US Plans Push To Upgrade Fast Chargers

[RickMachE]

Follow the link below to view the article.

U.S. Plans Push to Upgrade Fast Chargers
https://wallstreetjournal-ny.newsmemory.com/?publink=0684f711f_134ad26

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[AZBill]

EA has failed in their attempt to upgrade the chargers. The brand new units have all the same issues as the old ABB units. Here is what I saw on my last two road trips in my Rivian:

1) At one stop, one new pedestal had blank screen, second unit output 32kw, third unit in use, had to resort to 150kw old ABB unit and got 110kw. My Rivian will normally pull 150kw on 150kw units.

2) Another site, connect to new charger it starts at 65kw, then after 30 seconds drops out with an error. Move to next unit and it goes to 218kw, I go to the bathroom and when I return it has dropped to 42kw, still at low SoC.

3) On a different trip at the first site, above, all three units were operational and had lines. I connect and get 200kw, but then the unit starts cycling every few minutes between 200 and 42kw, maybe due to power sharing or thermal issues. Truck indicates limited by charger when the power drops.

4) At one site I arrived with all three new units in use, and all pulling 50-100kw with three vehicles at low SoC. I had to use the old 150kw unit and got 32kw. Left there at 34% SoC to move to a different site. At that same site there were two EVGO 50kw chargers, both were completely out of order.

5) To top it all off, I charged at two different sites with old ABB units, each site multiple times, and they worked perfectly.

 

[Blue highway]

so many questions...

• What is this "Widely used government database"? I can think of private ones (plugshare, ABRP etc.) but no government ones.
• How exactly do they intend to hand out cash to private businesses to fix the chargers? usually these things have lots of hoops that take literally years to get through.
• 20% of chargers are pre 2019... deemed old. ok, so 4 years is their lifespan? WTF.

 

[MellowJohnny]

So....the US Government paid, in part via subsidies, to have a lot of these chargers installed, they broke, and now they are paying to have them fixed?

Sounds to me like the US Government owns them....

 

[dj_stang]

Never seen such an incompetent company as EA. Can’t wait for them to (hopefully) drastically improve with the rollout of unlimited access supercharging, or die. We can’t keep throwing billions at them with zero or negative results as EA claims the only charger for hundreds of miles while they know it’s down, leaving owners stranded and with a justifiably terrible taste for EVs. What a disgrace.

 

[DevSecOps]

So....the US Government paid, in part via subsidies, to have a lot of these chargers installed, they broke, and now they are paying to have them fixed?

Sounds to me like the US Government owns them....

I said all along that paying companies to install more chargers was just going to make the situation worse. When private sector receives government money (or is forced to create a charge network) they do whatever is necessary to meet the requirements of the regulators or legislature, they don't do what's in the best interest of the people who the money was intended to serve.

As EA, for example, brings on more units online they will increase their overhead. To make matters worse, as soon as NACS and Superchargers are available, my bet is that more people will choose the supercharger network over EA. This will decrease their revenues. Couple that with more infrastructure and higher overhead, the likelihood that EA and other non-Tesla brands become worse is a very high possibility.

So what does our government do... well of course they just throw more money at the problem. 90% of taxpayers don't even own an EV, but yet they have to pay for this crap. It's just wrong.

 

[Logal727]

Sounds to me like they are doing something about the complaints?

But there are questions about how they will get the data. We know EA doesn't accurately reflect the status of their chargers or what entails a successful charge.

 

[Vulnox]

Agree on all of it. I think the US government should be part of this investment. As has been stated a number of times on this site, the US is enormous. You can't reasonably compare DCFC rollout/reliability in even more EV successful countries to the US without accounting for the costs and complexity involved with the size of the US, especially when there are long distances where there aren't cities/towns with established high power.

That said, I want to see the government do more than just write checks. EA has established locations and chargers, but if you just give them money I am positive it will just go to constantly repairing garbage chargers. There needs to be oversight as far as SLAs to keep chargers running, and penalties. If EA can't handle it, then it's time for an encouraged sale to someone that will. Not a lot that I consider to actually be "too big to fail", but like it or not vehicle transportation is critical to many, and we can't have a transition to EVs without being able to rely on these systems.

