Fire and electrical damage at Electrify America charger.

[Militant1]

The manufacturer of the charger itself came out a couple hours or so after my first call with EA. He acted like some random guy that was curious...not identifying himself until I asked him to. Then he went and put a safety vest on and started messing with the charger. Real shady like. EA customer service reads from a script and won't tell me nothing. Recently, I told them I was going to post the story on social media and YouTube but they don't seem to give a F@ck. They suck! Had a lemon Volkswagen years ago. Feels very similar to that. The service department at Ford hasn't been great either. They just point fingers at EA. I remind them that is a blue oval charger and it's their preferred plug and charge network and my car is still under warranty. They don't care Ive paid for everything so far. The dealer warns if I get Ford Corporate involved the whole process with slow way down as engineering gets involved. They say I should fix it first if I want the car back timely. It's my family car we need it. EA doesn't care. It's been a month and the "investigation" is ongoing.

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[Jimrpa]

No, because gas stations are legally responsible to cover damage caused by bad gas in most states. You bring them your mechanic bill and they have to reimburse you.

Similar laws need to exist for charge station operators.

So, basically hold the office park or the hotel responsible? I can see the signs denying liability going up now. Or worse, chargers being removed.

 

[Jimrpa]

The manufacturer of the charger itself came out a couple hours or so after my first call with EA. He acted like some random guy that was curious...not identifying himself until I asked him to. Then he went and put a safety vest on and started messing with the charger. Real shady like. EA customer service reads from a script and won't tell me nothing. Recently, I told them I was going to post the story on social media and YouTube but they don't seem to give a F@ck. They suck! Had a lemon Volkswagen years ago. Feels very similar to that. The service department at Ford hasn't been great either. They just point fingers at EA. I remind them that is a blue oval charger and it's their preferred plug and charge network and my car is still under warranty. They don't care Ive paid for everything so far. The dealer warns if I get Ford Corporate involved the whole process with slow way down as engineering gets involved. They say I should fix it first if I want the car back timely. It's my family car we need it. EA doesn't care. It's been a month and the "investigation" is ongoing.

Hand everything to your insurance. Don’t forget to demand “diminished value”.

 

[i8iridium]

The manufacturer of the charger itself came out a couple hours or so after my first call with EA. He acted like some random guy that was curious...not identifying himself until I asked him to. Then he went and put a safety vest on and started messing with the charger. Real shady like. EA customer service reads from a script and won't tell me nothing. Recently, I told them I was going to post the story on social media and YouTube but they don't seem to give a F@ck. They suck! Had a lemon Volkswagen years ago. Feels very similar to that. The service department at Ford hasn't been great either. They just point fingers at EA. I remind them that is a blue oval charger and it's their preferred plug and charge network and my car is still under warranty. They don't care Ive paid for everything so far. The dealer warns if I get Ford Corporate involved the whole process with slow way down as engineering gets involved. They say I should fix it first if I want the car back timely. It's my family car we need it. EA doesn't care. It's been a month and the "investigation" is ongoing.

That's just typical CYA. The lawyers are going to tell them to read the standard script.

 

[moparguy]

This happened at a address off of Friars Road...Fashion Valley Mall...next to a PF Changs. They did sent the service tech immediately out. They rebuilt the chargers at this station with my bricked and scorched car next to them. Then left me to fend for myself. No assistance in anyway to this point.

This is a miserable location, they always had issues with chargers not working, I think I reported the chadmeo/dcfc lone charger like 3-4 times.

 

[BigMach-E]

Okay, there is no doubt this happened, but I feel like OP might need to speak to a lawyer, and get some advice.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

The manufacturer of the charger itself came out a couple hours or so after my first call with EA. He acted like some random guy that was curious...not identifying himself until I asked him to. Then he went and put a safety vest on and started messing with the charger. Real shady like. EA customer service reads from a script and won't tell me nothing. Recently, I told them I was going to post the story on social media and YouTube but they don't seem to give a F@ck. They suck! Had a lemon Volkswagen years ago. Feels very similar to that. The service department at Ford hasn't been great either. They just point fingers at EA. I remind them that is a blue oval charger and it's their preferred plug and charge network and my car is still under warranty. They don't care Ive paid for everything so far. The dealer warns if I get Ford Corporate involved the whole process with slow way down as engineering gets involved. They say I should fix it first if I want the car back timely. It's my family car we need it. EA doesn't care. It's been a month and the "investigation" is ongoing.

The reason it sounds like EA is reading from a script is because they are. There are going to be lawsuits over this. EA vs the unit manufacturer, EA vs Ford, your insurance company vs all of them. They’re being careful as to what us said because of this. You’re not going to get any useful information from them. If you had a lawyer, you’d not be getting any at all until the lawyer forces them to provide real information during discovery. Lawyer up or turn it over to your insurance company and move on.

