The truth about Electrify America's progress and Traveling with the Mach E

[jhalkias]

Hopefully not an issue in the Mach E.

Has anyone encountered problems in their FFEs?

If you mean Ford Fusion Energi . . . they cannot DCFC. At least mine does not have the extra pins. If that is Ford Focus Electric . . . I have no idea.

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[JamieGeek]

It is. In fact, the IEC standard requires latch strength to be verified by test.

16.9 With the latching mechanism in place, the mating accessory shall be pulled with a force equal to the weight of the accessory and a length of the maximum size cable or cable assembly used with the accessory, as specified in Table 9. The latch shall not release. ​

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From that video, it appears the latching on the Bolt is sufficient, but that on at least some Bolts, the inlet is marginal with heavy / long cables before the latch engages.

It does appear that they're using a thin rib to react the weight of the cable, versus most vehicles which use a big solid chunk. Example:

Yeah just checked my Bolt that "thin rib" is a good 1" or so deep.

It is possible that the tolerances are so tight that the plug gets a little stuck going in and doesn't fully seat engaging the latch--it may have nothing to do with the "rib". It is pretty solid when plugged in.

 

[EVer]

Yeah just checked my Bolt that "thin rib" is a good 1" or so deep.

It is possible that the tolerances are so tight that the plug gets a little stuck going in and doesn't fully seat engaging the latch--it may have nothing to do with the "rib". It is pretty solid when plugged in.

Agreed, it may have nothing at all to do with that. I'm just looking speculating about the design differences. My first thought was that the thin (though deep) rib was reacting the bending moment imparted by the connector and cable weight (yellow). However, maybe the primary load path (before latchup) is the shroud around the DC contacts (green). I'd hope not, though.

 

[JamieGeek]

Agreed, it may have nothing at all to do with that. I'm just looking speculating about the design differences. My first thought was that the thin (though deep) rib was reacting the bending moment imparted by the connector and cable weight (yellow). However, maybe the primary load path (before latchup) is the shroud around the DC contacts (green). I'd hope not, though.

Well here is a picture from @ChasingCoral 's dealer visit:

It looks like there is similar thin "ribs" around the connectors on the Mach-E except that there is backing plastic around that--although we don't know how thick the surrounding plastic is. It could be that is just on the outside. Of course that may not make a difference anyway.

 

[EVer]

Maybe the system should latch when you install the connector, not when the session starts.

 

[MailGuy]

Maybe the system should latch when you install the connector, not when the session starts.

My L2 AV EVSR does.

 

[JamieGeek]

For the record there are more than one of us Bolt owners on here. Some aren't as um "vocal" about it as I LOL.

 

[JamieGeek]

Nope but my sample size is low: DCFC charged my Bolt twice.

 

[EVer]

Chademo and CCS are roughly the same size, CCS probably having slightly more area to the mating face. However, the problem noted in the Electrify American video is probably not driven by size of the on connector, but rather weight of the whole assembly including the supported portion of the cable.

 

[silverelan]

Tesla's plug is so elegant. I really wish that was the industry standard.

 

[EVer]

No issues from an actual Bolt user here, yet Electrify America saw fit to publish an instructional video about how to alleviate the issue with Bolts. It is doubtful they would have done that were it not at least a somewhat regular occurrence. Maybe they have fixed it, if the problem was not on the car side of the interface.

Either way, while there is no reason to deny it was an issue at least for some early Bolts, and no basis to claim that the CCS interface has changed since that photo was taken (it hasn’t; the geometry is fixed) there is no indication it will affect the new Mustang.

 

[EVer]

Tesla's plug is so elegant. I really wish that was the industry standard.

Tesla’s is purpose built, that’s for sure.

CCS was the industry basically saying “well, we already have this plug, let’s just bolt some DC contacts below it.”

That’s okay - it works, but it’s not great - makes it unnecessarily large versus a design which carries power over the same contacts whether AC or DC. They have married themselves to an old design with no advantage to doing so.

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