Electrify America Reviews

by Brandon Kipp

Every time I open ElectrifyAmerica , it requires me to update to iOS 13 in order to use it, which isn’t possible with my iPhone 6 Plus. Think about it: how am I supposed to road trip an electric car using this network when ElectrifyAmerica doesn’t even work. Can I use a credit card? Yes, but I’m paying for a membership to get a discounted rate. In my entire life, I never would’ve thought that the only limitation with road tripping an electric car is that my phone is too old. You don’t think there are elderly EV owners that want to go places with this network and don’t even have phones? Come on, you can do better.

by Gas Cheapskate

I searched for nearby locations. It said none found. I then changed the location to where I knew there was one. It found one just 21 miles away. They need to allow users to indicate distance from home like every other location app.

I see no way to integrate with Apple Maps or Google maps so I can locate stations on my route. I just now took delivery of the Lucid Air. It will search for nearby charging stations, but there is no way to restrict to Electrify America chargers only. This is important to me as I get 3 years of free charging at EA, and I know they have rapid charging for 300 miles of range in 20 minutes.

by Thj1199

I have been using ElectrifyAmerica to charge my car for about a year now, and a few days ago I opened it to find that an update was required, which would be fine except that it required iOS 13, which is not supported on the iPhone 5s (or 6/6 Plus for that matter). As a result no one in my family can use ElectrifyAmerica anymore, and we are forced to use a credit card or call them every time we want to charge (so we can’t check charge progress remotely). This is really disappointing since I have been very pleased with the rapid expansion of the network. I was considering purchasing a membership, but now it would be pointless. Even before the update, ElectrifyAmerica was incredibly slow to load, so much so that if I plugged in the car before finding the charger in ElectrifyAmerica it would often time out. Hopefully the incompatibility can be rectified ASAP. It would also be great to have an RFID card and web portal, which would alleviate this inconvenience.

by EV Driver JB

If text size in iOS (Settings>Accessibility>Display & Text Size>Larger Text) is set to anything larger than microscopic — even if Larger Text is switched off — app won’t scale/scroll the screen to show critical buttons, so you’re stuck on that screen with no way to escape short of quitting ElectrifyAmerica . The only workaround is to reduce Larger Text size just to use ElectrifyAmerica , then increase it back when done. Even so, when entering text in important fields such as VIN, the field is obscured so it’s impossible to see what you’ve entered, or make corrections without deleting and starting over. There is no ability to set a search radius for nearby chargers, so it’s impossible to know where the nearest one actually is. Did the developer actually even test ElectrifyAmerica? It’s not ready for prime time and not worth the hassle to figure out. I’ll use EVGo instead.

by Newlysneakeredhead

I’ve had my Mustang Mach E for 6 months now and in all that time not once have I been able to just pull up to an Electrify America charger and plug it in and it work properly. Every time at every location I’ve ever been to I’ve had to take it out and plug it back several times. Sometimes as many as 10 times or more. What makes all of this worse is I have to wait for ElectrifyAmerica to realize that the charge has failed before I can even try again. ElectrifyAmerica will keep saying “initiating charge” long after I’ve had to unplug because it failed to start charging. This sometimes takes 2 minutes. Having to sit at a charger is already a hassle but to have to wait in between tries just to get the thing to START charging is absolutely ridiculous. EVgo never gives me any problems. I just plug up swipe to pay and it starts charging right away every single time. Electrify America needs to fix its issues ASAP. Once I close ElectrifyAmerica , I shouldn’t have to see “initiating charge” still on the screen for an additional 2 minutes. I honestly shouldn’t even have to plug it in more than once!

by Electric Car Early Adopter

I have been using the Electrify America system exclusively since August 31st because my townhouse has no permission to plug in my new electric car. The charging speeds vary tremendously for every pump I plug into (I have tried every pump at a location more than once) and one pump consistently wants to charge my car at almost double the KW of what my car is requesting. The pumps always display this behavior and I have never once seen a maintenance technician at any location. Why it usually takes me twice as long to get to an 80% charge as is expected is very frustrating! And I have reported these issues repeatedly to EA and to my car dealer once. October had better be a different experience or I am reporting these issues to my National, State, and local agencies!

