The incoming CEO of Electrify America travelled in an EV. On June 1, Robert Barrosa, Electrify America’s vice president of technology, will take over as the organization’s president and CEO.
Barrosa drove a Hyundai IONIQ 5 over 2,800 kilometres between March 31 and April 6. He took a car from the city of Los Angeles to the headquarters of Electrify America in Reston, Virginia. In 13 states, he halted at 28 Electrify America stations for charging.
A video describing his journey was produced by the company and was sent today. I’ll admit that I had some reservations regarding how his trip would be portrayed—would it include both the good and the bad? Because it did, the video is now helpful.
On some days, Barrosa had no trouble charging the IONIQ; on other days, the charging stations had either failed or couldn’t charge the device quickly enough. The EV charger in West Unity, Ohio was offline due to an application crash, so he called the support centre, and they were able to effectively reset it. (However, it takes time.)
Along with talking to other EV drivers who had stopped to charge, he acknowledged on video that “there are still problems for ourselves and for the entire sector to work with when it pertains to charging infrastructure.” Barrosa described his vacation as “enlightening.” Good for him for making the trip; funny to see how worn out he was when he got to Reston. The video is available to view below: