Interview with EA Sr director Robert Barrosa

[blue-GT]

I'm not seeing this has been posted before here, thinking this is of interest and relevant to us: InsideEVs has a pretty decent interview on their podcast with electrify america sr director Robert Barrosa. There is the expected corporate blurb but also a refreshingly positive vibe about the outlook on EA expanding network. Contrary to what some reports here (and on other platforms) suggest, it seems EA does indeed care about their infrastructure and customers' experience.

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[TycanNewHampshire]

if Robert cares about my user experience, or anyone else's on this forum for that matter, they have all of my contact details and he is welcome to call me and get a true 'voice of the customer' and save himself some OPEX on 'market research'.

For me, EA is in a position where they can say whatever they want.....at this point for me, they are in the 'show me' stage. No words will change my view, it is all about the action and execution of maintaining the stations, full stop.

care and empathy are to be measured and they will be judged by their actions, not their words. Until then.....it is just 'messaging'.

 

[ElGordo]

EA does seem to be making an effort in a sincere manner.

I am however incredibly frustrated with charging performance that clearly doesn’t meet marketing specs.

I praise EA for customer service while at the same time occasionally losing my sh$t with all the inconsistencies at their sites. Sometimes it’s too much to deal with spending 2 frikkn hrs at a site to get a charge.


Porsche also bears HUGE responsibility for the inconsistencies as well.

Frankly I think they shouldn’t be allowed to market the Taycan at a 270kwh charging rate at a 350kw charger in 22.5 minutes when it’s only happened for me ONCE across 3 CT’s over the course of 2 months, 10 different states and MULTIPLE EA sites.

In other words if it’s only happening 2% of the time - it’s complete BULLSH$T and should not be marketed as such.

The charging curve is much more tame (ie lame!) and not logical.

EA is Volkswagen as is Porsche.

They both need to improve their coordination until it really is a 10 or 15 minute stop to charge without a call to their support team that takes 10 minutes or more to get going.

At least EA picks up the phone - Porsche USA takes 2 hrs minimum.

Porsche technically does have a LUDICROUS mode after all, just call 800 PORSCHE to experience it.

 

[notsofast]

Frankly I think they shouldn’t be allowed to market the Taycan at a 270kwh charging rate at a 350kw charger in 22.5 minutes when it’s only happened for me ONCE across 3 CT’s over the course of 2 months, 10 different states and MULTIPLE EA sites.

I was struggling with this as well and it took me a long time to understand what is going on. The thing that is important to understand and also highly unintuitive is that the charging curve depends on initial SOC when plugging in. In my experience the Taycan easily and consistently meets the marketed charging speed if you plug in with <10% SOC. At >20% SOC the charging curve gets a lot slower. For example if you plug in <10% the car holds >250kW into the 40%s and >200kW into the 50%s. If you plug in >30% you will be hard pressed to see more than 150kW charging rate.

Needless to say you will not find any of this in the manual and most online reviewers are unaware as well.

 

[daveo4EV]

EA seems to suffer from a lack of accurate assessment of their product - i.e. they are mostly clueless but I can tell this with out an interview.

 

[nickmdp]

The bit about getting onsite batteries and canopies sounded nice, and should only help things keep up with faster charging speeds and an overall better experience. Adding cameras into the stations as they mentioned would be neat too, and presumably linked to the canopies.

They also did a good job at the end of pushing a bit on overall reliability. He's obviously not going to say his company has been bad compared to Tesla, but it's good to know that they're collecting the telemetry data for every charging session and trying to work with manufacturer's on the problems they see.

As others mentioned, there's definitely a fair bit of "prove it" that needs to happen with EA, but they certainly seem to realize that the reliability needs to improve, and they'll need to continue investing in their infrastructure to get there.

 

[ElGordo]

Do this test as it’s kind of interesting

next time you are charging at any where above 70-80% SOC plug in at 350kw charger and you will see nebulous throughput vs plugging in at a 150 kw charger.

There’s something wrong with the algorithm they use with different charging rates.

my rough stats show the following

350 KW charger
SOC KWH
30% - 250
40% - 200
50% - 200 and drops rapidly to 165/170
60% - 165/170
70% - 150
75% - 120
80% - 80
Above 80% SOC typically 50 to 35kwh

moving to a 150 kw charger or even starting with one will actually show 160 plus if you are down to 5% soc and remain consistent for longer as it climbs

what’s interesting is plugging in a 150kw charger at 80%soc or better you will see higher throughput- typically 70-80kwh if not more.

Try immediately swapping to a 150 once your 350kw charge hits 80%…it’s bizarre. The 150 will charge at higher rate through higher states of charge.

when you hit 90% soc - swap back to the 350kw and see what the rate is…my experience is 70-80kwh ie far higher than if you sat on the 350 charger throughout. (It’s an experiment after all!)

Anyway my point is how often with an ICE car did you drive it down to 15miles of range before filling it? Are we clueless, idiot teenagers?

It’s nerve wracking. Throw in the fact that it will take a longer time at 150kw charger and then throw in the EA/Porsche WTF factor when the cars don’t sync up (2021/2022 models) - it’s maddeningly dangerous, time consuming and irritating as F!

so real world vs marketing hype is a remarkable slight of hand when being told you can reasonably charge in 15/20 minutes.

the other thing is that I have only seen 250 rates twice across 3 very similar vehicles in 2 months.

Ideally we should be able to top off 50% soc vehicles at HIGH speed on a 350kw charger at higher throughput even if you actually stop at 80-90% for practicality.

it’s counter intuitive to use 150kw chargers at 50% SOC to actually see a more consistent and higher charging curve at a lower rate.