by Platosclosetsj

Hi was using ElectrifyAmerica and I am a memener since last year but now I am unable to use ElectrifyAmerica anymore can’t even update ElectrifyAmerica because I have iso 12.5.1 on my iPhone 6 Plus and when I try to use ElectrifyAmerica it says me you need to do the update and when I update it’s says you can’t download because you need the iOS 13 to use or download ElectrifyAmerica and my phone has the latest 12.5.1 IOS version so useless for me to need to call every time when I need to do charge my car and give all details and wait despite of reposting this issue so many times to the customers service issue is not resolved yet please do fix the problem a soon as possible so we can use ElectrifyAmerica

by River's ICloud (Nickname)

The "Terms Of Use" are completely disagreeable; it litterally says they can sell your information, of which you NEED to submit multiile degrees of information such as phone number, name, and email adress, before being able to view said "tou".
They claim to allow 3rd party links and features in their app that they presume no liability over. and they revoke APPLES APP store policy, the one that is required for uploaders to follow if they upload an app to apple? is that even legal? section 16 for reference. and it keeps getting more and more sketchy as you read it. honestly, the price i am being charged to Charge is CRAZY expensive and i thought being a member would have perks but it is WAY to sketchy and insecure.

by Cbirdy

More than half of the Electrify America stations have broken card readers, so you’re required to use their app. Unfortunately, every time I try to make an account, it reads: “There was an error submitting your details. Please try again later.”
Well here’s to 4 months “later”. No way to make a login via the website, you’re just redirected to ElectrifyAmerica . Which doesn’t work. So I can’t pay with card or chip reader, but I also can’t make an account? Does the company even want to exist?
Don’t waste your time trying to plug in with this company, you’re better off waiting on a ChargePoint or Volta tap. There’s a serious reason they’re always “available”.

by Heatingpeanuts

Horrible app and it doesn’t communicate properly with the charging station or customer service. I stopped charging earlier at 60%, unplugged it, and drove away. ElectrifyAmerica then told me to remove the car within the 10min grace period, which was counting down to zero. Had to pull over to call the customer service. The rep stopped the session on the charging station but cannot stop the countdown on my app. Restarting ElectrifyAmerica or the phone didn’t help. Now several hours later it’s still counting… not sure if I’ll be able to start a new charging session again, or if they’ll charge me on the “overtime” for the coming days or weeks…

by Orgopete

Okay, new car, first road trip. I used my credit card the first time, then I realized I should become a member. Remember, I’m a newbie. I pull up to the charger, plug in and open ElectrifyAmerica . It asks, which charger. I was using #1, so I enter #1, like you would at a gas pump. I end up calling for help. My problem was a rookie mistake. Electrify America could have used “A” and “B” for CCS v CHadmo (or CCS#2). The charger number they wanted was up at the top, oof, silly me. Okay, I’ll know next time, but I’ll bet others have made my rookie mistake.

Okay, it’s charging. My predicted time was 22 min at 50kW. It’s going to be a lot longer at it’s current 27kW rate. If you are electric, you don’t have any other options. Is it my Chevy Bolt, the charger, or the combination?

PW

by Stanleeee L

ElectrifyAmerica isn’t ready for prime time to be released to public. Why did they roll it out?

First of all, it forces you to update before you can use it. I was blindsided because I don’t do automatic updates. It should let users to decide if they want to update or not and still use ElectrifyAmerica . But no, you are forced to push that update button.

Second, it went to update and nothing is downloading. No, it is not my signal because everything else is downloading and loading fine. Now I’m stuck at a charger, forced to use my CC at the regular rate while I paid for premium member with discount.

by Redxii-99

Don’t know why ElectrifyAmerica had to change. It functioned perfectly before the latest update. You could pull up to a charger open app and select and go. Now the updated app, doesn’t show the monthly contract rate correctly, or the updated the pricing and didn’t bother to let their customers know. Credit card info is all incorrect. Had to spend time reentering my info. Only to see that the new wouldn’t connect to the charging stations or doesn’t connect with the correct pricing. Way to screwup this app. Very upset customer.

by RollaKosta

First off. this app should only be used on road trips when you don't have a choice or u can’t make it to another fast charger in a city. There is no need to use them with so many other, better priced competitors.

