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cwerdna said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
Granted its much slower but no free level 2's in the area? Guessing if you had them, they would be overrun but something to consider

I do see your reasons for not charging at home. Your Summer rates are rather extreme. But Summer should mean much less cold battery issues as well.

I would definitely invest in whatever battery app the Bolt can use. It seems rather important in your case to know the temperature ranges for optimum charging.
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There are only 3 free L2 J1772 plugs sorta in my area.
...
bunch of ChargePoint CT-4000 stations with only 3 plugs available for public use (1 dual handle station + 1 single handle in another part of the parking lot). It's about 5 miles each way from home, so it makes no sense to go there and back unless I'm going to pass that area or spend a lot of time there. There's also a 4 hour time limit and no restrooms unless I walk to a business maybe 5-7 minutes away (if it's open)... And, yes, before the Santa Clara County (and now CA state) lockdown, they were quite busy.

They also turned on https://www.chargepoint.com/resources/using-waitlist/, but the WL is unpredictable. The owners set the stations to "close" at 11 pm. The latest behavior is that even if you are charging at at 10:59:59 pm, once it hits 11 pm, power is cut to the connectors which is a bummer for me as I'm a night owl. :( Previously, it'd keep charging past 11 pm, despite the 11 pm "closing" time.

The old Clipper Creek non-networked stations (totally removed) had no enforced time limit nor opening/closing hours.

Anyway, for the WL, you could be in spot 7 and not make it to the front before 11 pm "closing time". Or, you could be spot 5 and suddenly find yourself at the front due to people snoozing or leaving the list... Or, there's a 5 minute timeout, so if 4 folks in front of you all don't respond (each ignoring/hitting their 5 minute timeout), in about 20 minutes, you find yourself at the head.
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Re: another data point about the unpredictability of the wait list for the 3 above handles: I joined the WL maybe around 7:30 or 8 pm today. I was #6 in line. Earlier in the afternoon, there was a handle actually open (so, joining would made me #1 immediately). Anyway, by around 10 pm, I still still #6 in line. It hadn't moved. After the stations closed at 11 pm, I checked and I was #5 in line.

Now at 12:18 am, I'm #4 in line and can't use them anyway until they "re-open" at 5 am.
 
Finally had a better experience with EA this time on my Bolt. Unfortunately, it seems like my battery was still not warm enough. OAT was around 68 F. I started at 28% SoC as the charger displayed. Rate started at about 40 kW and slowly went up to a peak of 51 kW until it started ramping back down when I hit ~48 or 49% (per charger's display), so I terminated the charge by the time it got down to 37 kW.

I wish their UI would continually display the charging rate instead of cycling back and forth. And, it seems like after a little while, it times out to a "screen saver" that displays no stats, so you have to tap the screen to bring up the screen w/the % SoC, kWh dispensed, elapsed time, etc. and that sometimes displays charging rate.

I was charged the correct rate (18 cents/minute), so I paid $3.19 for 13.2 kWh. Session was 17:42.

I noticed that EA said the charger that had SAE Combo + CHAdeMO was "unavailable" and is still in that state.

A Hyundai Ioniq EV driver checked in the other day and was pissed it was charging him 50 cents/minute even though his charging rate was below 75 kW. Obviously, he didn't know about the Hyundai and Kia plans.

EA really should switch over to per kWh billing or have their price tering based upon actual charging rate (kW) instead of some stupid max the car reports.
 
Learjet said:
I only used EA once...but doesn't the app show the charging information also?
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It does, but I don't recall if it shows the charging rate while it's in progress. I was standing up in front of the charger (display not facing my car) to watch the display and to eat my lunch, so my hands were full.

I'd prefer UI like at https://electricrevs.com/2018/07/17/watch-a-bolt-ev-at-a-chargepoint-express-250-charge-at-up-to-55-kw/. I've used the DC FC in that video a bunch of times + others nearby with the same UI.

Side note: Their iOS app is kind of crappy. It signs me out frequently saying my login session has expired. Better remember your password or have it saved. Also, it seems laggy or doesn't seem to cache nearby/previous station locations so it can sometimes look like there are no stations around/the one you used + the coming soon ones are gone.

Also, like before, there was nobody else charging at the EA site I was at with the "unavailable" SAE Combo + CHAdeMO, a few more SAE Combos and 1 J1772.

Once I left EA, I did several hours more of charging over at a free station about 1.5 miles away on L2 J1772. I was able get lucky w/the waitlist today. I was in spot 5 in the wait list and waited maybe 15-20 minutes and suddenly ended up at the head of the line. I didn't even get notified, I just noticed the station on CP's map turned green and I was able to plug in. Previously, it was being held for someone who didn't show up. The 3 free J1772 handles were generally busy today.
 
Now 425, and the "coming soon" # jumped to 114. The most important new one I noticed was in Santa Rosa, NM on I-40, along with Tucumcari the last one needed to connect AQE to Amarillo. Also, one in Port Angeles, WA.
 
GRA said:
Now 425, and the "coming soon" # jumped to 114. The most important new one I noticed was in Santa Rosa, NM on I-40, along with Tucumcari the last one needed to connect AQE to Amarillo. Also, one in Port Angeles, WA.
Click to expand...

I think watching the # of 'Coming Soon' locations may be helpful of understanding the impact of the pandemic on the short/long term outlook for EV's. Long term EV's should be fine I expect. Thanks for tracking the EV charging industry locations.
 
On a different note; Was talking with someone who claims less that 5% of EA locations charge over 50 KW on chademo and "none" of the newer locations (last 6 months) do.

Wondering how true this is and if anyone here has seen the rate capped at 125 amps (50 KW in layman's terms) on a Plus?
 
Another valuable Hwy "Coming soon" site which just appeared and I forgot to mention is Salina, UT, at the Jct. of I-70, U.S. 50 and 89. This is a much better location than the current one in Richfield, whose main advantage was that it was at a Walmart and could be built quickly.
 

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