DCFC in America - it’s falling apart

[timbop]

I use an FPL charger in Daytona every now and then, they are nice, but I can't seem to get it to give full power, usually maxes out at 89kw

It is dependent upon the max amperage that the station can provide. On the Atlantic City Expressway near me EVgo just put in chargers rated at 200kw max, but that is with a 950V car (which don't yet exist). The stations deliver a max of 200 amps, so for a Mach-E with voltages between 360 and 390 volts (depending upon state of charge, temperature, etc) the max you'll ever see will be around 80kw. An 800V car will of course give you about twice that.

A business, on the other hand, should be free to do whatever they want with their resources. The bill requires businesses to tell their customers how much they are each paying for that free electricity. While I don't agree with that part of the bill, it is not outlawing or doing away with the chargers.

Yes, businesses should be free to decide what promotions they want to do. The bill is an obvious ploy to turn the 95% of patrons with ICE cars against a small mom and pop store trying to draw in business with a perk that isn't terribly expensive (simple L2 chargers). Why don't they have to also put the amount that the free coupons they give out to senior citizens or whatever other program they have affects all the other customers that aren't eligible?

In short it's a thinly veiled ploy by politicians who are beholden to the oil barons who are robbing us all blind.

I'll propose another bill: the oil companies have to publish the amount of subsidies each gallon of gas received from government giveaways they've had for decades.

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[Blue highway]

• • 
    Your lessons learned inadvertently highlights the point of this thread. You left off:
    • maintain
    • repair as necessary.

? it wasn’t a mistake…. None of the plans I’ve read have any plans for maintenance. I’m glad things are being built but most of it will turn to turds because it’s not an ongoing proposition. It’s how government types think things work.

 

[timbop]

? it wasn’t a mistake…. None of the plans I’ve read have any plans for maintenance. I’m glad things are being built but most of it will turn to turds because it’s not an ongoing proposition. It’s how government types think things work.

Actually, the government types are taking the position that giving you free equipment means you have to pay for maintenance out of your proceeds yourself. If you don't and the chargers stop working, you'll have no revenue - so you'll reap no benefit from the free equipment we gave you. I'm pretty sure that guy from 18th century england had a term for it being in the charger operator's best interest to keep the chargers running?

Let's try a sports analogy: taxpayers frequently build stadiums for sports teams to keep them from moving. Should those same taxpayers then also pay the players, or should the team owners use their own revenue to pay the players?

 

[Blue highway]

Actually, the government types are taking the position that giving you free equipment means you have to pay for maintenance out of your proceeds yourself. If you don't and the chargers stop working, you'll have no revenue - so you'll reap no benefit from the free equipment we gave you. I'm pretty sure that guy from 18th century england had a term for it being in the charger operator's best interest to keep the chargers running?

Let's try a sports analogy: taxpayers frequently build stadiums for sports teams to keep them from moving. Should those same taxpayers then also pay the players, or should the team owners use their own revenue to pay the players?

Uhhuh… that’s why nobody ever complains about EV chargers being broken….

 

[Blue highway]

Actually, the government types are taking the position that giving you free equipment means you have to pay for maintenance out of your proceeds yourself. If you don't and the chargers stop working, you'll have no revenue - so you'll reap no benefit from the free equipment we gave you. I'm pretty sure that guy from 18th century england had a term for it being in the charger operator's best interest to keep the chargers running?

Let's try a sports analogy: taxpayers frequently build stadiums for sports teams to keep them from moving. Should those same taxpayers then also pay the players, or should the team owners use their own revenue to pay the players?

A bit off topic but sports stadiums funded by the public are a poster child for stupid government spending…

https://better-cities.org/economic-prosperity/sports-stadium-subsidies-fair-or-foul/

 

[silverelan]

Yep. Much easier that way.
Still love driving my BEV.....around town. Charging in between cities sucks.
21 min to add 12% is a horrible experience. Almost as bad as OTAs.

That’s clearly a charger malfunction. Ford believes that MME and Lightning owners have no business knowing how fast their cars are charging. That’s why we don’t have a kW readout in the car’s charging screen.