Second. ElectrifyAmerica update doesn’t tell you how to use the wallet feature first time. So after uploading the card to my wallet i was never told (on the add to wallet screen) I had to pay in app first before using it.

They need to make their instructions more robust and more obvious how to use the apple wallet feature.

by Dream2020

It has decent functionality but it lacks good user experience.

Here are few things I observed :

1. Search - type Fincastle,va - nothing happens for some time but with a lag it shows up Fincastle town. No EV charger there , click on stations nothing happens. Zoom out then it shows one charger and click on it then it shows up under the Stations. Why all this drama? Simply zoom out to the required level to show nearby chargers when we type something to search.

2. Login immediately instead of making us press the green arrow even though ElectrifyAmerica knows that there is Face ID registered.

3. Why force us to look into plans every time after logging into app?

Many others but for brevity I stop here.

Bottom line it’s a decent app it has most of
the functionality needed but lacks User experience vision.

by Foolio

Charge status new info screen is great...
- would be great to see the whole charge curve a la chargepoint’s app.
- would be great if there was an iOS widget or a Siri shortcut to check the status etc, but even more priority, would be cool if a CarPlay app let you see the charge in real time, stop etc, this way if you hit stop while you’re in car by the time you get to the port it would be unlocked (EE stations take a little longer to release from the charge point than some other fast chargers, a nitpick)

The latest update solved the issue with email addresses with a . In them, so thumbs up. Love that you can now see your current charge sessions info. The bad - There are several places in the Ui where it’s clearly not been tested on specific devices for all screens, with strange font sizes etc. the bad I showed up after having set up the new app and new nfc cards from it (was blindsided by the old one not working making me update etc), but it threw up a couldn’t find your account error. Then I went to start from ElectrifyAmerica and said there was a payment error.(nothing changed) A couple more tries and I got it working , but the software needs some quality control. In other news EE seem to be working a bit more reliably than last year, keep up the improvements!

by Nicknames Are Obsolete

I don’t have a compatible vehicle but wanted to use ElectrifyAmerica to see where the charging stations are in my area, to see if they might work for me in the future. I launch ElectrifyAmerica , skip sign on, and am staring at a map with no charging stations and a Loading indicator that lasts for minutes. Sometimes a few stations appear eventually, but if I pan or zoom the map they disappear again. I have really solid internet so that’s not the problem.

by Chris_H.CE

I’m a car journalist and use EA on a daily with EV vehicles and many will run into issues I’m writing this to let future users know that chargers aren’t the issue it comes down to the manufacture. I’ve driven the Kona EV with every charge didn’t run into any issues but well testing the EV6 I ran into many issues that I couldn’t charge. The Mach-E had some issues months ago but on the latest updates they vehicle didn’t run into any issues. Each vehicle will be a unique experience. The EA team has been helpful in the past when giving feedback on vehicles.

by Majorgearhead

Working pretty well now. No major app problems to speak of. Also I have not encountered any dispensers that can’t find my account number from an NFC tap as of late. This used to be a problem.

Background:

I noticed that a long-standing issue where my settings and favorites were deleted whenever ElectrifyAmerica was fully closed, or after a short period of inactivity was fixed. Going to watch but this was a major point of annoyance and it is good to see they finally addressed it.

Update:

Nearly a week of use and ElectrifyAmerica is indeed fixed. Favorites are saved and are persistent when ElectrifyAmerica is stopped or is pushed out of memory.

by Tconcordia

I just bought a VW Id.4 and I have used Electrify America twice. First time worked perfectly with no problems. Charged from 20% to 80% in about 25 minutes. The second time I parked on the wrong side, read the wrong pump number and then I couldn’t remove the plug from my car. I thought something was broken and called customer service. The woman on the phone politely worked me through all my mistakes and guided me through how to correctly charge it. Great customer service. Super quick. Free for VW owners for three years! I haven’t paid for any charges yet!

