Despite COVID-19 delays, the network continues to expand at a rapid pace.
Electrify America today announced the first of two cross-country routes is complete, with the second one expected to be finished by this September. These routes allow electric vehicle drivers to travel from coast to coast while charging exclusively on the Electrify America high-speed DC fast charge network.
The first route that is now complete travels along Interstates 15 and 70. It covers 11 states and a total of over 2,700 miles, bringing drivers from Los Angeles, California to Washington D.C. The DC fast charge stations deliver up to 350 kW, with 50 kW being the minimum power delivery for a given station.
On average, the Electrify America sites are 70 miles apart to accommodate electric vehicles with smaller batteries and thus, less driving range. They are also positioned as close to the main highways as possible and located conveniently in or near shopping centers with dining amenities.
“Electrify America’s primary goal has always been to advance electric vehicle adoption in the U.S., and that starts by instilling feelings of confidence and freedom in consumers when it comes to EV ownership,” said Anthony Lambkin, director of operations at Electrify America. “The completion of our first cross-country route is a significant step towards that goal – by making long-distance travel in an EV a reality, we hope to encourage more consumers to make the switch to electric.”
Second Route to Open Soon
In addition to the Los Angeles to Washington D.C route, Electrify America promises that by the end of this summer, EV drivers will also be able to travel across the southern portion of the U.S., from Jacksonville, Florida to San Diego, California. This route will be on interstate highways beginning near I-10 and finishing along I-8.
Electrify America already offers a major route covering much of the East Coast via Interstate 95 from Portland, ME to Miami, FL, and I’ve personally traveled portions of that route on many occasions. The stretch of I-95 in New Jersey is actually where I perform my 70-mph highway range tests for InsideEVs, and use the Electrify America network to charge the vehicles before and after the range tests.
Electrify America has also completed a West Coast route along Interstate 5 from Seattle, WA to San Diego, CA.
Electrify America has been expanding its network at an incredibly fast pace. It’s been only twenty-five months since they opened their first site in Chicopee, Massachusetts and they now have 435 open sites with over 1,900 charging stations. They also have over 100 more sites currently in development which will add more than 400 additional charging stations.
However, Electrify America’s rapid pace of deployment hasn’t been without problems. The stations have been plagued with problems from poorly designed screens that are very hard to read to credit card readers that are only slightly better than worthless.
Gallery: Electrify America
22 Photos If you do use the Electrify America network, it’s imperative to download the app and activate the sessions that way. I’ve found a very high session activation success rate when I do everything through the app. Electrify America has also started asking for customer feedback with every charging session. There’s a survey link located at the bottom of the charging session receipt customers receive once the session is complete. We urge our readers to complete the survey, especially if you haven’t had a good experience using the network. Hopefully, it will help Electrify America identify the major pain points that customers experience while using the network, and improve their service. Source: Read Full Article
