Trying to debug my Electrify America experience

[SWORDER]

Got my Taycan TTS three days ago and am loving it. It's my first EV.

In my introductory post, I said that my first EA charging experience worked flawlessly. Today I went to a different EA. Not because I was low on battery, but just to practice and try out the whole eat-while-charging bit. This particular EA sits outside a PF Chang's.

This session wasn't as smooth as my first so I'd like to review how things went down and ask some questions.

There are three "pumps:" 01, 02, and 03.

01

Pump 01 successfully went through the blinking white light initialization phase and errored out with "error starting charge." In the fine print at the bottom of the screen was an error code, something along the lines of ERROR_INTERMITTENT_SAFETY_ISSUE. Called the tech support number and rep said they've been having trouble with that pump and that I should try 02 instead.

Question: Is there some way I could've recognized before starting the charge that it was a bad pump? If no one can use it, you'd think it would have a red "not available" message on the start screen or something.

02

So I tried 02.

Pump 02 successfully started charging and I walked away. I monitored the progress online via the Charging app. It made it to 67% and then the KW indicator dropped to zero. From that point on, once every minute, the Charging app would send me a notification saying "Charging Session Started." Like it was caught in a loop or something. But no further charge took place. See screenshot from my phone:

Question: What exactly happened here? Is this the loop that leads to the dreaded 12V battery error if you don't break the loop in time?

So I moved to pump 03.

03

This one worked flawlessly. Fully charged, no issues.

Availability Count

I noticed that the Charging app didn't properly mark the relevant chargers as unavailable when I was using them. It always shows the green indicator and "3/3 available" on the app, even when I'm clearly using one of the chargers. It didn't affect my charging experience but I kind of depend on those availability numbers to be accurate in order to determine whether or not I should visit that location. Is there a known issue when it comes to incrementing or decrementing the availability count?

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[Torv]

Interesting. But did you get that Father's Day Card?

 

[Skier]

Interesting. But did you get that Father's Day Card?

Good eyes

 

[SWORDER]

Interesting. But did you get that Father's Day Card?

Darned right, I did!

 

[submatrix]

Availability Count

I noticed that the Charging app didn't properly mark the relevant chargers as unavailable when I was using them. It always shows the green indicator and "3/3 available" on the app, even when I'm clearly using one of the chargers. It didn't affect my charging experience but I kind of depend on those availability numbers to be accurate in order to determine whether or not I should visit that location. Is there a known issue when it comes to incrementing or decrementing the availability count?

I'm curious about this as well, as the one EA charging session I've done so far had the same issue where the availability count was not accurate at all. Maybe the EA app has those stats?

 

[RoseyPSU]

I don't have any answers as to the faults you've had at EA chargers. I've had the same odd things happen: one "pump" just not working, one time it would start and then fail after about 90 seconds over and over. Both times I just move until I find the one that works.

However, I do have this advice: download the PlugShare app. It's by far the most accurate as far as what charging stations are working/broken/available. When people like you have an issue with a pump, they note it in the app, so that when you show up, you can try a different one. I always check PlugShare for status before I head to a specific charger.

 

[SWORDER]

However, I do have this advice: download the PlugShare app. It's by far the most accurate as far as what charging stations are working/broken/available. When people like you have an issue with a pump, they note it in the app, so that when you show up, you can try a different one. I always check PlugShare for status before I head to a specific charger.

Yeah, PlugShare is awesome. Just wrote a report today to let others know which pumps to avoid.

 

[chrisk]

I am not sure if there is anything to debug.
This sounds like typical EA behavior. One or two "pumps" are usually not working at each location and the Charging NA app is not aware of it.

The problem is that recently I had to wait other Taycans, Ford e-Mach and even an ID4 to use the working pump, and I wouldn't have to wait if the other one wasn't broken. If they don't fix their stations then EA will probably become a bottleneck in 1-2 years when the upcoming wave of non-Tesla EVs hits the road.

 

[SWORDER]

I am not sure if there is anything to debug.
This sounds like typical EA behavior. One or two "pumps" are usually not working at each location and the Charging NA app is not aware of it.

What's weird is that when I called them, EA did indeed seem to be aware of the issue. It shows up on their computer as a bad malfunctioning pump. Seems like there'd be a way for them to just show a prominent "out of service" message on the screen. As it stands, every hoser who visits that pump is going to get an error message, call the tech support, talk to a rep, move to another pump, etc. Figured they'd want to at least save themselves the tech support headache.

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