Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations
teslarati.com
teslarati.com
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.
First CCS cable I plugged in was broken or something because it would keep erroring out before charging. This is after 1+ min of using their app to connect to it each time (3 tries). Switched cables and it happened again on the first try. Tried again and it says it errored out again but starts charging. Obviously that is concerning but after 5+ mins of trying to get it started, I gave in. When I get back, my phone says it’s done and a $10 charge but the charger says $16. Check the app after and it says I was charged $16. Why is there such a significant discrepancy?
It’s such a backwards experience after using a supercharger where you just plug in and walk away.
I used to own an ID.4 (which was a great car in my opinion, but I recently moved from Dallas to Detroit and, ironically, was able to go car-free in Detroit).
I made a round trip from Dallas to Denver without any Electrify America charger issues in 2021 (no waiting times either).
I also made a round trip from Dallas to Detroit in September 2022 and I only encountered one (1) slow charger where I had to move my vehicle to the next available charger (I had to wait at an already full charging station for about 30 minutes at one (1) stop also).
I was pretty surprised by both trips in terms of the lack of hassles.
Today, I have zero reservations about driving any EV over long distances.
I was worried on my first Dallas to Denver leg, but after the trip was successful, my charging/range anxiety is gone for good.
Perhaps my experience would be different elsewhere in the US, but for the Midwest, my experience had been good.
Just my two cents…
I'm about as pro-EV as it gets and solar/wind.
Charging away from major interstates in the Midwest is very very very iffy if you aren't in a Tesla, and if you ARE in a Tesla it can get iffy if your destination doesn't have a home charger.
For US people, a 500 mile car really is where the sweet spot of convenience is becausee:
1) you're not going to charge it all the way up (unless you have LFP chemistry), so knock 5% off of it
2) you're battery will lose 10-20% range over the lifetime of the car, so we'll take off 10%
3) Winter can knock another 10-20% off of range
4) and of course since you need to plan ahead to the limited stations, you can assume you'll not want to get to the "vapors" and assume 10% is less.
5) fast charging is only to 80% anyway.
Suddenly, your 500 mile car is really a 300 mile effective range.
We really need some sort of range extending trailer or similar simple scheme.
I'm really disappointed there isn't any 50-100 mile all-electric range PHEVs ono the market. This is perfect for electrifying all my short and medium range trips, but makes the long distance a seamless experience until charging stations are up to snuff.
If the hydrogen lobby (not that I like them) had any sense they would have pushed fuel cells + 100 mile battery as an effective compact PHEV format (since IIRC fuel cells can use gasoline), that would have developed the fuel cell economies of scale, but since hydrogen and BEVs are mortal enemies, not likely to happen. I also had hopes that the "inside out rotary" patent from a few years ago or Mazda engineers would cook up a very compact rotary recharging engine, but alas that never came to be.
Toyota was the company best poised to do this format of car (arguably should have been working towards this since the Prius was introduced in 1997), but they were so ossified and fat from being at the top of the automotive industry for 40 years they sat on their hands as the entire BEV revolution passed them by. We'll see now that Toyoda is retiring...
On a short road trip you can drive for 5 hours without stopping because you recover at your destination, but on a long one it's so much nicer to stop regularly.
Adding the complexity of a range extender for trips in the 3 - 5 hour range just seems silly.
As for range-extending trailers, Tesla cofounder J.B. Straubel had it right. The last time I linked to his "pusher trailer" the response was surprisingly close-minded for HN. The reasoning was (paraphrased) "I don't believe it because I don't trust the builder that it works because I don't believe it."[1]
[0] https://idaoffice.org/posts/rebirth-of-opposed-piston-engine...
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.
I consider any manufacturer that isn't making moves in that direction to be demonstrating an unserious attitude toward EVs. CCS is a total shambles in the United States and its headwind should cast doubt on any advertised optimism from manufacturers using CCS.
In this case while I prefer NACS myself, I'm worried that convincing a dozen manufacturers to switch standards is going to take much longer than just adding a second CCS connector to (many) Superchargers. Otherwise we could lose years to this, and still wind up with CCS everywhere.
