[Nai3t]

I'm a bit puzzled after my first visit to an EA station how they managed to flub some of the finer points of making charging easy. This isn't about Plug and Charge, it's about the steps in activating the right charger.

When I open my EVGo or Blink apps, they immediately use my location to guess which charging station I'm near. EVGo conveniently gives person names to each charging cord so it's very easy to know what's what. Chargepoint opens with a slightly broader map of the area, not quite as quick as EVGo.

Opening the EA app on the other hand opens up to my whole region, showing charger locations 20 miles away. I have to zoom on the map to my location to click on the correct icon.

Then the numbering scheme. Unlike EVGo's easy to identify names, EA sticks a long serial number on the top of each charger -- 8 feet in the air! -- and the digits are 2" at best. The last two digits of the serial number are the charging stand I need to select on the app -- 01, 02, 03...

But they're not finished with me yet. Each stand has two charging cords, numbered 1 and 2 (not to be confused with 01, 02). Except that on the app, they show two charging handles for me to click on, but they don't number them. They just show an image of them side by side, leaving me to guess that 1 must be the left and 2 the right.

I'm not saying this is took massive amounts of brain power to figure out, but they sure skipped a step in making it simple. Blink and Chargepoint aren't the greatest either, but EVGo seems to have it figured out and Electrify America is a late entrant with the ability to pick from all the good groundwork that's been done ahead of their arrival.

 

[Pxpxpunk]

The charging station number is also centered on the top of the screen (although admittedly in a smaller font).

 

[Nai3t]

The three EA stops in our area are all laid out with the charger located on the sides on the parking spaces (see the attached pic, chargers marked with yellow dot) vs. the alternate arrangement where the charger is centered at the head of the parking spot.

My wife bypassed the nearest stop today because charger #2 is offline. She wasn't comfortable turning around in a busy one way lane to back into spot #1 (at the top), and there's no reasonable way to plug in to charger #3.

I get that EA is constrained here with the one way layout of this busy bank parking lot, but maybe they should have rejected the site of they couldn't rearrange it accordingly.

Likewise, had VW placed the charge points on the grille (Kia eNiro) or both sides (etron?) there would be a options for plugging in at the other spots.