New EA Alpitronic HYC400 chargers at Florida Mall in Orlando

[SteveInKirkland]

If anyone gets to track a 20% to 80% charging session at the Florida Mall's new 4 cable Alpitronic HYC400 chargers, I'm curious to hear about your charge times (and whether someone else was using the same unit while you were charging.

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[Fun TC Driving]

Tom , “Stae of Charge” just release a comprehensive video on that exact location with those charges as well as the other EA beta site with the identical 400’s Alphi’s at Waterford, Connecticut. Aplhi’s have a superlative reputation in Europe and it would wonderful to see EA to after they beta those two sites, convert their whole U.S. network to them.

At the two beta sites, each 400A unit has four charing wires, for not just for two adjoining car spaces but both plug end types on each side of the unit so no matter how a vehicle’s on-board charging port is configured, even without an adapter on board, all vehicles can charge there.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

Tom , “Stae of Charge” just release a comprehensive video on that exact location with those charges as well as the other EA beta site with the identical 400’s Alphi’s at Waterford, Connecticut. Aplhi’s have a superlative reputation in Europe and it would wonderful to see EA to after they beta those two sites, convert their whole U.S. network to them.

I have a home near the Florida Mall location and my feedback is that they should have doubled or tripled the number of Alpitronic units because that site is busy.

 

[PrudentOcean]

Sadly that applies to all EA sites I use. At the one near my office wait times over one hour are typical.

I am all for having more chargers at each location, but ideally they would add more locations (with the new chargers) before they start replacing equipment one-for-one at existing locations.

When people charge their cars to 100% and the rate at which they charge drops into the low double-digits, it doesn’t matter what charging rate the EVSE is capable of.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

Sadly that applies to all EA sites I use. At the one near my office wait times over one hour are typical.

I am all for having more chargers at each location, but ideally they would add more locations (with the new chargers) before they start replacing equipment one-for-one at existing locations.

When people charge their cars to 100% and the rate at which they charge drops into the low double-digits, it doesn’t matter what charging rate the EVSE is capable of.

I know there are a lot of considerations. How much power can be delivered, permitting, etc. When I last used this location in January before it was shutdown, at least 2 of the charging stations were not functioning. Might they have a spare parts problem? Also, EA may want premiere locations to have the NACS adapters in time for the release of their NACS equipped vehicles. Who knows?

I agree that more locations is generally better.

 

[ExVolt]

We just returned from a 1300 mile road trip. We charged at 7 EA stations during the trip. We only had to wait twice and then only for 5 minutes. All chargers were 350 k and all charged very fast (170-260k).

Several of the stations were located close to Tesla charge stations. It was hard not to notice the disparity in the number of ports. Where EA would have 4 - 10 chargers, Tesla had between 42 and 90. We were shocked by how many chargers existed at the Tesla sites. And we never saw a Tesla station even half full. There were literally over 80 free chargers at one station, not joking.

So it seems that after the Tesla charge network is open to us (this summer in North America?), the issue with the number of EA chargers will be moot. Or is there something I don’t understand about Tesla chargers? I know we will need an adapter, but is there anything else that EA does that Tesla can’t? Note, our friends who have Teslas say they can charge at very fast rates now.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

So it seems that after the Tesla charge network is open to us (this summer in North America?), the issue with the number of EA chargers will be moot. Or is there something I don’t understand about Tesla chargers? I know we will need an adapter, but is there anything else that EA does that Tesla can’t? Note, our friends who have Teslas say they can charge at very fast rates now.

V3 and V4 generation Tesla Superchargers are compatible with charging Rivians, Fords, etc. There is very good reason to believe that our Macan EVs will be able to be charged at compatible (V3 and V4 generation) Tesla Superchargers this summer, but, as I frequently say to others when we discuss it, I'll believe it's real for me when I do my first charging run successfully.

Additionally, EA 350kW and, now, 400kW stations will be faster than some Tesla Supercharger stations for our cars. V3 Tesla Superchargers offer up to 250kW charging. V4 Tesla Superchargers offer charging speeds of up to 500 kW on cars and 1.2 Megawatts for the Tesla Semi.

And, Porsche is currently bundling 1 year of free charging for Macan EV customers but only at EA charging stations, which provides some economic incentive for first year owners to stay at EA stations.

Finally, there will likely be pricing differences for post year1 customers. More options means more competition.

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