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Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

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Re: Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

#151

Post by bartvk »

pornel wrote: post #119
waffletower wrote: post #67

Is "Electrify America" partly or fully owned by Big Oil?

There's Shell Recharge in Europe and I've literally never seen any of their chargers working properly. 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!

In The Netherlands, I have reasonable (not flawless) experiences with Shell Recharge. In Spain, I found a Shell Recharge station that didn't work with the Shell Recharge app, nor with the Shell Recharge RFID card. It wanted a credit card, which then failed.

Re: Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

#152

Post by darknavi »

panick21_ wrote: post #109
danbr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Non of these companies except Tesla is making money on this. Setting up the infrastructure, dealing with licensing, maintenance its a huge bother and the electronics required doesn't come cheap and is production limited. 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 chargers are a money losing buisness, but charging an EV takes 10-30-45 minutes. Pretty surprised WaWa, 7/11, Chevron, etc. haven't blasted them to their gas stations as I assume they are a great way to get foot traffic to your store.

Re: Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

#153

Post by apelapan »

bdcravens wrote: post #142
natch wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t use autopilot, problem solved. 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.

I've used that feature on the Toyotas and the Kia I own. As another commenter pointed out, other brands have the same phantom braking issue, but for the cars I've owned, I've haven't experienced it.

The cruise control on my Kia (MY18 Optima) phantom brakes in certain situations. Typically in curves on divided highways, when you are in the left-most lane. I think it gets confused and panicky by the divider fence.

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!

Re: Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

#154

Post by cNuckIGGER »

foxyv wrote: post #128
DannyBee wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sounds like you know more about these than I do. Part of why I was curious about a tear down. I'm wondering if any corners were cut on these such as improper isolation. Naturally it could also be the car itself has a short that blew itself and the dispenser up. Maybe a rubbing wire on the car with a high resistance short that melted and bridged then tripped the MCCB temporarily disabling the charger. Judging by the q…

[dead]

Re: Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

#155

Post by tkanarsky »

gorkish wrote: post #133

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 p…

Hah, yeah the EA cabinets are a bit messy inside compared to the superchargers [0]. Smells like they were rushing to get an MVP out without spending too much, probably many more COTS components in there and not as much thought put into harness routing and custom assemblies. I know EA sources chargers from multiple manufacturers; maybe some of them are better in this regard.

[0]: https://i.redd.it/electrify-america-charger-vs-tesla-superch...

Re: Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

#156

Post by rasz »

adolph wrote: post #11
foxyv wrote: post #2

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.

Probably too spendy for BigClive. Munro Live has one about the NACS (N. Am Charging Standard) announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjofPpThWU

mikeselectricstuff (guy is a legend) did:

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

Re: Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

#157

Post by natch »

helf wrote: post #86
natch wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean by capacitive in this context?

capacitive meaning a surface that registers your touch through capacitance change caused by your skin touching the surface. Like how basically all modern touchscreen works.

Oh duh, haha thanks.

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.

Re: Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

#158

Post by [deleted] »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #126
adamjcook wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is the opposite for what it is worth. 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…

Zero? 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 kn…

[deleted]

Re: Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

#159

Post by fomine3 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #126
adamjcook wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is the opposite for what it is worth. 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…

Zero? 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 kn…

Mazda rotary is revealed, I don't know is it small vs I3 https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42485033/mazda-mx-30-r-ev...

Re: Electrify America “fries” EVs at charging stations

#160

Post by tatersolid »

rootusrootus wrote: post #94
macinjosh wrote: post #36

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 a…

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.

Concur. I just traded in a 2013 model year GMC on a new Acura after a lot of shopping. Everything is electronic on almost all new cars, even formerly mechanically simple things like gear shifts and turn signal stalks. It all feels so fragile, and I doubt my choice will last close to the ten years my last dumb hunk of American steel lasted.

It’s like Kubernetes has been applied to the auto industry… way more complexity than necessary, causing a massive loss of uptime and security.

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