Electrify America users disappointed by 'slow charging' & 'unavailability' issues compared to Tesla Superchargers

Owned by Volkswagen, Electrify America is one of the most popular non-Tesla charging networks in the US. While the company claims to be ‘the leader in electric vehicle (EV) charging’, customers say otherwise.

Social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit are filled with reports from disappointed customers who’ve had a bad experience with the company.

The Electrify America network currently has several issues regarding slow charging speeds and charger unavailability.

The experience with EA leaves so much to be desired compared to Tesla’s supercharger. Price also kills me… $0.49 KW is robbery
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They fail me consistently. It makes me wonder why can’t any of their charger suppliers fix the reliability issues?
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This is giving some potential customers second thoughts about buying their first non-Tesla EV. It seems that Electrify America is struggling to compete with the undeniably impressive network of Tesla Superchargers.

According to some, Electrify America being one of the largest charging networks in the country is causing more harm to the EV market than good. It makes potential customers hesitant to get an EV other than a Tesla.

Slow charging

Recently, a Twitter account dedicated to EV content reported getting a charging speed of 7kW on an Electrify America charger. If you’re unaware of standard EV charging speeds, that number is painfully low.

A customer suggests that chargers should offer a minimum speed of 150kW. Unfortunately, that’s not the case (1,2,3) with many Electrify America charging stations around the country. Some are usually down or extremely slow.

This is incredibly frustrating as nobody likes to take abnormally long breaks during their road trips.

Unavailability issues

The unavailability (1,2,3,4) of chargers is also a major concern for Electrify America customers at the moment. Some complain that multiple chargers in stations are generally unavailable.

In other cases, they may show the ‘Available’ status but never end up charging their car. Due to such problems, Electrify America’s charging network is considered unreliable by many.

However, some recent reports suggest that EA has been making major improvements in terms of reliability. A few customers reported taking long road trips without experiencing any issues with Electrify America chargers.

1600 miles driven from California to Oregon with Electrify America with no issues.
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EA reliability was actually better 2 years ago. It got bad in 2022 with the flood of new EVs but EA recently replaced the older broken chargers with updated ones.
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This is surely a ray of hope and makes us interested to see how the company strengthens its network in the coming future.

We hope Electrify America looks into the slow charging and unavailability issues and fixes them as soon as possible. We’ll keep an eye on this matter and update this story to reflect noteworthy developments.

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