What causes fast chargers to go down?

Bob K.

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I'm a new owner and haven't yet used a fast charger. After reading so many stories of frustration at chargers being out of operation I'm wondering what causes that. It seems there would be few mechanical parts involved so why are so many down so often?
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Maquis

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It is a mystery to me also. I got my EE degree in 79 and was in the power systems industry a long time. It shouldn’t be this difficult.
 

mateo

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Some possibilities:

* Skimping on the hardware to save a dollar.
* Poor software.
* Using government money to expand vs repair.
* Trying to build out quickly to scale and worrying about quality later.

All of those are along the lines that nobody building the networks actually cares about quality as the number one priority.

Personally I'd rather pay twice the cost of current rates if it meant things always worked. (I generally charge from home.)

Or maybe it really is that hard and we are all screwed.
 

Mach-Lee

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There are lots of reasons.
  • Low utility voltage
  • Cable temperature sensor failure
  • Dispenser logic failure
  • Button/screen failure
  • Cable chiller failure
  • Power conversion module failure
  • Outdoor temperature too high or low
  • Isolation test failure
  • Damaged cables/connectors
  • Utility demand charges too high
  • Internet connection down
  • Poorly written software
  • Backend server issues
  • Lack of replacement parts due to supply shortages
  • Lack of trained technicians
  • Lack of money to pay for repairs
  • Vandalism
Essentially it's difficult to make an electronic product that lives outside 24/7 for 5+ years not fail in some way. Manufacturers are still figuring out what works and what doesn't. It's still an evolving technology, everyone has to learn their lessons the hard way until progress can be made.

 
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MellowJohnny

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TLDR - most 1st gen stuff is crap.

I’m no expert (blanket statement) but from watching a lot of YouTube videos from people who have tried to find the answer it seems like most first Gen systems (EA in particular) where sort of cobbled together with off-the-shelf components, weren’t modular, and not very resilient.

Some of the newer stuff from ABB and Autel looks better - most now adopting a modular design for the internals so that if for example the internals are made up of 20 x 8 kWh modules and an 8 kWh module fails, the charger looses 8 kWh, it doesn’t go down. And fixing is a matter of swapping out for a new module.

Same for cables - one fails, swap in a new one.

But there is a lot of 1st gen stuff deployed, so it seems like it will be a while before the 2nd & 3rd gen stuff appears.
 

bshaw

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Essentially it's difficult to make an electronic product that lives outside 24/7 for 5+ years not fail in some way.
Great list, but just one comment that came to mind.

Why not build an open air roof over pretty much every DCFC station? Just like every gas station has currently. Sure, it looks hideous but you'd get at least some protection from the sun, rain, snow for both customers and the equipment. Throw some solar panels on the top to collect power for overnight lighting and that seems like a win. Somehow the trend for the industry has been to convert spaces of an existing parking lot as the typical DCFC location selection.
 

machefan2022

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They probably just need to put a roof over them like we have done with gas pumps for years, i bet that would solve some problems.
 

kltye

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I think in the case of EA, a company created by court order just doesn’t have the desire or drive to succeed.
Sure, but have you seen the reliability of EVgo or Blink chargers? Hint: they aren't better (and oftentimes worse).
 

kdonnel

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Sure, but have you seen the reliability of EVgo or Blink chargers? Hint: they aren't better (and oftentimes worse).
I have never been to an EVgo or Blink charger that has not worked.

I have been to many EA sites where only 1 or 2 of the 4 chargers work.

I have been to Volta chargers that were broken, noted in the app as broken, and then found them fixed less than a week later.

I have been to Shell chargers that were broken, I reported the outage, and got a response from Shell when it was fixed less than a week later.

At least in my experience EA is the worst about reliability and I think that is primarily because the company really doesn't want to exist.
 

kltye

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I have never been to an EVgo or Blink charger that has not worked.

I have been to many EA sites where only 1 or 2 of the 4 chargers work.

I have been to Volta chargers that were broken, noted in the app as broken, and then found them fixed less than a week later.

I have been to Shell chargers that were broken, I reported the outage, and got a response from Shell when it was fixed less than a week later.

At least in my experience EA is the worst about reliability and I think that is primarily because the company really doesn't want to exist.
Great. And I can point to a ton of reports on Plugshare where EVgo and Blink chargers are on the fritz constantly. You can say all you want about what you think the problem is, but it doesn't make it true. Not saying EA is the pinnacle of reliability here, but let's not pretend problems don't exist elsewhere.
 

SuperRob

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Surely you've used a computer and had an application crash, you restart that app, and you're fine. Sometimes that crash causes the entire computer to panic and reboot. Sometimes those crashes are bad enough to lock up the computer, requiring you to physically restart the entire machine.

These fast charge stations are computers. The same things that cause issues on a personal machine can affect public terminals like these. Your car is also a computer. These two computers talk to each other to initiate charging. If something goes wrong in that communication, it can cause issues. The fast charge station is also communicating with the payment network, the network of the owner, and probably nearby terminals, too. A problem in any link of the chain could cause an issue. And to top it off, no software is entirely bug-free, so a strange combination of conditions could cause a problem, too.

Tesla rarely has issues because it controls the software in ALL cases. Public fast charge stations have to account for every combination of cars and charging speeds out there ... and that's a significant challenge. When a car brand new comes out, it's not unusual for it to have fast charging issues because the charger isn't even aware that car exists yet. These all get sorted out over time.

Some of those issues can be handled remotely, so EA or EVGo could issue a command to that station to have it restart, and it could be fine after that. A problem serious enough to lock up the terminal entirely could require a technician to come and physically restart it.

There's also maintenance downtime. Sometimes that downtime is planned and communicated in advance. Sometimes a problem is so severe (think security) that they have to take it down with little notice to update it.

TL;DR - Suffice it to say, there is no one cause to a station going down. They are computers talking to computers and it's a complex problem to solve.
 

chuckles

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It’s almost certainly different in other parts of the US, but for the past couple years around California, EVgo stations have had pretty terrible ratings (and few 150+ kW chargers), and EA was more consistently in service.

This past year kinda flipped: EVgo installed more stations and fixed/upgraded a bunch, and EA has had to take a handful of stations I’ve used be taken completely offline, but they’re supposedly installing new hardware.

It’d be great if the pretty much the only independent reliability metric (PlugShare) hadn’t been purchased by one of the networks (EVgo).

EDIT: As @RickMachE stated, there's no proof that EVgo is messing with any of PlugShare's ratings. That said, as the reviews are community-provided to a private server, if any review editing or filtering is taking place, we'd only have piecemeal knowledge. It is damning that PlugShare removed their "ratings" filter from the android app (which hid EVgo chargers), though.
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