by Randylicious81

I thought this was an entirely different app when i downloaded it, call them less than 24 hours later to have them cancel my plan and refund me my subscription fee, and they refused to do so and told me if i ever buy an electronic vehicle this month i can use there service instead. So they kept my 4$. Not very helpful. I just hope they don’t think they can charge me monthly.

by Mcpercy

Machines have been glitchy and unreliable for at least the past YEAR (since I got my EV). Customer service reps are patronizing and useless on the phone. The machines all have credit card readers, but the majority of them do not work. Worse, you cannot tell if a machine works or not until you try it. You have to drive up to each machine, turn the car off, get out, plug in, try your card, see that it doesn’t work, unplug, get back in and drive six feet to the next one, and repeat at each machine until you find one that works. (They act like this is no big deal.) Calling them is worthless. They will just waste your time patronizing and apologizing, then either put you on hold to reset the machine (takes several minutes and doesn’t fix it), put you on hold to “see if someone is available to take you credit card over the phone,” tell you to download ElectrifyAmerica , or tell you to try different machines (which you could have done without calling them). And they lie every time that they are going to get this fixed as soon as possible. If they have not fixed it in the past year, they obviously do not care about this issue.

by Gkmess

If you read the disclaimer, ElectrifyAmerica requires WAAAY too much information to run. Basically they own anything you tell if, and can sell it to anyone they see fit.
The way the legalese is written, this could potentially mean they sell your name, address, payment info, LOCATION DATA, and ANYTHING THEY PLEASE to ANY company they want, without your knowledge.

You know, I was excited for the future of electric until I read this disclaimer. Now I feel the need to stay FAR AWAY from electric car companies, because they're turning out to be worse than social networks!

I only downloaded ElectrifyAmerica out of curiosity about what charging stations were around me. After reading the legal agreement, screw you guys. This is awful.

by JayX916

1. App isn’t easy to use. It doesn’t display the nearest charging station and you have to zoom in and find them.
2. You don’t get any discount for just being a member.
3. Charging stations in Great Mall, Milpitas, CA are always blocked my non-electric cars or the cars which aren’t charging.
4. Customer service is decent and they try their best to help you.

- It shouldn’t be this difficult, just allow users to enter the station number and start the charge in two simple steps.

- Text on ElectrifyAmerica is too small. If you’re out at night or in rain you’d struggle trying to pinch and zoom to try to find the station tire on.

Seems like their developers don’t take ElectrifyAmerica out to the station and test how it is functioning on the field.

by Kia Niro EV

Their price tier structure is the worst. To put some numbers to this accusation I am making. My Kia Niro can take a 76 kwh max (which it never does). This puts me in the second price tier (double the cost) and I only get about a 30-35 kw charge. I found this out by driving from Maine to Colorado and got charged $200 more than I should have. Called them and they were totally reluctant to help me told me to post my pictures and receipts on their website. Never got a response.

by Tomso

Signed up for a subscription and so far have had the same experience at every charging station: Try tap-to-pay with the Electrify America pass on Apple Watch. Get “unable to process” error. Unplug. Replug. Retry with EA pass on the phone. Get same error. Unplug. Replug. Try to activate station from app. Fails 75% of the time. Unplug. Replug. Give up and pay with credit card, thus getting no benefit whatsoever from subscription.

If you want people to actually use your charging network, you need to MASSIVELY improve the customer experience.

by Shoetr

Instead of automatically showing stations on a map area, ElectrifyAmerica frequently starts off by showing nothing until you start panning the map (this includes areas where I know EA has chargers). On top of that, most of the chargers in my area (a major metropolitan area) haven’t updated in weeks.

Makes ElectrifyAmerica frustrating to use in some ways...and useless in others...so I’ll use other networks first and EA only when there’s no choice.

by Alx512

Why is every field a password field?

Why do you expire my session half way through onboarding, then give me an error when trying to sign back in saying I need to complete onboarding which there is no actual way to do? Instead I have to start over from scratch and pray I don’t time out again?