 

[AZBill]

I did read about that. Hmm, maybe "they" are listening. I also thought I read once that VW shoved some employees into an ID4 and said, "Now go drive across the country" (US). Would be nice if the EV and EV charging powers that be still did stuff like that.

They just opened a new EVGO site in Goodyear, Az. It has four 350kw chargers and two 100kw chargers. There is a second site in Phoenix under construction.

That Goodyear site is a few hundred yards from a GMC dealership that has delivered 4 Hummers.

 

[dbsb3233]

its free to the user but the OEMs are paying the bills. I would think EA and EVgo have no problem sending a monthly invoice to Hyundai, Porsche, Polestar, Lucid, etc for charges racked up by owners.

It creates the wrong behavior and incentives though. When there's a free charger nearby, people won't use the one that's trying to pay for itself.

 

[SWO]

BP sees good profits in EV charging.

"For BP, car chargers to overtake pumps in profitability race"

....in England and Europe. If our electricity rates looked like theirs, our DCFC stations might be profitable too.

Actually, the government types are taking the position that giving you free equipment means you have to pay for maintenance out of your proceeds yourself. If you don't and the chargers stop working, you'll have no revenue - so you'll reap no benefit from the free equipment we gave you. I'm pretty sure that guy from 18th century england had a term for it being in the charger operator's best interest to keep the chargers running?

Let's try a sports analogy: taxpayers frequently build stadiums for sports teams to keep them from moving. Should those same taxpayers then also pay the players, or should the team owners use their own revenue to pay the players?

Giving away something incentivizes taking care of it? That's news to me, and the point is that they're not profitable to operate.

As was mentioned in the video, EA probably benefits by people being unable to charge.

 

[AZBill]

Yep. Much easier that way.
Still love driving my BEV.....around town. Charging in between cities sucks.
21 min to add 12% is a horrible experience. Almost as bad as OTAs.

This proves Kyle’s point about hardware, I have seen this many times on ABB units, with 2 different EVs. But I have never had a Signet unit fail with low power like this. EVGO is now using Signet units as well.

 

[SWO]

That’s clearly a charger malfunction. Ford believes that MME and Lightning owners have no business knowing how fast their cars are charging. That’s why we don’t have a kW readout in the car’s charging screen.

Im convinced Ford does it for the same reason they like "idiot gauges" in ICE vehicles which read dead center as long as the value is in range. They don't want someone demanding warranty work because the car only charges at "x" kWh when the brochure says "Y"

 

[voxel]

It creates the wrong behavior and incentives though. When there's a free charger nearby, people won't use the one that's trying to pay for itself.

Yup. On my 300 mile round trip this past week I decided to stop in a few EA locations and guess who were ALL hogging up the EA spots? ID.4s and Taycans.

There was one Leaf, a C40, a MME at another stop but ID.4s rule Florida because of the free unlimited charging for 3 years.

I still have the free ID.4 plan on my EA account but it doesn't work with the MME nor Model 3/Y (with CCS adapter) but weirdly... it provides free charging to my MINI electric.

 

[SWO]

I did read about that. Hmm, maybe "they" are listening. I also thought I read once that VW shoved some employees into an ID4 and said, "Now go drive across the country" (US). Would be nice if the EV and EV charging powers that be still did stuff like that.

GM had zero interest in building a charger network until the government offered to pay them to install them. I hope I'm wrong, but that doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy that they care about maintaining them.

 

[Ming]

Yep. Much easier that way.
Still love driving my BEV.....around town. Charging in between cities sucks.
21 min to add 12% is a horrible experience. Almost as bad as OTAs.

That's looks my EA screen yesterday! I was at 40% and got 31kW when plugged in. But I believe that wasn't right so I unplugged and switched to the other connector. Back up to 110kW. I'm not sure whether changing connector has anything with it though.

 

[dbsb3233]

That's looks my EA screen yesterday! I was at 40% and got 31kW when plugged in. But I believe that wasn't right so I unplugged and switched to the other connector. Back up to 110kW. I'm not sure whether changing connector has anything with it though.

The common speculation on the drop to 31kw is that the cable cooling (or more frequently, the temp sensor) has failed. Seems to be the failsafe point where cable cooling isn't needed. Switching chargers usually works if there's one open.

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