Electrify America is getting far too much money and is using it to effectively anti-sell EVs with their janky, broken, and insecure infrastructure. Their funding comes from government subsidies and traditional automakers making reparations for emissions scandals (Volkswagen, $2B). This network is basically being built out of malicious compliance, without reasonable desires to make it good and reliable...
My mind will only change when I see new generation EA DCFC post & charger that's designed for scale, high stall reliability, and a mean-time between service to rival that of Tesla's supercharger network.
I watched a cross-country trip review of a Volkswagen EV and one of the big takeaways was that despite funding Electrify America, the experience of using their chargers, even with a Volkswagen, was terrible at the time of review. Not only were the chargers often out of service or underpowered, you had to use some app on your phone where you type in the charger ID # to turn it on, instead of the car negotiating it.
Really seems like perverse incentives to me... EA was created due to the VW scandal, and they were forced to spend this money this way.
Except, VW's bread and butter is still gas cars. They're not incentivized to herald EVs at all; if anything, they'd prefer it to go as slowly as possible so they can continue to make money off their gas fleet.
Not to be flippant, but this potentially has not happened because Tesla has demonstrated it's an unnecessary burden to building a reliable charging network. If you build a charging network intelligently (for example, by putting the user interface in the car, not the stalls) and are motivated to keep it functioning, there's no need for a regulatory agency.
Customers should be selecting vehicles that don't have to deal with the deliberate incompetence of Electrify America.
I've said this as well. It is exactly what's needed. Local Weights and Measures inspectors should be going to EV stations and giving out fines for stations that are misbehaving.
"Gas pumps get periodic state issued inspections. Why not EV chargers?"
From an infrastructure standpoint a gas pump (and related tubing, tanks, filters, nozzles, etc.) is quite a bit more complicated and fragile than a charging receptacle.
A charging station really shouldn't be much more complicated than a streetlight, minus the UI and billing components.
All of this to say:
I don't know how often electric charge stations should be inspected but I hope it would be quite a bit less often than a gas pumping station ...
Probably part of it is that gas stations must store gas in underground tanks, which can pose an environmental hazard. Topside leaks from faulty valves, hoses, nozzles, and human error can also cause an environmental hazards.
There's also a matter of accuracy in how much fuel you receive and how much you pay for. I'm assuming it's much easier for an elective vehicle to independently verify how much of a charge they received compared to a gas car.
Looking forward to a teardown of an EA charger by someone familiar with power circuits. I wonder if they are shorting primary to secondary and getting 2400V AC straight into their car battery... Probably welding the plug to the car too.
The high power ones are putting DC into the car for starters.
The two extra prongs are the DC.
Conversion would generally prevent the issue you cite. They are converting three phase ac, and usually only 480v. Isolation failure would not fry the car like this because it would fault first. They are separate ac and DC cabinets with proper controls.
It may still be overvolting the DC, just not this particular way. It is much more likely the rectifier is fucked or something.
Placing 300kw (or even 150kw) of DC at like 4x the right voltage would make more than just a loud bang. It would instantly melt most insulation, for starters.
The bang is an mccb or something catching the fucked up rectifier
These cars likely got overvolt at light amperage. Otherwise lots of things would have sparked and burst into flame
The charging stations near me are built with the AC-DC converters in one set of cabinets and the dispensers in separate cabinets. The dispensers don't seem to have any AC power available to fault into the car.
Worked in that industry for 2 years making big chargers. The electronic latch that locks the plug into the vehicle is IMHO the single stupidest (even dangerous) thing. Anything unexpected goes wrong and you can't unplug the cable and you are stranded. I have no idea why any vehicle manufacturer would put this on their car.
> I have no idea why any vehicle manufacturer would put this on their car.
I'm not an expert, but I'll assume that the opposite is as dangerous. I think that if you unplug a car that is charging car, by tilting the connector in the wrong way ypu might have a dangerous hazard both for the car and for the person unplugging it.
DC chargers can be quite powerful (480V/100A), so I really doubt it's a good idea do mess with them in general.
I will never buy a Tesla, but the CCS network is pretty garbage in the U.S. right now. EA regularly has outages, their newer models (which I have not used) fry vehicles or fail in cold weather, I've only heard bad things about EVGo but never used them.
Fortunately I stick to home (Metro Boston) and haven't had any serious problems with ChargePoint stations heading up to Mount Desert Island in Maine, the farthest trips I've done.
I thought I didn't want to buy another Tesla myself, but I have encountered so many issues with other networks over many years of driving a Nissan Leaf, and seeing this reinforces Tesla's charging network supremacy. The Tesla chargers have been incredibly reliable. Just don't turn autopilot on when you are back on the road.
