How is Car Charging Group / Blink doing in your area?

[cmwade77]

Honestly, Blink can't make money as their stations are always broken, so if no one can charge, they aren't getting paid. Really though, their cost is outrageously high.

My closest L2s (10 at one site) are usually working; the lone QC there is variable - some months back somebody broke the emergency shut-off button off, and CCGI has 'repaired' it several times just by splicing the wires together and leaving them exposed The L2 are underused (I've never seen more than 4 of the 10 occupied) because they're so expensive. The QC costs $0.10/kWh more, but is faster so gets more use, and even that's very limited. I'm aamzed they've lasted this long, even after picking up the remnants of Ecotality for something like $0.04 on the dollar.

That "fix" isn't surprising and their costs are so substantially high that it is no wonder that they are rarely used, but I'm amazed that the L2 chargers are working, seriously.

[GRA]

Honestly, Blink can't make money as their stations are always broken, so if no one can charge, they aren't getting paid. Really though, their cost is outrageously high.

My closest L2s (10 at one site) are usually working; the lone QC there is variable - some months back somebody broke the emergency shut-off button off, and CCGI has 'repaired' it several times just by splicing the wires together and leaving them exposed <snip>

That "fix" isn't surprising and their costs are so substantially high that it is no wonder that they are rarely used, but I'm amazed that the L2 chargers are working, seriously.

Miracle of miracles, I walked by last night and they've finally replaced the Emergency Shut-off button. It's been missing for at least six months if not a year and the wires were spliced at least three times I know of, so maybe someone reported it to the city and they were forced to do it right.

[cmwade77]

My closest L2s (10 at one site) are usually working; the lone QC there is variable - some months back somebody broke the emergency shut-off button off, and CCGI has 'repaired' it several times just by splicing the wires together and leaving them exposed <snip>

That "fix" isn't surprising and their costs are so substantially high that it is no wonder that they are rarely used, but I'm amazed that the L2 chargers are working, seriously.

Miracle of miracles, I walked by last night and they've finally replaced the Emergency Shut-off button. It's been missing for at least six months if not a year and the wires were spliced at least three times I know of, so maybe someone reported it to the city and they were forced to do it right.

Either that or they are watching this thread and realized that we are going to hold their feet to the fire, especially since they just got a large part of the contract for installing additional EVSEs as part of the settlement that VW made for the diesel mess up.

[webeleafowners]

If I was a client looking at installing an EV station I wouldn't even consider anything but Blink. Its a one time install expense, it'll be broken within a week and no one will ever give a shit. No one will ever use it and there will never be any follow up costs. Too easy. You can say that you have an EV station for the publicity and never worry about any EVer ever counting on it actually working. Every one wins.

Just sayin.

[cwerdna]

Thanks to another thread, I took at look at Blink's financials again. They're still horrifying.

From https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BLNK/financials/, for 2018, they had just under $2.7 million in revenue but their net income applicable to common shares was almost -$27 million. In other words, their sales (e.g. charging revenue and from hardware sales) was under $2.7 million but they spent almost $30 million to generate that.

Also, a reminder, if you have one of the crap Blink L2 EVSEs at home, if its output hasn't been turned down to 24 amps or lower and you connect a car with a 6+ kW OBC, you might be another victim of the POS Rema handles like this guy: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.p ... 49#p557849.

[leucadialeaf]

I consider myself to be a very, very, very lucky person. My Blink was installed in my garage for free in early 2011 (early adopter), got some TLC from Blink a few weeks later, and has been working (w/o WiFi) ever since. Yes, it is limited to 24 amps, but my 2011 Leaf only drew 16. A year ago a new Tesla Model 3 arrived and has been happily drawing 24 amps.

I'm still amazed that there are Blink servers running to talk to. Most of the public Blinks around my area are in various states of disrepair.

[cwerdna]

Oddly, a few weeks ago, I stumbled across https://www.blinkcharging.com/single-po ... ng-Officer. Brendan Jones has ended up at Blink!

