NRG eVgo

[mczajka]

NRG has been a great partner and infrastructure proponent in our area. If it weren't for them, we would not have a broad L3 infrastructure in the DC region, period.

That being said, what has your experience been in other parts of the Country. We're finding the "process" whereby they report down units needs improvement. We have one unit in Rockville, MD that has been down for 7 days without the friendly "DOWN" email reminder to members of NRG eVgo. And a call was made on day 1. Many of the early adopters in our area have been getting their service for free, but since they now have 10 units in our area, they are going to start charging a fee.

I made a personal recommendation to them from a friend that they monitor negative comments on plugshare. Perhaps they could purchase the API and channel all negative comments at their stations to their support department. Wouldn't that make sense? They do have remote monitoring capabilities so a call is always best. But, they can't fix every problem remotely.

Frankly, it appears they only report a unit down when someone calls them, but that theory is not working for our current situation. I wonder if reporting a unit down many times is worse than not reporting it at all. As a member, I think not since we're all relying on them to get from point A to point B.

 

[Pipcecil]

It may be the spread into your area and being new(er) than the other areas around the country.

My experience has been very positive here in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX. Units usually only stay down for a few days. Granted the issues could be more severe so its hard to gauge response time because of that. I will say within the last half year, their email notifications sometimes don't always come, but its usually on the repair side (i.e. station is open). I get he email its down but after a couple weeks, if I don't get the up email, I assume its operational again - this has happened a few times, but I usually get the all clear email.

I don't know if they can detect errors in stations alone or if someone has to report it. I will say I actually reported a down station before and I got an email before I left that the station was down (I had gone in to get a soda and was Level 2ing in the time I had alotted for the QC). I have had issues and had the phone rep work with me, resetting the software and other things to get the station working again. Finally, NRG eVgo has always had a policy here in DFW that they will come get you or somehow get you charged if you get stranded from a down QC. It has never happened to me, but its nice to know they will do everything they can to make it right.

Put this in contrast with the worse, Blink. No notifications of downed stations. I have called in stations not working and its never changed online that they were down and were always (and still) show as available. I have even been to locations that had 3 stations that were some odd fault but were down down (so not a touchsceen error, or a self test fail, the stations literally said it was down on the screen) and were show as completely available online. The reps were awful - hey you can drive 30 miles out of your way to charge over here at this dealership even though its already closed....yea....awful.

NRG eVgo has been the most responsive out of any of the charging companies to station uptime and repairs and I am so glad we have them here in DFW

 

[linkim]

So far, in the SF Bay Area my experience with eVgo DCFCs has been positive. I have used their DCFCs about a dozen times in the last two months with no problems. Only once has one of their DCFCs gone down (Daly City), and I received email notice.

I am on their subscription plan, but there is no way to access information on the cost and usage I have accrued. eVgo told me they are working on a link to get this info.

 

[walterbays]

I am on their subscription plan, but there is no way to access information on the cost and usage I have accrued. eVgo told me they are working on a link to get this info.

My experience in San Diego has been positive. I also wish usage information were available. And I prefer Blink's status board web site to email notices, but I prefer eVgo's correct status information to Blink's often incorrect status information. And I greatly prefer eVgo's typical 7 hours to repair to Blink's 7 months to repair.

As gasoline replacement eVgo's subscription plan is far too costly. But as a battery life extension plan $15/month to them is much better than $100/month to Nissan for battery rental. It lets me go wherever whenever I want without worry so I can probably keep my car until Nissan finally honors their promise to sell replacement batteries.

 

[mczajka]

Appreciate the comments. It's good to know things are for the most part positive. I was not aware of the part about being stranded. Yes, I just use L2 for my car, but someday I would like to take advantage of L3.

 

[Jim]

I have been using eVgo in the DFW area for a year now. Other than a few issues here and there, they have been really good about repairing them and sending emails.

However, the month of May was a bad one for the Lake Worth, TX DC charger. Early May I started getting errors after charging for a few minutes. I reported the problem after the charge failed the second time (different days) and they did send an email about the outage. A few days later I tried again and it was still failing. I didn't report it because I had not received an email saying it was repaired. A couple days later I did get an email saying it was repaired, so the next time I used it I expected it to work. It didn't. Same error. So I called again and reported that it hadn't been fixed properly. This went on for a couple more weeks. I charged again this past Sunday and it seemed to work. Later that afternoon I received an email saying it had been fixed. I think they finally got it. Luckily I never needed the charge through all of this. This is the charger I use the most often and I have pulled in a couple times with about 2% remaining.

Other than that I am very happy with their service. I do wish they would give usage statistics.

They do need a charge in the Benbrook area, though.