Charging At Electrify America Is Improving
2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 at Electrify America fast charging station
EA is pouring money into making its fast chargers more reliable, and it’s working.
If you were to search for “Electrify America charging” on Reddit or YouTube, chances are you’ll find some sour results. But the company that set up shop after Volkswagen’s Dieselgate emissions scandal is trying to improve things for its customers, and it looks like it’s working.
The number of failed charging attempts at Electrify America stations was well below the industry average in the first quarter, according to J.D. Power, but there’s an asterisk: these numbers don’t include Tesla’s Supercharger network.
In the first quarter of 2022, 11% of the charging attempts at Electrify America were failed. Fast-forward to Q1 2024 and that number has dropped to 9%, thanks to the hardware and software updates applied to the company’s stalls, some of which were installed six years ago.
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According to J.D. Power, a fifth of charging attempts failed at non-Tesla chargers in the first quarter–that’s 20%, double compared to Electrify America. Tesla’s Supercharger network had a fail rate of just 5%, so it’s clear that all the other charging companies still have work to do to catch up.
But EA thinks it can get close, thanks to the continued improvement and expansion of its DC fast charging network. “When you go buy an ICE vehicle today, you’re not thinking about how to fuel your car,” said Electrify America CEO Robert Barrosa for Automotive News. “EV buyers wonder ‘How am I going to charge the car?’ We’ve really got to get to a point where we take that out of the calculus.”
Currently, EA has 950 sites across the United States and Canada totaling approximately 4,250 charging ports. Most of them will be updated by the end of the year, according to Barrosa, which is an easier task than before because the company has switched from relying on third-party suppliers to handling software development in-house. This allowed it to implement changes faster, like simplifying payments and adding plug-and-charge support for more vehicles.
When it comes to expansion plans, EA wants to add 750 plugs at 50 more locations before 2025 is over, bringing the total number of dispensers to 5,000. Today, EA has charging stations in 47 states and Canada, including a flagship indoor hub in San Francisco where 20 individual EVs can top up at 350 kW while their owners wait in dedicated lounge areas.
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