Copy
Rate Your Charge Weekly Newsletter

4/22/2023 - 4/28/2023
Welcome to the weekly update from Rate Your Charge! Every Saturday we send out a newsletter summarizing data from numerous fast charger check-ins from regular EV owners. We hold no affiliations with any network, operator, or hardware manufacturer. Our goal is to provide objective feedback and data to improve your EV charging experience. If you would like to participate, tweet us @RateYourCharge and include a video or picture with your charging experience. Alternatively, you can use our Google Form (https://forms.gle/c834zmP9zf16ZqRC6).
First place: Tesla earned another first with 93% good check-ins and 0 failed check-ins. Great work.

Second place: Other Operators took second place with 68% good check-ins and 3 failed check-ins. Not too bad!

Third place: EVgo moved into 3rd. 61% good check-ins and 3 failed check-in. Keep it moving in the right direction, EVgo!

Fourth place: ChargePoint slipped all the way to 4th place with 57% good check-ins along with 4 failed check-ins. This was a really rough week for ChargePoint which usually holds a convincing 2nd place.

Fifth place: Electrify America was last with 52% good check-ins and 1 failed check-in. We'd love to see Electrify America do better than their usual 50-60% good check-ins.
In order to effectively visualize the data, we identify whether a check-in was good, bad, or failed.

Good check-in: Requires all the following: 
  • A successful charge 
  • An accurate smartphone app 
  • Full charging speeds on first plug in 
  • More than 50% of chargers on site working at full speed
Bad check-in: Users were still able to charge their vehicles, but their experience was not up to our standards. Check-ins are classified as bad if the charge was successful but the user experienced at least one of the following:
  • Faulty/incorrect smartphone app
  • Charging speeds limited by the charger
  • Needing to re-plug in for any reason
  • Calling customer support
  • 50% or more chargers at site are limited or down
  • 5 or more minutes waiting at a full site
Failed check-in: A failed checking occurs when users are not able to charge their vehicle at all. These are our least favorite. This is the worst-case scenario and may even leave EV owners stranded. We believe failed check-ins are unacceptable. 
We had 214 check-ins this week. Thank you to everyone who submitted a check-in, and a huge thanks to our top three contributors below. This week's top contributor: @WattLightning. Thanks for the check-ins while taking your Ford e-transit on a road trip across California and Arizona!
Of our 214 check-ins, only 19% were using the Tesla Supercharger network while 81% used other networks (CCS, primarily). In our check-ins, Electrify America was by far the most popular operator accounting for 56% of this week's check-ins.

We're excited to report that other network operators appear to be improving. We do not have enough data to specifically discuss each operator (Rivian Adventure Network or FreeWire for example), but we are seeing more and more good check-ins. Other networks still suffer from broken chargers and a moderately high failed check-in rate. We'd like to see more improvements on this end so we can prevent EV drivers from getting stranded.

Below we can see the percentage of good check-ins for each operator for the past 6 weeks. ChargePoint's massive slip is clearly shown in this figure. We recorded ChargePoint's lowest good check-in rate yet, as well as a high failed check-in rate. We hate to see these results, but we're confident ChargePoint can improve going forward. Other operators had another solid week. Some networks have even started to build a reliable reputation. This competition is exactly what we need! Both EVgo and Electrify America did better this week when compared to last week, but there's still a long way to go.
Smartphone app accuracy is a critical yet often overlooked component to the charging experience. Imagine you pull out your phone and pick a charger, you even check the app and see 3 chargers are working and available. You arrive only to find two chargers down and one charger working at reduced speed. This is app inaccuracy.  
Electrify America continues to struggle with app accuracies. Specifically, they can't seem to figure out how to reliably indicate if chargers are working, limited, or down. They also have problems reporting chargers as full or empty. Smartphone app inaccuracy can be a huge source of frustration. We think it is important for Electrify America to address this issue as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading our weekly newsletter, and thank you to everyone who submitted data this week!

-RateYourCharge






This email was sent to <<Email Address>>
why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences
Out of Spec Studios · 712 colum · Boulder, Co 80303 · USA