I bought a Tesla mostly for the charging network. I didn't want "Autopilot" and refuse to have the terrible controls (oe rather lack of controls) on the 3/Y, so I found a used S (2018) that suits my needs pretty well. The software is pretty bad IMO, but it never feels like I can't operate the car as a car due to those issues. I'm still glad I didn't get locked into a Google-owned Android Automotive, which I imagine will be evil at some point, or maybe even abandoned entirely.
I WAS planning to get the CCS upgrade, to diversify my charging options, but I think I'll stick with Tesla's network for now...
Yes, surely a relay could have prevented this. I did a little googling, and since fast chargers can deliver up to 350kW, it does appear that a breaker rated for that power could be pretty expensive and large (e.g. full panel sized, $1,000). But that’s just a wild guess. Still cheaper than a couple years of insurance payments.
My first thought that one side or the other is failing to follow some part of the charging standard and it's hard to tell which. Then I saw that it has happened with Rivian and Ford and Chevy vehicles, so it's pretty clearly on the charger side. Never used EA and now I suspect I never will. They're just evil or incompetent or both. I had initial issues with billing on EVgo but otherwise they've been fine, and I've never had much problem with Chargepoint (except for rarity of compatible L3). That plus L2 at home has been quite sufficient.
The reports are consistent with the EA cabs doing something that are causing the packs to blow their pyrofuses. The only thing that really makes sense is some kind of transient DC overvoltage. The problem with pyrofuses is that they are slow. They will stop some kind of catastrophic event like a battery fire, but they are too slow to prevent damage.
Having seen inside their cabinets, I wouldn't plug into one if you paid me. Building a reliable charging network is apparently only a secondary business goal of Electrify America.
This is particularly disturbing because often EA chargers are the only reliable fast chargers around for CCS, so it's not like you can just avoid them for another network on a long trip.
I’m somewhat surprised there aren’t more EV (DC) charging companies around.
There are dozens of various oil companies who have their own gas stations (subsidized by the oil industry?). Why don’t we see more electric companies building their own charging networks as well?
One often over looked aspect of EVs are their relative fragility compared to a ICE vehicle. I see it as an analog/digital divide. You can get an ICE to temporarily run with all sorts of deficits, incorrect inputs, or hacks. It will still kinda work. EVs are way more digital. If one thing in the chain breaks the bit flips to false and you're done until the tow truck comes and an expert with special, secret knowledge and tools can disassemble it and flip the bit back to true so to speak.
Yes and no. An old school ICEV, sure. But having had my pickup up and die going across an intersection due to a failed part of the fuel injection system, I don't think it's safe to say modern ICEVs are more reliable than EVs in that regard. There's lots of things to go wrong which will shut you down just as instantly as a big failure in an EV.
On the other hand, I feel my leaf shares only the reliable components with an ICE car. Battery. Electric motor. Hvac and whell bearings. All the stuff I can expect to go for 5 years at a time easily on an ICE.
No heat cycling rubber parts, solvents sloshing around, measuring flow of explosive mixtures, all the finicky bits of fuel injection and transmissions.
As someone who has literally cut and crimped fuel lines to cut off a cylinder, used JBWeld to temp seal heads and blocks, pulled injectors, disconnected spark plugs etc etc to get something to limp back home.. yep.
My main beef with EVs (and I own a Chevy Volt PHEV that I /adore/) is the fact they are rolling blackboxes. My Volt is the least shadetree mechanic friendly vehicle I have owned other than maybe my VehiCROSS I had for awhile. I know most people don't care, but it irks me. And I will not own a pure EV anytime soon for a host of reasons and that is a big part of it.
This desire manufacturers have of making their vehicles IAP Vehicle-as-a-Service (ICE and EVs) really pisses me off and I plan on driving my Volt (which has the OnStar modules entirely disabled so I have 0 analytics/metrics/tracking happening) forever. I miss my 100% analog 1981 VW Rabbit LS diesel. sniff.
[+] [-] cptcobalt|3 years ago|reply
My mind will only change when I see new generation EA DCFC post & charger that's designed for scale, high stall reliability, and a mean-time between service to rival that of Tesla's supercharger network.
[+] [-] _6hmp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kirby64|3 years ago|reply
Except, VW's bread and butter is still gas cars. They're not incentivized to herald EVs at all; if anything, they'd prefer it to go as slowly as possible so they can continue to make money off their gas fleet.
[+] [-] drewg123|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dheera|3 years ago|reply
I've charged a Tesla at EA a few times with a CCS adapter without issues.
