicle-experience-evx-public-charging-study

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[TYKHAAAN]

They have to show and prove. Still a lot of horror stories out there, tho personally, I’ve always been able to get a charge every time. Even if that meant changing a plug, I was still able to charge. It has been far from perfect, but I’d really like to see them take the responsibility to step it up and make sure they majority of their stations are available and working at advertised speeds.

 

[Jhenson29]

WTF. Their only method of testing this is to send teams out to manually test them? Why would you not have the plug fit into a receptacle that allows self testing? And then run the test automatically way more often than once almost every two months.

 

[nickmdp]

Issued by EA one week after JD Power ranked EA 2nd to last (EVGo was last): https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebast...ericas-roaming-ev-test-fleet/?sh=62f8591b6ef5

https://www.jdpower.com/business/pr...-vehicle-experience-evx-public-charging-study

Not to take EA's side here, but they only had 4 networks surveyed, and honestly EA didn't do that bad, with Tesla at the top only 20% ahead of EA (dropping the chart here even though I absolutely hate when articles adjust the scale to make the gaps seem larger)

Still a ways to go on improving things, and if EA doesn't step up before Tesla opens up their chargers for CCS (hopefully in the next 12-18 months), they'll be in trouble.

 

[JDNEPA]

@Jhenson29 - that's a great idea and wish you worked for EA. ? I think this highlights how early we are in this journey and the level of innovation from now to when this technology is mature is going to grow lightyears in the next decade. ...you're 100% right.

 

[DerekS]

They shouldn't have to rely on someone driving around testing chargers.

They should have monitoring and metrics that show they are communicating, delivering expected power output, etc.

They should know what's down before anyone else.

 

[tomdfw1]

In this time of expansive growth, we have taken proactive steps to help improve the charging experience. Customers need to be able to count on the convenience, reliability and speed of our charging stations to help instill range confidence as drivers transition to an EV lifestyle. This cross-functional system strives to identify, diagnose and resolve impacts before the customer interacts with the charger.
...
We take pride in the fact that experienced and new EV drivers, along with those just considering electric transportation, can feel a sense of confidence knowing our growing network has them covered for all charging needs. With the expansion of the Electrify America and Electrify Canada networks, quality and customer satisfaction remain the top priority with continuous improvement as our goal
...
Key Quality & Customer Satisfaction Initiatives at Electrify America and Electrify Canada to Provide EV Drivers with a Seamless eMobility Experience:
Performing more than 20,000 tests of chargers a year – In January 2021, we launched a Roaming EV Test Fleet program to conduct intensive field tests of our network. It means that each of our 3,500 plus individual ultra-fast chargers at 800 plus charging stations in the U.S. and Canada are tested almost every two months. The company deploys nine teams of inspectors who complete a full checklist to ensure our chargers will provide a quality experience to our customers. We work to help ensure that each charging cable, all payment methods and more will provide a high-quality charge. The inspectors utilize a fleet of electric vehicles to perform charging tests. In addition, they inspect the stations to ensure all equipment and aesthetics are in top working order including the chargers themselves, power cabinets, transformers, lighting, EV charging parking stencil signage and more.
Network Operations Center 24/7 – In addition to work being done to innovate future EV charging experiences, our Network Operations Center has a team of engineers and software specialists keeping their finger on the pulse. This “mission control” room is in operation 24/7 monitoring our network performance in the U.S. and Canada, around the clock. We strive to ensure drivers always know that we are here for them, 24/7, to support all charging experiences with us.

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/194

Issued by EA one week after JD Power ranked EA 2nd to last (EVGo was last): https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebast...ericas-roaming-ev-test-fleet/?sh=62f8591b6ef5

https://www.jdpower.com/business/pr...-vehicle-experience-evx-public-charging-study

I drove from Dallas to Austin and back on Friday/Saturday. Stopped off at the Walmart EA in Bellmead (North Waco). 4 out of 6 stations were down and inoperable both Friday and Saturday. I waited for the one 350 both times to open up and the auto-connect would not work so I opened the MyPorsche App to manually connect and it wouldn't reliably work...I couldn't get it to recognize the EA station so I could connect. I tried it 4 or 5 times and finally the station appeared within app and I could connect. This happened both times. After talking to EA and transferring to Porsche they had me check the auto connect in my PCM. I told her I had already set it and realized the PCM update flipped it back off. So this may be why it would not connect. As far as the app acting flaky, she told me to uninstall it and reinstall it.I did that when I got home and it appears to be working but then I have wifi at home and wondering if the "flakiness" was due to cell coverage.

I did a charge in Georgetown (North Austin) and it had 10 charge pods with at least 2 broken and the others being used. I parked at the broken 350 next to 350 being used to get in line; I tried the broken one anyway as I waited and it worked. (After experiencing same flaky MyPorsche app issues)

Lots of work ahead to make this an easy reliable process. Wasted hours waiting for stalls and troubleshooting this weekend. I will say hold time wasn't bad and both companies had helpful patient, pleasant and mostly knowledgeable people. I would give high ratings for customer support.

The most frustrating thing is to check the app and it says the stations are working only to find out they are actually broken. It is unreliable to determine if they are working until you get there and see a black screen or see an "inoperable" screen. I think you can deduce they don't work if you look at the status and it says It has been available for 19 hours...or whatever high number.

If you got the PCM update, make sure you reenable auto connect. (Click on charging on main PCM screen. Then click on the three dots on lower right, then check that box that says to auto connect)

 

[DerekS]

That Waco (Bellmead) charger is getting worse.