Why can’t I use Apple Pay?

by Ralph6544321

ElectrifyAmerica won’t tell you whether stations are available unless you create an account. They won’t let you create an account unless you give them a CC#. Once you give them a CC#, they want to hit it and create a local wallet with a minimum cash balance, just like a toll agency. No discount unless you pay a monthly fee to be a “member.” I can pay same price at the “pump,” no local wallet, just by swiping my CC. Why am I considering ElectrifyAmerica? Oh, right, I want to know whether a station is available before I get there. Argh!!

by Sid G

The chargers seem good, but ElectrifyAmerica needs to fix the signup form. Almost impossible to sign up using a strong password.

Copy/paste is disabled in the signup form, making using password managers nearly impossible.

The confirm email field has the wrong data type, and was overwritten by my iOS-generated strong password, while the actual confirm password field remained blank. I’m not going to type a 60 character random password manually.

I was unable to proceed with signup after using the iOS password generating feature. ElectrifyAmerica wouldn’t let me edit the overwritten confirm password field, so there was no way to make the form validate.

The password validation has arbitrary requirements and won’t accept a 60 character random password because it lacks an upper case letter or a number.

Similarly, ElectrifyAmerica won’t let you paste a credit card number from a password manager. Annoying, but not as bad as the passwords.

by Buzz, Farmer

For all of the significant external investment made in this company, I’m surprised that the iOS app is rather poor at this stage. I would think that the number one thing you need to do to monetize your operation is easily and successfully onboard paying customers.

Even though I was reluctant to register just to see details of the individual charging stations, I thought I might need to make use of it at some point in the future. I made it up to the point where it asked for my credit card information. It complained that I didn’t put in my full name as shown on the card, even though that is precisely what I did.

I even went to my PC, fired up Chrome, and attempted to complete the registration there. After filling in all of the fields and submitting, it just spun at the bottom and never completed.

Don’t get me wrong—I’d like to see this company succeed and I like that they’re pushing the power envelope with the promise of faster Ultra-fast charging and pushing the OEMs, but having a capable mobile app is essential to a public EV charging venture. Thousands of smaller companies have figured out how to perform mobile registration and credit card onboarding. Let’s pull it together, guys.

P.S. Could we please get ElectrifyAmerica to work on an iPad with full-screen resolution and landscape mode?

by Mobilemind

Frustrating app, irritating billing & business model, friendly, but ultimately unhelpful customer service. We ended up getting charged $20 for just over $8 of electricity.

Next time we will be driving out if our way to find a ChargePoint or EVGO location.

1. The user-hostile sign-up process goes out of its way to work AGAINST secure password managers.

2. Tap to pay never works for initial activation to due a combination of app, hardware, and business process issues. You must always use a cleverly hidden in-app “feature” to drag a controller to initiate your first charge.

Why the this app team chose this approach is unclear. They obviously decided to make tap to pay / NFC available immediately in ElectrifyAmerica , knowing that it does NOT work reliably on first use. They could dramatically improve onboarding and choose not to do so.

2. Billing model is specifically designed to collect more payment than is needed to transfer power to your vehicle. Effectively ensuring you overpay by $10, or minimally holding $5+ hostage in perpetuity. PRO TIP: Avoid this app monthly billing.

3. Customer service is super-friendly, but ultimately unempowered and hampered by app, hardware, and business processes internal to this app.

I look forward to growth of trustworthy, reliable, usable infrastructure for electric vehicles.

by Kx11

This customer does not like to provide my current GPS for when I search for stations. Please, let customer decide default map.

Please, show SECONDS in app timer -so that customer can stop charge before the next minute begins.

App suggestion:
Please, let customer decide default MAP area.
My app opens in Sacramento, CA instead of my preferred area San Diego/ Southern CA.
-Thank you-

PS - also, i couldn’t get “HELP in app. App wants me to put a charger ID number, even if the help needed isn’t about a specific charger.

by Faulc

I’ve had good experiences charging with EA. They are constantly improving. ElectrifyAmerica map is a little glitchy, and doesn’t always show chargers unless you zoom in and out.

by Juarezgt

When I added card and went back to continue the sign up process it wouldn’t continue. I removed the card and process worked fine.