A longtime EV owner and current Rivian R1T driver recently shared a rather disturbing incident while charging at an Electrify America station. The accident left the R1T “fried” and the owner was away from home for hours. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the first time such an incident has occurred.
Rivian R1T owner @snkrticians noted that he was charging his all-electric truck at an Electrify America station when he heard a loud noise. The sound appears to be causing a number of error codes on the R1T, resulting in the vehicle getting stuck in the boot. It ended up taking several hours before a technician came to the scene.
Unfortunately for the Rivian’s owner, it was two hours away from home. Unable to separate the charger from the R1T, the Electrify America technician suggested cutting the charger to free the car, which the longtime EV owner found absurd. Fortunately, Rivian helped the R1T owner by providing him with rideshare credits so he could get home.
What is quite disturbing about the Rivian owner’s experience is that this is not the first time the problem has been reported. Back in November, owner of a Ford F-150 Lightning Eric Rowe posted about a very similar experience on Twitter. According to the Lightning’s owner, he was able to plug into an Electrify America charger just fine, but shortly after the charging session began, he heard a loud noise. Then the charger went dark and the flash shows several error codes. The vehicle had to be towed from the station.
What’s unfortunate for the Lightning owner was that the vehicle was returned to the dealer from earlier this month due to a failure of one of the main battery modules following the Electrify America incident. The wait for parts is expected to be long. A Ford dealership has reportedly advised the Lightning owner to ask the automaker to buy the vehicle back.
In response to the Rivian R1T owner’s experience on Twitter, a Chevy Bolt owner claims to have had the exact same experience with an Electrify America charger. The incident ultimately caused the Bolt’s owner to spend $288 to have the all-electric hatchback towed to a dealership. Amid these reports, electric vehicle owners are demanding that Electrify America issue an official statement on the matter and issue a fix as soon as possible to ensure that no electric cars are “fried” anymore.
Teslarats reached out to Electrify America for a statement on the matter. I will update this article if or when Electrify America responds to my inquiries.
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