 

[Teslaeata]

This happened at a address off of Friars Road...Fashion Valley Mall...next to a PF Changs. They did sent the service tech immediately out. They rebuilt the chargers at this station with my bricked and scorched car next to them. Then left me to fend for myself. No assistance in anyway to this point.

Golly!

Looks like resistance heating of the right hand connection occurred

Been on investigations of fire causation for all sides of the argument

Appears very much like resistance heating was the likely cause which often don’t trigger safety cut-outs, fuses etc in time if at all if no more electrical power was required (as there is in short circuits) to overcome the higher resistance of a poor or failing connection to generate the heat seen here than the power required to power the consumer unit - the car charging system in this case.

The difficulty is that the evidence of which part was at fault causing the high resistance, the pin on car or socket on charger point, or the aggregate effect of the condition of both or some other cause of high resistance in this area, is probably lost to a forensic investigation making it easier for car maker to say NMP (not my problem), the charge point maker to claim NMP, the charge point operator to claim NMP and the car owner to claim NMP so it becomes a finger pointing exercise, is the sad reality.

Fortunately, that’s what we have insurance for because they will pay irrespective of who is to blame from the outset.

My experience is that if an insurer can make a recovery of their outlay they will do but in cases like this where proving liability is probably impossible, they pay out and move on which is probably what I’d do painful though it is.

Sometimes it’s not worth pursuing something.

As for a claim for diminution or reduction in value that may have arisen consequent to the damage and subsequent repair, which also has to be proven, unless you have specific cover for this head of claim under the terms of your insurance policy which we don’t have here in UK, a claim for this head of damage can only be brought against those responsible for the cause which comes back to proving the exact cause of the failure.

Catch-22

 

[EELinneman]

You would think EA might have some detection to know if someone has run into its charger like that without someone needing to call them up. Perhaps a completely offline signal, or an accelerometer etc…..

I think what we are all now discovering is that EA has gone with the bare minimum for everything. Perhaps Ford and GM learned this recently and decided to not force their customers to go this route. Unfortunately, there are no competent, significantly large CCS competitors. Possibly the same mindset that thought gaming the smog testing was used here.

 

[voxel]

I went to Sebring on Sunday and had to top up before. I stopped at a Lakeshore Mall Duke Energy Greenlots where the CCS connector would not lock to my car but charging initiated and started up fine. I jiggled the connector up and down and confirmed it was not locked as it was charging but didn’t want to press my luck. I wonder if I could cause some arcing if I slowed pulled the connector out or would the communication pins disconnecting cause the charging to stop?

 

[Mach-Lee]

I went to Sebring on Sunday and had to top up before. I stopped at a Lakeshore Mall Duke Energy Greenlots where the CCS connector would not lock to my car but charging initiated and started up fine. I jiggled the connector up and down and confirmed it was not locked as it was charging but didn’t want to press my luck. I wonder if I could cause some arcing if I slowed pulled the connector out or would the communication pins disconnecting cause the charging to stop?

That's very bad, good thing you didn't try. You could have had a face full of arc flash and burns. If it's not locking, either the cable end is damaged or your charge port lock actuator is damaged. Whatever needs to get fixed because that's a serious safety issue if the connector is pulled while hundreds of amps are flowing through it.

 

[voxel]

That's very bad, good thing you didn't try. You could have had a face full of arc flash and burns. If it's not locking, either the cable end is damaged or your charge port lock actuator is damaged. Whatever needs to get fixed because that's a serious safety issue if the connector is pulled while hundreds of amps are flowing through it.

Not my car charge port. I had to perform some crazy cable gymnastics at an EA location after and if it didn't lock there was no way I would have been able to charge.

I left at comment on PlugShare about that charger.

 

[Avelli]

The dealer warns if I get Ford Corporate involved the whole process with slow way down as engineering gets involved. They say I should fix it first if I want the car back timely.

That's a whole lot of shadiness right there.

 

[BigMach-E]

You know, the more and more I think about it….and I love that I am not using gas for transit…I wonder if EVs are ready for prime time. It’s stuff like this that makes me question it.

 

[Hammered]

Bill it to insurance, find a good attorney to drag EVERYONE into it. Name EA, ford, the dealer, the property owner, etc.... The right pressure will get the compensation ball rolling. You can use AI to quickly draft a letter of intent to sue and mail it to all parties before getting a lawyer since it's an hour and some certified mail postage. Make sure it lists all parties so everyone can see and let them all squeeze each other appropriately. If you like the dealer, you may not want them involved, but mine would be

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