When Electrify America comes up in other threads it often sparks a side conversation.
Since some manufacturers are offering free charging at EA stations, this is becoming a decision factor for many when considering what to buy/lease.
Post your Electrify America experiences, observations and comments here.
My recent personal encounter with text messages from EA delayed by multiple days is here:
I used EA several times when I had my e-tron. Primarily a station at my local Sam’s club. It worked perfect 100% of the time I went.
Very small data set, but I had no issues.
It’s either picture perfect or a nightmare.
I’ve had both and while neither is representative of EA as a whole it’s most often a blend of the two skewing toward the negative the more isolated the site is particularly when dealing with first and second generation equipment. (ABB and Signet)
Free charging promotions aren’t inherently bad when it’s a fairly negligible amount of units in the grand scheme but when the equipment is already neglected and the host company is glacially slow or otherwise inept at maintenance and or expansion it does make for an adventure and true test of patience for some.
Honestly you should setup a daily poll
And see how it goes
@joeblogs noted that he wasn’t charged for a recent session intended to be paid with a credit card.
For the I session noted above (text message delayed by days), it took me a few tries to find a charger at that location that worked (even though the screens looked like everything was functional).
Third one I tried worked, but there was a message on the screen that the current session was complimentary (from EA).
I don’t remember the exact message, but I inferred that they weren’t able to communicate with their payment system, so they just comped the charge.
Total in my charging history shows $0.00.
Looking through the rest, out of the 17 total EA sessions, the most recent 6 all show $0.00.
August 14 and prior, the remaining 11 all show a dollar amount, presumably what was billed to Audi… or at least the retail value.
(Or maybe they just stopped showing the dollar amount at some point, since it’s confusing when you think it’s free.)
Applies to all types of juices. 
Stations in Newport Beach are working fine and the most i waited for one to open up is 15 minutes. Plug and charge acts up occasionally - not sure it is the car or the station but payment goes through but charging doesnt start. I was able to get it going via the app manually every time. 230 Kw/h of electricity billed to Mercedes and its been just over a week I have it. Not bad.
I just did a ~4000 mile road trip this summer in the EQS. We used EA exclusively, and have done trips to the DC area and NYC from Hershey.
Our experience in the Midwest was great, we never had to wait once, charging speeds on our eqs topped out around 140-150 even at 350 stations, and peak we ever got was ~165.
In the DC area and NNJ stations we used it was a f*$king nightmare. At one DC station we got ICE’d, and an Ioniq6 used it as a parking spot for 3 hours, limited at ~55 kw at two stations we tried. Another though in a Walmart in MD was great. Though in NJ we had to wait ~30 min to get a stall open during peak hours ~6pm.
The community was great had some excellent convos and owner experiences, locations were great for all of them, either Sheetz/Wawa/Gas Station, malls, or Walmarts/targets.
For Socal, the ones close to freeways are packed. Best time to go is early morning 6am for no wait. 8p to 11p seems to be the worst time.
I see so many MBZS, which makes me laugh since I would assume they can afford to charge at home or a non EA charger.
350kw chargers work as advertised, 18 minutes to 80%… even 150kw have similar charge times but I don’t have those close to me.
Just left Westfield Topanga EA (Canoga Park) at about 9:30 pm Sunday night. Went there as the app showed 2/6 available. Was greeted by about 6-8 EVs waiting for the 3 (semi)functional chargers. Of the other three broken ones only one was reporting as unavailable, the other ones could not be reset by EA but were successfully driving traffic there. At least one 150 kW charger was limping along at high 30s, not sure about the other two. Gave one of the broken chargers good ole college try and left within 10 minutes or so. A few others left while a few more came, so same 6-8 cars in line. Figured ETA of about 3-4 am - NOT INTERESTED!!!
BTW, Topanga has been a “better” station from my experience as Encino typically has 3 out of 4 chargers down. Last time I went there around midnight on Sunday there were 3-4 cars waiting for the lone working charger.
Wow these experiences sound horrible. How are manufacturers expecting to go fully electric by 2030 when charging is such a bottleneck?
Cause they wouldn’t build more unless they see an area bottleneck (demand). Building these things are a huge investment and the business model requires maximum return per station
what is that, east brunswick?
East Brunswick on a Sunday night.
Reached a max of 8 in queue.
Lack of policy around queuing will eventually lead to a brawl…
[photos courtsey of @XiDa]
8 Max in queue, not including people that came and left after seeing the line. 3/10 were down, and I got the one that max charged at 18kw. So basically 4 down.
SE Philly EA chargers next to I-95 is 3/4 down as of last night.
Q4 e-tron driver here.
We have one level 3 charger station (for non-Tesla) out here on the Cape in Hyannis that purports to have 2 350kw chargers, 3 150kw, and 1 50 kw.
I’ve never had the 350 deliver anything above 150 or so. The 150’s tend to be pretty far under as well. I haven’t needed to try the 50 yet.
So far they’ve been easy to use because it’s off season but after asking a few people at the “pump” it was a zoo this summer.
Really hoping Stop and Shop or Shaw’s will partner up to get more L3 chargers built further down Cape though. So far there is just a 12 pack of Tesla chargers in Orleans that sits empty 95% of the time.