Their algorithms aren’t right and the curve shouldn’t be so lazy as you go above 50% soc.

curious what other folks see. My metrics aren’t absolute but def seem consistent across all 3 CT’s.

 

[ElGordo]

And apology if any of the above was inarticulate- tired and I shouldn’t be on this forum doing this right now.

it’s illogical to top off a preheated car at high speed charger at low rate - when it works at all!

my prior experience was 350kw chargers starting at 40-50% state of charge would top out at 50kwh, while moving to a 150 kw would be dramatically higher in the 70-120 range.

data from above was my most recent 250kwh experience and only my 2nd one

 

[kort]

while many of you are very hung up on the charging speeds, which is not meant to diminish that concern, I feel that a greater concern should be that EA needs to increase their locations.

As more and more manufacturers are selling EVs and are selling the EA network as their charging solution for the cars they are selling the current EA system will prove to be inadequate.

there needs to be more locations and more chargers at many locations. I have already encountered waits at chargers caused by too many cars trying to charge at chargers.

some of the overload is caused by units that are not operational. I once arrived at an EA charger with 5 DC chargers and 1 chademo to find that 4 of the DC units and the chademo were down and there was car taking a charge and two others waiting and those cars were mustangs. in addition the charger was not charging at a very high speed.

If the car manufacturers, the government, EA want to get the EV revolution moving there needs to be a significant increase in charging locations.

when driving an ICE you can be certain that at most exits off of an interstate, at many places in suburban and urban areas there will be a gas station, the ability to charge the car is currently nowhere near as easy to do as it is to fuel the car with gas and this flaw will hinder the expansion of the EV adaption.

 

[Bill33525]

I was struggling with this as well and it took me a long time to understand what is going on. The thing that is important to understand and also highly unintuitive is that the charging curve depends on initial SOC when plugging in. In my experience the Taycan easily and consistently meets the marketed charging speed if you plug in with <10% SOC. At >20% SOC the charging curve gets a lot slower. For example if you plug in <10% the car holds >250kW into the 40%s and >200kW into the 50%s. If you plug in >30% you will be hard pressed to see more than 150kW charging rate.

Needless to say you will not find any of this in the manual and most online reviewers are unaware as well.

Adding to the above, the car dictates the charging power not the charger, of course the charger must be working properly. On YouTube there are several good videos detailing the Taycan charging curve. Here is one:

 

[jasperp]

what’s interesting is plugging in a 150kw charger at 80%soc or better you will see higher throughput- typically 70-80kwh if not more.

Maybe this can be explained by heat management of the battery:
By charging at +200kw for a long time, the temperature of the battery will be high when reaching 80%. The car will reduce charging speed.

When charging at 150kw to 80%, the battery will have a lower temperature. The car will allow to continue to charge at higher currents above 80%.

 

[Pozuelo]

This makes total sense…

 

[porsche_coyote]

EA does seem to be making an effort in a sincere manner.

I am however incredibly frustrated with charging performance that clearly doesn’t meet marketing specs.

I praise EA for customer service while at the same time occasionally losing my sh$t with all the inconsistencies at their sites. Sometimes it’s too much to deal with spending 2 frikkn hrs at a site to get a charge.


Porsche also bears HUGE responsibility for the inconsistencies as well.

Frankly I think they shouldn’t be allowed to market the Taycan at a 270kwh charging rate at a 350kw charger in 22.5 minutes when it’s only happened for me ONCE across 3 CT’s over the course of 2 months, 10 different states and MULTIPLE EA sites.

In other words if it’s only happening 2% of the time - it’s complete BULLSH$T and should not be marketed as such.

The charging curve is much more tame (ie lame!) and not logical.

EA is Volkswagen as is Porsche.

They both need to improve their coordination until it really is a 10 or 15 minute stop to charge without a call to their support team that takes 10 minutes or more to get going.

At least EA picks up the phone - Porsche USA takes 2 hrs minimum.

Porsche technically does have a LUDICROUS mode after all, just call 800 PORSCHE to experience it.

FWIW, I've successfully charged my 2020 Turbo at rates that match Porsche's claimed performance on more than fifteen occasions now. If you get to a 350 kW charging station with a low SoC and a pre-conditioned battery, the 'typical' experience (for me at 7 unique charging locations throughout California) has been 265 kW+ peak rates, and a 5%-80% charging duration of just over 22 minutes.

I've also seen that if you roll up with a colder battery and a 50% SoC, you can get rates at or below 100 kW from the same chargers.

I do agree that there are too many failures with charge initiation that require a call to EA. On my last two long (800 mi+) road trips I had one charge that required a call to EA out of a total of 8 attempts, and zero cases where I was unable to charge. The one call, though, led to a frustrating situation where by the time they had reset the station and 'approved' the charging session--nearly 25 minutes--my battery had cooled down and it took a while to ramp up the charge rate.

 

[thecoloradokid]

In the +3 yeas I have been charging at Electrify America locations - an e-Tron and two different Taycan's - I have certainly noticed an improvement in service. Is it perfect, certainly not, but it is better than what it used to be.

What I have been noticing is the very slow increase in important interstate locations needed to help with regional travel. There are still significant gaps in populous parts of the country that should have had locations installed by now.

Meanwhile, Tesla is doing this:

https://electrek.co/2022/03/01/tesla-unveils-supercharger-station-pre-fabricated-system/

There is still no Electrify America charger between Albuquerque and El Paso on I-25, but Tesla can put up a location in 8 days?!!!!!! I realize power will take a little time, but still 8 days!!! Come on EA, the clock is ticking!

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