Also, EVGo never seems to work.
[+] [-] russfink|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RicoElectrico|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhauer|3 years ago|reply
Customers should be selecting vehicles that don't have to deal with the deliberate incompetence of Electrify America.
[+] [-] 1970-01-01|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsync|3 years ago|reply
From an infrastructure standpoint a gas pump (and related tubing, tanks, filters, nozzles, etc.) is quite a bit more complicated and fragile than a charging receptacle.
A charging station really shouldn't be much more complicated than a streetlight, minus the UI and billing components.
All of this to say:
I don't know how often electric charge stations should be inspected but I hope it would be quite a bit less often than a gas pumping station ...
[+] [-] xattt|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitshiftfaced|3 years ago|reply
There's also a matter of accuracy in how much fuel you receive and how much you pay for. I'm assuming it's much easier for an elective vehicle to independently verify how much of a charge they received compared to a gas car.
[+] [-] cduzz|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Havoc|3 years ago|reply
You could not pay me enough money to do that even if “switched off”
[+] [-] foxyv|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DannyBee|3 years ago|reply
The two extra prongs are the DC.
Conversion would generally prevent the issue you cite. They are converting three phase ac, and usually only 480v. Isolation failure would not fry the car like this because it would fault first. They are separate ac and DC cabinets with proper controls.
It may still be overvolting the DC, just not this particular way. It is much more likely the rectifier is fucked or something.
Placing 300kw (or even 150kw) of DC at like 4x the right voltage would make more than just a loud bang. It would instantly melt most insulation, for starters.
The bang is an mccb or something catching the fucked up rectifier
These cars likely got overvolt at light amperage. Otherwise lots of things would have sparked and burst into flame
[+] [-] jeffbee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CaliforniaKarl|3 years ago|reply
> CCS vehicle inlets are equipped with an electromechanically controlled locking bolt … designed to withstand high pull-out forces.
Source: https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/use-ccs-connectors-to-si...
[+] [-] adolph|3 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjofPpThWU
[+] [-] PM_me_your_math|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phkahler|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1970-01-01|3 years ago|reply
This isn't necessarily true. The EV manufacturer should have an emergency release cable somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1fSuYx2TS8
[+] [-] denysvitali|3 years ago|reply
I'm not an expert, but I'll assume that the opposite is as dangerous. I think that if you unplug a car that is charging car, by tilting the connector in the wrong way ypu might have a dangerous hazard both for the car and for the person unplugging it.
DC chargers can be quite powerful (480V/100A), so I really doubt it's a good idea do mess with them in general.
[+] [-] moepstar|3 years ago|reply
https://old.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/10o33jo/e...
[+] [-] Underphil|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tapoxi|3 years ago|reply
Fortunately I stick to home (Metro Boston) and haven't had any serious problems with ChargePoint stations heading up to Mount Desert Island in Maine, the farthest trips I've done.
[+] [-] waffletower|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] option|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laweijfmvo|3 years ago|reply
I WAS planning to get the CCS upgrade, to diversify my charging options, but I think I'll stick with Tesla's network for now...
[+] [-] ilyt|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maliker|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notacoward|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gorkish|3 years ago|reply
Having seen inside their cabinets, I wouldn't plug into one if you paid me. Building a reliable charging network is apparently only a secondary business goal of Electrify America.
[+] [-] kloch|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danbr|3 years ago|reply
There are dozens of various oil companies who have their own gas stations (subsidized by the oil industry?). Why don’t we see more electric companies building their own charging networks as well?
[+] [-] jhoechtl|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macinjosh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootusrootus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silverwasthere|3 years ago|reply
No heat cycling rubber parts, solvents sloshing around, measuring flow of explosive mixtures, all the finicky bits of fuel injection and transmissions.
[+] [-] thisarticle|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] helf|3 years ago|reply
My main beef with EVs (and I own a Chevy Volt PHEV that I /adore/) is the fact they are rolling blackboxes. My Volt is the least shadetree mechanic friendly vehicle I have owned other than maybe my VehiCROSS I had for awhile. I know most people don't care, but it irks me. And I will not own a pure EV anytime soon for a host of reasons and that is a big part of it.
This desire manufacturers have of making their vehicles IAP Vehicle-as-a-Service (ICE and EVs) really pisses me off and I plan on driving my Volt (which has the OnStar modules entirely disabled so I have 0 analytics/metrics/tracking happening) forever. I miss my 100% analog 1981 VW Rabbit LS diesel. sniff.
[+] [-] t344344|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waffletower|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] magwa101|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]