This is very likely to happen considering that the EU wants to ban registrations of ICE powered cars in the same year.
Why would they do that if they want to sabotage it? It doesn't make any sense to that to throw it all away later on purpose.
I've charged a Tesla at EA a few times with a CCS adapter without issues.
Also, EVGo never seems to work.
Customers should be selecting vehicles that don't have to deal with the deliberate incompetence of Electrify America.
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 ...
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.
You could not pay me enough money to do that even if “switched off”
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
Judging by the quality of automobile maintenance and manufacturing I would bet on the latter now that I think of it.
This is why I would love to see a tear down. What type of battery fault prevention is in an EA charger? What kind of step down system? Do they use a battery as a buffer? Just plain curious.
> 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...
Tesla European CCS adapter teardown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-R49NdernY
Ubitricity EV Smart Charging cable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-seqXymUT-g
Hyundai Kona EV High voltage junction box https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpigvK8v8Tg
Renault Zoe EV Battery Charger Block ( BCB ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=argrHjADn8g
Renault Zoe EV inverter ( PEB) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drS3sEsxOO8
TLDR: CSS is a shitshow
This isn't necessarily true. The EV manufacturer should have an emergency release cable somewhere.
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.
https://old.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/10o33jo/e...
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.
Sometimes specs aren't everything of course. I don't buy Sony. I don't care what the PS5's specs look like -- I'm not buying Sony. I think I might have heard one or two people feel similarly about Elon and/or Tesla. ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
edit: can someone please tell me why ps4s have to do some lengthy time-wasting fsck-like this every time they lose power? Did no one at Sony know what journaling filesystems were?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
Not cool owning your customer's boxes...
That's not to mention that one can seamlessly order the Model Y and take delivery a couple months later. Obtaining pretty much any EV from a traditional dealer is still a massive PITA.
Also I wouldn't count on the CEOs of Hyundai/Ford being less gross than Elon, they just tweet less, which is good.
And… in any case stay engaged while driving so that you can be ready to touch the accelerator gently if it happens, to counteract it.
The purpose of autopilot is not to allow you to disengage from the responsibility to monitor the road situation.
I’m not saying I love phantom braking though. It’s gotten much better except in some beta versions.
Luckily there is no OTA or other updates happening to these systems, so I quickly learned to anticipate and never get surprised by it anymore.
Gave me a big scare the first time, though!
No haptic feedback /capacitive/ turn signals etc? wtf?
Lots of other weird stuff is touch screen only, like re-aiming the A/C vents or taking the headlights off of auto-mode, but the main stuff does.
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2022-tesla-model-s-plaid-...
Not sure where they’re getting that from about the turn signals. They are very much physical in most current models. Except while FSD beta is activating them. I guess that’s why I completely missed their meaning.
Regarding Musk - this is a weird argument. Are you endorsing oil industry then, if you are buying gas car? Or China if you are buying Polestar/Volvo ev? etc.
Cars are personal. There are also practical concerns.
I once rented a Maserati. It was a fun ride. But most memorable was how aggressive every other sports car (and, perplexingly, truck) became on the highways.
I borrow a friend’s Tesla in the Bay Area from time to time. I’ve recently had the Maserati experience in the Tesla. Abrupt cut-offs, refused merge and turn requests, jeers. For a day-to-day car, I couldn’t be bothered with this.
It's more akin to buying a MyPillow or shopping at Hobby Lobby, both of which have founders with ideologies that some may choose to not support.
To be fair, Volvo plays the same tune and HN is happy to take it at face value.
At the very least we should strive for consistency...
Then there's music. God help you if you want to use Apple Music while driving. Just don't, you'll get someone killed. Pull over first and then you can spend the time necessary to navigate the UI. No, don't say 'use voice controls' because they really are terrible for this use case. Might as well just turn off the music.
Climate control is another fairly common one. Someone wants their seat warmer on. Find the button (at least it's always on screen in a predictable location), then navigate to the tab for the back seats, then click on the graphical picture of the car however many times it takes to get the heat level you want.
