Charging at Electrify America

[ElectricAdventure]

The not-polluting part is really the only part I care about with regards to an electric car. Not spending money out the ear in gas is just a side effect I guess.
I've never owned a gasoline (combustion) powered car before so I don't really think about all those things. But I really want a Gasoline powered WRX- those things are so cool!

wow! You must be considerable younger than me. Wouldn't it be cool to be one of the first to never own an ICE in your lifetime?

I'm turning twenty in a month so I am pretty young. I got my eSpark right about when I turned 17, I spent an entire summer saving up for that car. I learned about e-cars when I was 15 in Alaska after hiking to a rather depressing glacier and it made me realize combustion doesn't make sense. So now I only drive electric and the house-on-wheels I am designing is combustion free. Most of my friends are e-natives too, so we mostly complain about over-priced superchargers. We still like gasoline cars, but see them as toys instead of a useful technology.

 

[theothertom]

The not-polluting part is really the only part I care about with regards to an electric car. Not spending money out the ear in gas is just a side effect I guess.
I've never owned a gasoline (combustion) powered car before so I don't really think about all those things. But I really want a Gasoline powered WRX- those things are so cool!

wow! You must be considerable younger than me. Wouldn't it be cool to be one of the first to never own an ICE in your lifetime?

I'm turning twenty in a month so I am pretty young. I got my eSpark right about when I turned 17, I spent an entire summer saving up for that car. I learned about e-cars when I was 15 in Alaska after hiking to a rather depressing glacier and it made me realize combustion doesn't make sense. So now I only drive electric and the house-on-wheels I am designing is combustion free. Most of my friends are e-natives too, so we mostly complain about over-priced superchargers. We still like gasoline cars, but see them as toys instead of a useful technology.

Kudos to you. The world needs more people with that attitude.

 

[KrisConnoly]

The not-polluting part is really the only part I care about with regards to an electric car. Not spending money out the ear in gas is just a side effect I guess.
I've never owned a gasoline (combustion) powered car before so I don't really think about all those things. But I really want a Gasoline powered WRX- those things are so cool!

wow! You must be considerable younger than me. Wouldn't it be cool to be one of the first to never own an ICE in your lifetime?

I'm turning twenty in a month so I am pretty young. I got my eSpark right about when I turned 17, I spent an entire summer saving up for that car. I learned about e-cars when I was 15 in Alaska after hiking to a rather depressing glacier and it made me realize combustion doesn't make sense. So now I only drive electric and the house-on-wheels I am designing is combustion free. Most of my friends are e-natives too, so we mostly complain about over-priced superchargers. We still like gasoline cars, but see them as toys instead of a useful technology.

There are so many of us who feel like that. You are the change the world needs. Keep us posted on your house-on-wheels too which you are designing.

 

[Tttait]

I went to an EA site in San Diego yesterday, and it failed miserably, on two levels. First, the chip readers in the pay stations don't work, but when swiping the card the card does read so eventually I figured that out.

Yes the charge cords are too short, barely long enough to reach the the plug on the Bolt, but once you are plugged in and get the card to read, on all 4 of the units the charger failed to start the session due to a pilot communication error.

This freaked me out a little because I use CCS so rarely I was concerned that perhaps something was actually broken with the car and it was going to take me 5 hours of charging at a standard station to get home. I drove to a nearby Chargepoint station and tried their CCS charger, and it worked perfectly. The terrible experience led me straight here to see if there is an issue with EA and the Bolt, or Chevrolet in general, and guess what, they suck.

You can likely get your card to work if you swipe, but I'm curious if you can then get the system to charge your car. EA is so expensive compared to Chargepoint I will likely never try again, but it would be nice to know if they are fixing their problems or not.
By the way - I went down to San Diego to pick up the ultimate solution for the Bolt having crappy seats. I hope to have an update on that in a few weeks.

 

[theothertom]

I went to an EA site in San Diego yesterday, and it failed miserably, on two levels. First, the chip readers in the pay stations don't work, but when swiping the card the card does read so eventually I figured that out.

Yeah, my first try with EA was a fail. I called customer service and they recommended swiping my card instead of using the chip. That worked a lot better. After that, I got the app which worked even better. So now I recommend using the app to start a charge at EA.
Edit: I had to put money in my account before the app would work. Just having a credit card on file wasn't enough for me. YMMV.

 

[cwerdna]

I went to an EA site in San Diego yesterday, and it failed miserably, on two levels. First, the chip readers in the pay stations don't work, but when swiping the card the card does read so eventually I figured that out.

Yes the charge cords are too short, barely long enough to reach the the plug on the Bolt, but once you are plugged in and get the card to read, on all 4 of the units the charger failed to start the session due to a pilot communication error.

This freaked me out a little because I use CCS so rarely I was concerned that perhaps something was actually broken with the car and it was going to take me 5 hours of charging at a standard station to get home. I drove to a nearby Chargepoint station and tried their CCS charger, and it worked perfectly. The terrible experience led me straight here to see if there is an issue with EA and the Bolt, or Chevrolet in general, and guess what, they suck.

Don't use the card readers. As for NFC, isn't that still the card reader? Avoid it. Use their app. Search https://insideevs.com/news/389891/exclusive-interview-electrify-america-problems-solutions/ for credit card.

As for fail, did you lift the handle to support it until the plug's locked to the car? If not, it'll fail with a communication error. EA finally made this video on that https://youtu.be/VSuiG4YfRfA. I learned of it from https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/ea-makes-a-video-on-how-to-prop-up-the-cable.36757/.

Also, before you bother going to any public charging, you should check out its score on Plugshare and look for recent check-ins.