So.. NRG/eVGO's network was down the ENTIRE weekend..

[JasonA]

and ALL of the chargers on their network could NOT be activated UNLESS you already had a FOB. Which means for someone like me (and possibly like you) still waiting in the mail, you were SOL. So, every dealership, every L2, DCQC, etc was dead (and I heard that even dealers still don't have FOB's)...

So while at the Strawberry Fest in Oxnard, we were contemplating taking the Leaf..... but we took the Rav and a full load of people (143miles round trip).. but then people wanted to do the 126 route to get fresh fruit... 193 miles.. (tesla miles ).. so I went back to the car early and called eVGO..

38min wait.. and a VERY rude person told no go, their entire network has been down ALL WEEKEND and they cannot remote activate.. but I could 120v charge :lol:

I called again.. and got a supervisor, she said the servers went down Friday night... hmmm(I'm an I.T. guy-- GET THEIR ASSES WORKING ON IT LIKE YESTERDAY!)..

Not a very good exp for a 1st time user... Blink was better then this! :shock:

P.S. while sitting there, a VERY COOL guy in a silver MS pulled up and we started to talk, he said he's still waiting for his eVGO FOB and last week he could not charge on their network as well, same thing.. they were down.. :roll:

 

[Nubo]

Crap. I'm looking to take a long trip in a few weeks and had some eVGO sites penciled in. How long have you been waiting for the fob?

 

[TomT]

Three weeks and counting for me...

Crap. I'm looking to take a long trip in a few weeks and had some eVGO sites penciled in. How long have you been waiting for the fob?

 

[JasonA]

I've been waiting a 10 days.. thing is, if I knew or they sent out an email that L2/DCQC was down but L1 was avail (she gave me the lock code) I would have plugged in first thing when we got there and had plenty to do what we wanted...

Otherwise, we would have been screwed... especially if we took the Leaf.

 

[91040]

The QC at First Nissan in Simi Valley is on ChargePoint and available 24/7. The AV L2 there was down Thursday night, though.

Guess this points up the need to carry around the paraphernalia for opportunity charging- adapters, extension cords, combiner boxes, etc...

 

[JasonA]

Sad part is.. eVGO just used Chargepoint's units.. they should have just taken over Blink and all the other locations...

I have a feeling eVGO is more like EVno..

 

[Jim]

Was this just the units in California?

I was able to charge Friday afternoon and Sunday morning in the DFW area, two separate locations. The station I used on Friday did stop charging early, but I had reported a problem with it previously and had not yet received an email saying it was fixed. I was able to get about a 40% charge before it quit. Both were QCs.

 

[JasonA]

Did you read my post? Do you have a FOB? :roll:

Details tell alot.. This outage affected the ENTIRE NETWORK..

 

[Jim]

Did you read my post? Do you have a FOB? :roll:

Details tell alot.. This outage affected the ENTIRE NETWORK..

Guess I missed that part.

 

[JasonA]

Don't sweat it.. I was just being caustic.. I didn't have my coffee this morning! :twisted:

lol

 

[JeremyW]

To be fair, I've encountered a weekend where blink was doing maintenance and you had to use a fob/card since the app would be down. They hadn't issued cards in months due to the car charging group takeover. I really needed a charge at the qc at aqmd in diamond bar but no such luck. (I had lost my card a while back) I think I sat on L2 for a while before heading home. Not saying any of this is ok but Blink has had their "network outages" too. :?

 

[Valdemar]

I got my fob within 3 days of filling up the online form. The latter took several attempts but finally worked.

 

[walterbays]

Around here I've had very different experience.

I got my fob (fob? it's an RFID card) quickly so I have never had to phone them. Even when Blink was a going concern their charging stations were very often malfunctioning although their web status showed them working, and then a couple of months before the bankruptcy it seemed that they discontinued all maintenance, particularly letting all QC stations die. Nothing has changed since the bankruptcy and acquisition by CCG. Once I tried phoning Blink (post CCG takeover) to see if they could activate an L2 charger whose card reader was malfunctioning. They could not.

I've never found an eVGO QC station not working, and I get email bulletins when stations go offline and when they are repaired - usually fairly quickly. So far - knock on wood - I believe I can trust the eVGO status reports.

I don't think eVGO's effective monopoly on effective charging service is a good thing. So I wish that either Blink would get its act together, or that the state would allow utilities to enter the charging market, or that the state would give big low interest loans to Chargepoint and/or EVoasis to give eVGO some competition. But since I do want to drive my car I prefer a competent monopoly to a collection of incompetent competitors.

 

[opencar]

also got my eVGO card quickly but i had to call several times before my account was correctly setup in the system. one thing i can't yet figure out is how the company bills for the "use-as-you-go" plan. the charger displays have no billing info, and i have yet to get a consolidated bill notice from the company.

Around here I've had very different experience.

I got my fob (fob? it's an RFID card) quickly so I have never had to phone them. Even when Blink was a going concern their charging stations were very often malfunctioning although their web status showed them working, and then a couple of months before the bankruptcy it seemed that they discontinued all maintenance, particularly letting all QC stations die. Nothing has changed since the bankruptcy and acquisition by CCG. Once I tried phoning Blink (post CCG takeover) to see if they could activate an L2 charger whose card reader was malfunctioning. They could not.

I've never found an eVGO QC station not working, and I get email bulletins when stations go offline and when they are repaired - usually fairly quickly. So far - knock on wood - I believe I can trust the eVGO status reports.

I don't think eVGO's effective monopoly on effective charging service is a good thing. So I wish that either Blink would get its act together, or that the state would allow utilities to enter the charging market, or that the state would give big low interest loans to Chargepoint and/or EVoasis to give eVGO some competition. But since I do want to drive my car I prefer a competent monopoly to a collection of incompetent competitors.

 

[eVgoNetwork]

Hello all - and hello JasonA specifically:

We apologize for your experience in not being able to charge on Sunday - definitely far from the great user experience we aim to provide. The network was actually authenticating properly for customers with an access card, but for a few hours Sunday afternoon we were unable to activate our chargers remotely for drivers without a card. Our team was working diligently on Sunday evening to fix the issue and it was resolved in about 3 ½ hours. We are also addressing the issue of mail delivery of our key cards to ensure faster delivery.

JasonA: can you please contact us directly at [email protected] and give us your last name so we can search for the status of your key card delivery?

Sincerely,

Your friends at NRG eVgo

 

[JasonA]

Thank you for your response though I am surprised to hear that this was only an issue on Sunday, May 18th. You see when I was at the eVgo station another EV driver stopped by and told me that he had the same issue a week ago and at a different location.

And BTW, according your customer service reps on the phone, this was an all day outage (or atleast from morning til 4-5pm when I was still trying to charge)..