And that's just the 'while driving' list.
I've only used Apple Music briefly since it just came out, but it seems similar to Spotify.
I love that the music controls are now in a dedicated mini-panel on the bottom left of the screen within immediate reach. This is far better than having to reach over to the center of the screen to skip forwards/backward (e.g. during a podcast).
You can also swipe on that same mini-panel to quickly see tire pressure and real-time energy metrics. This is an improvement over the original "swipe cards", which were clunky and undiscoverable.
For rear heated seats, that's a bit tricky from a UI standpoint. Not many vehicles have 3 heated seats in the rear, much less with 3 heating levels.
I imagine Tesla could add physical buttons for rear passengers to adjust the heated seats, e.g. next to the existing USB-C ports. I happened to come across this aftermarket upgrade [1].
At least the front heated seats are a single tap. Or they can be set to auto-mode, which works extremely well in my experience [2].
fog lights cannot be activated from the stalk
Also you say that climate is on the steering wheel ---- Where is that? Unless you are talking about being able to invoke the speech command, which is a bit different
Other things like defroster activation is more of an issue of tablet vs physical buttons / controls
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...
So DC charger going haywire could damage the battery, and say DC charger putting high voltage on the control lines could also do some damage. Protecting against both is possible, just adds cost
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.
[0]: https://i.redd.it/electrify-america-charger-vs-tesla-superch...
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?
So the reality is this is a money losing business and will be for years to come.
Electric utilities are pretty local and this only really makes sense as a large system.
The problem is that it's enough time to walk to the restaurant next door rather than spending money at the gas station store.
I'm sure somebody will figure it out. Probably something like the food court model rather than current gas stations which are basically convenience stores.
1. Fast charging in every spot;
2. Espresso and high-margin dessert-in-a-cup drinks served right to your vehicle;
3. Free high-speed unlimited WiFi for customers.
Why get out of your car to walk to the restaurant next door? Connect to the free WiFi, turn on the charging, and place your order.
Then relax in your car and leave a low-effort comment on Hacker News.
What an "interesting" combination of high tech and low tech...
We stop sometimes in Plymouth mass for a 20 minute break/ charge. It’s a good idea.
Supermarkets are another decent source of charging.
While this is basically true, it's not that terrible. A pure gas station operates on about the same profit margin as a grocery store. Both fairly thin, but both are successful businesses.
Each one of those pedestals is able to dump 30 houses of energy into a car for 30 minutes continuously. And most sites have 4-12 of those things.
It's not a minor engineering task. Add to this that commercial electric billing is often based on your 95th percentile draw over a small window of time, so if you have a station with 12 pedestals and the circuits comes to town, say 12 Electric Hummers, you could end up with an enormous bill.
Home charging, on the other hand, is basically just a baseboard electric heater per house, so not difficult to manage at all.
Our electrical utility in the south is $.13-.17/kw
So to fill a Tesla battery from near empty to full ~80kwH is around $25.
Yes, a significant minority of people do not yet have good access to home charging yet. Yet. We'll get there.
Refueling becomes less a place you have to go and more a thing you do as part of the vehicle. Like paying for parking. I think a lot of drivers have been so conditioned to needing to go to a gas station they still treat charging as going to a gas station, except to charge.
It’s like Kubernetes has been applied to the auto industry… way more complexity than necessary, causing a massive loss of uptime and security.
No heat cycling rubber parts, solvents sloshing around, measuring flow of explosive mixtures, all the finicky bits of fuel injection and transmissions.
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.
If the EA chargers are not doing this, this is a huge safety hazard.
Given the report is a 'large bang', it doesn't seem to me to be a heat-based melting issue. Seems like a sudden short or surge of power.
My guess for the loud bang, based on when these reports first happened, is that it's the pyrofuse blowing. They're not quiet.
Some locations even only support paying with their RFID card that you can only get by mail. Imagine arriving at a station and surprise, you need to wait 5 working days to charge!