 

[Glen Boise]

Are other non-Tesla charging companies any better? What is your experience with EVGo, Charge Point, the plethora of state sponsored companies, utility company chargers, convenience store chargers, etc.?

 

[Logal727]

Agree on all of it. I think the US government should be part of this investment. As has been stated a number of times on this site, the US is enormous. You can't reasonably compare DCFC rollout/reliability in even more EV successful countries to the US without accounting for the costs and complexity involved with the size of the US, especially when there are long distances where there aren't cities/towns with established high power.

That said, I want to see the government do more than just write checks. EA has established locations and chargers, but if you just give them money I am positive it will just go to constantly repairing garbage chargers. There needs to be oversight as far as SLAs to keep chargers running, and penalties. If EA can't handle it, then it's time for an encouraged sale to someone that will. Not a lot that I consider to actually be "too big to fail", but like it or not vehicle transportation is critical to many, and we can't have a transition to EVs without being able to rely on these systems.

I have to look into it more when I have time, but I believe NEVI funding did have benchmarks and accountability built into it?

 

[Logal727]

Are other non-Tesla charging companies any better? What is your experience with EVGo, Charge Point, the plethora of state sponsored companies, utility company chargers, convenience store chargers, etc.?

It's all anecdotal due to different types of vehicles and all that. I've never had an issue with EA or EVGo. Also FPL chargers are really good, but those are only in Florida, I will usually seek those out too.

 

[hartmms]

Seems to me if any government money was to be provided, it should be structured as subsidy to the charger owner for every kWh successfully delivered to a charge customer. There should be limits to how much they can charge per kWh and a sunset of the subsidy after X years. This would encourage the charge station owners to ensure users can charge successfully and frequently.

 

[AKgrampy]

I said all along that paying companies to install more chargers was just going to make the situation worse. When private sector receives government money (or is forced to create a charge network) they do whatever is necessary to meet the requirements of the regulators or legislature, they don't do what's in the best interest of the people who the money was intended to serve.

As EA, for example, brings on more units online they will increase their overhead. To make matters worse, as soon as NACS and Superchargers are available, my bet is that more people will choose the supercharger network over EA. This will decrease their revenues. Couple that with more infrastructure and higher overhead, the likelihood that EA and other non-Tesla brands become worse is a very high possibility.

So what does our government do... well of course they just throw more money at the problem. 90% of taxpayers don't even own an EV, but yet they have to pay for this crap. It's just wrong.

Agreed. When Alaska is finished with the first phase of NEVI spending there will be more chargers on our one stretch of highway then EV’S that drive it in a month. Maybe I am wrong. I guess there are about 50 EV’S in Fairbanks and two DCFC chargers with a less than 2% usage for the three years they have been installed. How will the new installations every 50 miles with 4 chargers per station make enough money to pay back the owner’s capital investment plus ongoing O&M? A lot of taxpayer money being spent to support just a few. Also no ability to deviate and do something smart like only 2 chargers per station with ability to expand.

 

[Deleted member 16048]

• 20% of chargers are pre 2019... deemed old. ok, so 4 years is their lifespan? WTF.

My guess on that is just due to how much technology has improved in this time span. As that technology slows, the lifespan will grow. On top of that, it seems a lot of the hardware installed hasn't usually been the latest available, so it's like buying an iPhone 13 when the iPhone 15 just got announced. They are already starting off a few years behind.

 

[Logal727]

Agreed. When Alaska is finished with the first phase of NEVI spending there will be more chargers on our one stretch of highway then EV’S that drive it in a month. Maybe I am wrong. I guess there are about 50 EV’S in Fairbanks and two DCFC chargers with a less than 2% usage for the three years they have been installed. How will the new installations every 50 miles with 4 chargers per station make enough money to pay back the owner’s capital investment plus ongoing O&M? A lot of taxpayer money being spent to support just a few. Also no ability to deviate and do something smart like only 2 chargers per station with ability to expand.

Plenty of stuff my taxpayer dollars pay for that I don't personally use. Also don't you get money from oil companies in Alaska, maybe the EV charging companies can do the same thing lol.

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