The best EA station in the U.S.???

[s4wrxttcs]

Tigard, OR

Why?

Easy on/off access from the Freeway
8 Chargers without too many issues of broken chargers
Walking Path to stretch your legs
Excellent Pizza Place that has both Meat Lover options and Vegetarian/Vegan Options

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[s4wrxttcs]

This is great and I certainly make it more often than not when depending on EA. A lot of trips would be impossible without their chargers.

At the same time, I almost got stranded yesterday because the EA station in Kelso was down to 2/4 chargers and there were four desparate vehicles waiting in line. If not for barely being able to limp to the EVGo Centralia charger, my trip would have been extended by hours. This is after spending two hours a few weeks ago trying to find a working fast charger for a ski trip the next day - I tried seven separate EA cabinets at two different locations before finding one that would hold a charge over 30kW.

So I'm not going to do any end zone dances on their behalf just yet - things are still getting worse (more demand per available charger) before they get better. We need to flip that. The expectation should be similar to RAN, which from anecdotes here and my experience is vanishingly close to 100% runtime and availability, versus maybe 50-75% for EA (on a per-charger basis).

(On variability... My local EVGo is the "best EVGo" in the same way this thread is describing - consistent 212kW charging all the way to 50+%, zero issues in >six months of usage, and with per-min pricing turning out to <$0.09 per kwH for a 70% charge, it's around half the price of home charging. Meanwhile my local EA stations have a per-charger failure rate around 75-80%.)

The Kelso location has been broken for basically the last year, and 4 chargers is way too few for a location between Seattle and Portland.

You either have to charge near Olympia or charge in Vancouver.

The Kelso charger is so bad that it should simply be removed. Since my initial experience I avoid it and I wish I could tell the Nav that it doesn't really exist.

 

[jjswan33]

The Kelso location has been broken for basically the last year, and 4 chargers is way too few for a location between Seattle and Portland.

You either have to charge near Olympia or charge in Vancouver.

The Kelso charger is so bad that it should simply be removed. Since my initial experience I avoid it and I wish I could tell the Nav that it doesn't really exist.

My guess is they plan on replacing these with the new hardware. Similar to what they did in Hood River and Bend.

In my experience the new hardware has been great, I especially appreciate the really long cables that make it so much easier to park no matter the orientation of the parking stall. This used to be a pain in Bend.

 

[WSea]

The Kelso location has been broken for basically the last year, and 4 chargers is way too few for a location between Seattle and Portland.

You either have to charge near Olympia or charge in Vancouver.

The Kelso charger is so bad that it should simply be removed. Since my initial experience I avoid it and I wish I could tell the Nav that it doesn't really exist.

Got a fast charge there in late December but made mental note to avoid in the future. Bad location next to zombie mall

 

[kylealden]

My guess is they plan on replacing these with the new hardware. Similar to what they did in Hood River and Bend.

In my experience the new hardware has been great, I especially appreciate the really long cables that make it so much easier to park no matter the orientation of the parking stall. This used to be a pain in Bend.

The new hardware is much better. (When it's not bricking Rivians ?.)

But yeah... the Kelso situation is pretty inexcusable and also emblematic of the problem. I was driving from Madras to Seattle and that's where I was routed for my charging stop. I got lucky that I had just enough to draft behind a semi to Chehalis.

In theory I guess I should have pre-checked my stops on Plugshare, but on the other hand anything that requires me to do that is a perfect little microcosm of the problems with today's networks.

 

[MIG]

Very happy with our EA option at a nearby upscale shopping mall. The only problem is that my wife almost always shops while she charges, so it gets expensive quickly.

 

[jjswan33]

The new hardware is much better. (When it's not bricking Rivians ?.)

But yeah... the Kelso situation is pretty inexcusable and also emblematic of the problem. I was driving from Madras to Seattle and that's where I was routed for my charging stop. I got lucky that I had just enough to draft behind a semi to Chehalis.

In theory I guess I should have pre-checked my stops on Plugshare, but on the other hand anything that requires me to do that is a perfect little microcosm of the problems with today's networks.

Yeah I understand your complaint. I haven't used the Kelso station so can't comment about it specifically. Not checking Plugshare is risky and that is emblematic of the problem as you said but the larger problem is really limited infrastructure especially during peak use times. It takes just a little more planning than people want to do.

In time as other CCS charging networks catch up to EA (in connecting population centers) and if Tesla actually follows through with opening up their network a lot of the complaints people have about EA will be moot.

Also regarding your earlier comment about RAN, time will tell on their reliability. When I was in central OR a few weeks back I encountered minor issues, first in Madras the station limited me to 100kW likely do to cold weather but shouldn't have been limited by the truck as it pre-conditioned and I had just driven over Mt Hood and still way better than the alternative. Then secondly in Crescent I had several aborted charging sessions and I had to swap to a different stall. Neither was really a big deal, just an inconvenience but the type of inconvenience I see people whining about EA for.

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