My last experience I had to wait quite a bit just to get a turn on a 150kW.

 

[RAHRCR]

My understanding is that Electrify America is the bi-product of a negotiated settlement from VAG “diesel-gate”. If correct, this explains why it has had such a poor launch…despite the fact the recipe for how to do this has been in plain site for years now (Tesla).

It will get better because it essentially has to for some many reasons but the pain put onto early adopters is real.

 

[markrm61]

Interesting…for the last year I’ve had decent EA results given they’re only four stations in the city of San Francisco. Yes, in a city of 800k people, a lot of EV owners and we have 16 chargers in 7 square miles, not nearly enough with increased adoption.

Additionally, for the last two plus weeks one station has been completely out of service and EA had no eta for when it’s going to be up again. On a positive note, I now know what that plug icon on the PCM screen now means when a station is fully down, not just zero stations available - glass half full!

 

[bsclywilly]

I saw this media release a week ago and dismissed it as soon as I read that they’re just doing what they’ve been doing since 2021 and nothing new.

That said I’ve only encountered one unpleasant charging experience in my first 14k mi EV ownership but most of that has been luck when I got the last working station or just avoiding troublesome chargers by checking reviews on PlugShare in advance.

It would seem to me a better way to deploy repair efforts than paying employees to physically test chargers would be to setup an easier user reporting and make that visible to other users since it’s obvious their own diagnostics are not able to reliably identify charger issues.

 

[daveo4EV]

In this time of expansive growth, we have taken proactive steps to help improve the charging experience. Customers need to be able to count on the convenience, reliability and speed of our charging stations to help instill range confidence as drivers transition to an EV lifestyle. This cross-functional system strives to identify, diagnose and resolve impacts before the customer interacts with the charger.
...
We take pride in the fact that experienced and new EV drivers, along with those just considering electric transportation, can feel a sense of confidence knowing our growing network has them covered for all charging needs. With the expansion of the Electrify America and Electrify Canada networks, quality and customer satisfaction remain the top priority with continuous improvement as our goal
...
Key Quality & Customer Satisfaction Initiatives at Electrify America and Electrify Canada to Provide EV Drivers with a Seamless eMobility Experience:
Performing more than 20,000 tests of chargers a year – In January 2021, we launched a Roaming EV Test Fleet program to conduct intensive field tests of our network. It means that each of our 3,500 plus individual ultra-fast chargers at 800 plus charging stations in the U.S. and Canada are tested almost every two months. The company deploys nine teams of inspectors who complete a full checklist to ensure our chargers will provide a quality experience to our customers. We work to help ensure that each charging cable, all payment methods and more will provide a high-quality charge. The inspectors utilize a fleet of electric vehicles to perform charging tests. In addition, they inspect the stations to ensure all equipment and aesthetics are in top working order including the chargers themselves, power cabinets, transformers, lighting, EV charging parking stencil signage and more.
Network Operations Center 24/7 – In addition to work being done to innovate future EV charging experiences, our Network Operations Center has a team of engineers and software specialists keeping their finger on the pulse. This “mission control” room is in operation 24/7 monitoring our network performance in the U.S. and Canada, around the clock. We strive to ensure drivers always know that we are here for them, 24/7, to support all charging experiences with us.

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/194

Issued by EA one week after JD Power ranked EA 2nd to last (EVGo was last): https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebast...ericas-roaming-ev-test-fleet/?sh=62f8591b6ef5

https://www.jdpower.com/business/pr...-vehicle-experience-evx-public-charging-study

 

[charliemathilde]

They shouldn't have to rely on someone driving around testing chargers.

They should have monitoring and metrics that show they are communicating, delivering expected power output, etc.

They should know what's down before anyone else.

it is comically bad. How do they not even know about chargers that have failed to complete a transaction recently and report in ?

 

[tomdfw1]

it is comically bad. How do they not even know about chargers that have failed to complete a transaction recently and report in ?

You are exactly correct. If some/most chargers at a site are being used multiple times/day during peak times and one has not been used in 5, 10, 20 hour or more, it is pretty safe to assume it is down.
I did notice that when I called to report the downed stations, EA thought they were up. The common denominator is that the ones they knew were down reflected a screen that told visitors it was down or a text screen showing it failed bootup in tech-lingo. The ones that EA did not realize were down just had a black screen. Still, as you suggest, they should have better testing.

I am very disappointed that the MyPorsche App only appears to show EA stations (And the closest to me is 50 miles away), not even Porsche dealers with chargers!!! and I have to go to some other app to find local charging stations (paid or free) to find a station. Am I missing something here? The app will tell you how long the stations have been available, in use or been down and sadly it tells me many of the EA stations that are down have been down for over 100 days...that is not very timely service.

The final comment I will add is that Friday/Sat were very busy because of the Labor day weekend travelers. This could be reason for the long lines but the customer support was still responsive.

 

[Superrat]

Ali n all. have been happy with EA chargers. Of course there could be more of them especially as the pace of EV sales had picked up in the past 6 months or so.
The one time I did have an issue and had to call they answered quickly and rebooted the charger instantly. As this whole EV thing is still sort of in its infancy In othing is perfect in it's early days.
My only real complaint is that even though it has two plug per unit apparently I am told only one can be use at a time, which seems inefficient.
Can anyone confirm that only one plug can be in use on a dual unit?
SR

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