Jones joins Blink following his role as COO at Electrify America, LLC, from September 2016 to March 2020, where he was the very first employee and built the company from a startup into one of the largest, ultrafast EV charging companies in the world. He led strategy, design implementation, and management teams and negotiated contracts for charging services with numerous leading automotive OEMs. His leadership skills, paired with artful contract negotiations, led Electrify America to manage and install over $30 million in Level 2 EV charging stations and $500 million in DC fast charging infrastructure.

Prior to Electrify America, LLC, Mr. Jones was Vice President, OEM Strategy and Business Development at EVgo between March 2014 and September 2016, and helped reposition the company from a single subscriber revenue model to one with multi-million-dollar contracts with automotive OEMs and established the foundational elements for the rapid expansion of Fast Charger infrastructure in the U.S.

Jones also previously spent 21 years from April 1994 and March 2014 at Nissan North America, the last six of which were in senior management or director capacities. He was an integral part of the team working on the Nissan LEAF, which he helped develop into the top-selling battery electric vehicle of all time. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and Master of Arts from George Mason University. He has previously served on numerous boards and EV industry committees.

Before EA and EVgo, he was one of the voices of Nissan when it came to Leaf after Mark Perry. Google for brendan jones nissan autoblog.
Is the sinking ship going to finally be turned around?

To this day, I've yet to ever use a public Blink EVSE that's a paid one. I'd used some CHAdeMO only chargers before and one or more might've been on Blink/Blink owned except it was free and had no authentication.

Their L2 charging is crazy overpriced and the odds of the equipment working aren't great. I'm unaware of any SAE Combo chargers run by them in my area, so it's of no use for my Bolt. I can currently get free SAE Combo juice from https://drivethearc.com/ and cheaper than charging at home DC FC thru EA as long as my battery's not too cold and I'm below 55% SoC + some free (a bit hard to get) L2 juice about 5 miles from home.

[DaveinOlyWA]

Oddly, a few weeks ago, I stumbled across https://www.blinkcharging.com/single-po ... ng-Officer. Brendan Jones has ended up at Blink!

Jones joins Blink following his role as COO at Electrify America, LLC, from September 2016 to March 2020, where he was the very first employee and built the company from a startup into one of the largest, ultrafast EV charging companies in the world. He led strategy, design implementation, and management teams and negotiated contracts for charging services with numerous leading automotive OEMs. His leadership skills, paired with artful contract negotiations, led Electrify America to manage and install over $30 million in Level 2 EV charging stations and $500 million in DC fast charging infrastructure.

Prior to Electrify America, LLC, Mr. Jones was Vice President, OEM Strategy and Business Development at EVgo between March 2014 and September 2016, and helped reposition the company from a single subscriber revenue model to one with multi-million-dollar contracts with automotive OEMs and established the foundational elements for the rapid expansion of Fast Charger infrastructure in the U.S.

Jones also previously spent 21 years from April 1994 and March 2014 at Nissan North America, the last six of which were in senior management or director capacities. He was an integral part of the team working on the Nissan LEAF, which he helped develop into the top-selling battery electric vehicle of all time. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and Master of Arts from George Mason University. He has previously served on numerous boards and EV industry committees.

Before EA and EVgo, he was one of the voices of Nissan when it came to Leaf after Mark Perry. Google for brendan jones nissan autoblog.
Is the sinking ship going to finally be turned around?

To this day, I've yet to ever use a public Blink EVSE that's a paid one. I'd used some CHAdeMO only chargers before and one or more might've been on Blink/Blink owned except it was free and had no authentication.

Their L2 charging is crazy overpriced and the odds of the equipment working aren't great. I'm unaware of any SAE Combo chargers run by them in my area, so it's of no use for my Bolt. I can currently get free SAE Combo juice from https://drivethearc.com/ and cheaper than charging at home DC FC thru EA as long as my battery's not too cold and I'm below 55% SoC + some free (a bit hard to get) L2 juice about 5 miles from home.

WOW! I didn't even know he was at EA. Wondering if this will/is causing a resurgence at Blink? In our area, we had stations down for months at a time (including Federal Way which was down nearly TWO YEARS) and all of a sudden, they were all fixed within a few months and now most if not all are running.

It would be nice to see more players in the public charging arena. We are a lot way from saturation.