chademo/ccs charging issues

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

So.. went back to EA charger and held the plug up while it discussed life with the car. . low and behold, it worked.. Go figure . And that is a big**ed plug and cable. I took a close look at it.

Yes, this is a general problem, not just the Bolt and i3.

Bjørn Nyland has noted a similar problem when testing a number of different vehicles at Ionity chargers in Europe.
He suggests always to plug in and support the cable until the charging starts.

 

[Retired in AZ]

Almost all ChargePoint stations aren't owned by ChargePoint. The station owner is responsible for any repairs.

Again, there are other networks. I wouldn't hold your breath for ChargePoint resolving any issues involving hacky unsupported CCS adapters (e.g. Lectron, Setec, etc.) You will likely have better luck w/manufacturer provided and supported adapters (e.g. SAE J1772 Charging Adapter and CHAdeMO Adapter).

If the station is down, CP may request the site owner to repair it but it's up to the owner to either use their warranty (if any) or pony up $ to fix it. If it's a compatibility problem, well, I wouldn't expect CP to want to expend any resources on hacky non-supported 3rd-party adapters.

You're talking about hacky adapters which have not had the benefit of cooperation w/the automaker esp. on hardware and software differences and dozens of different DC FC models out there and for sure a lack of proper testing and continual testing (there are firmware updates for the Setec adapter, Tesla's software on the car side keeps changing, Tesla's hardware changes, software on the charger changes, etc.) like EA's test lab:

Electrify America Talks Charging Network Problems, Has Solutions

We sit down with Electrify America's CEO Giovanni Palazzo and COO Brendan Jones to discuss the network's problems, and how they plan to correct them.

insideevs.com

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/171

ChargePoint itself has at least 4 different models of DC FCs, see https://www.chargepoint.com/products/guides. The CPE100 isn't even made by them, it's from IES. The CPE200 is from Tritium. Electrify America has 4 different vendors. You can see them on their labels and they look physically different. From the above article on EA:
"I wasn't there to interview him, just look at their lab and ask a few questions. We mostly talked about the challenges of having four different versions of their DC fast chargers. Electrify America currently uses units made by ABB, BTC, Signet, and Efacec. Every time they have a software or hardware update, it has to be done on all four brands, and they don't always all work the same afterward. Fitezek has to work out the kinks with all four partners and they all respond on different timelines. I could see that this was clearly a pain point for him."

I've personally EA's ABB, BTC Power and Signet many times w/my former '19 Bolt w/BTC Power and Signet being used the most and ABB the least.

On the '22 Niro EV that I'm leasing, I personally charged at the below on my 450 mile drive home:
1) Walmart Supercenter | PlugShare - EA ABB
2) Industrial St Parking Lot | PlugShare - ChargePoint CPE250 that was free back then
3) Madera Maintenance Station | PlugShare - free, BTC "Fatboy" (as IIRC, EVgo calls theirs)

They all worked fine and weren't backup/fallback sites for me.

I'd used #1 on my former '19 Bolt. I used #3 at least twice on my former '19 Bolt on the Dec 2021 road trip.

And, people have spotted test vehicles using public DC FCs before the vehicles are available for sale, including me. I've personally seen and spoken to drivers of pre-production Lucid Airs at DC FCs.

Lucid Motors Air

GCR: Lucid Air electric sedan charging EV time: 300 miles in 20 minutes https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1129299_lucid-air-electric-sedan-claimed-to-be-fastest-charging-ev-300-miles-in-20-minutes The Air’s AC onboard charger can handle up to 19.2 kw—suggesting 80A drawn, and a dedicated...

mynissanleaf.com

Electrify America Network

The change where EA's chargers show both what's being delivered by the charger and requested by the vehicle (both in kW) seems not universal. I've seen it on their Signet chargers and added to their BTC Power chargers. For sure at the BTC Power site where that was not visible before, it was...

mynissanleaf.com

I've seen Plugshare checkins for awhile w/pictures from a Ford Lightning truck all around California, WELL before the it was for sale. I wouldn't be surprised if they were intentionally or unintentionally looking for charging compatibility problems:

Chevron | Manhattan Beach, CA | EV Station

Chevron station has two sets of EVgo 50kW fast chargers.

www.plugshare.com

Vacaville Premium Outlets | Vacaville, CA | EV Station

Find EV charging stations with PlugShare, the most complete map of electric vehicle charging stations in the world!Charging tips reviews and photos from the EV community.

www.plugshare.com

Whole Foods Market | Oakland, CA | EV Station

A charger at this location is accepting reservations! Make a reservation today via the EVgo app or visit reservations.evgo.com to learn more. EVgo Fast Chargers are located at the roof parking lot - enter from Vernon St.

www.plugshare.com

Santa Rosa Plaza (3) | Santa Rosa, CA | EV Station

Chargers are located on the third floor of parking structure 2

www.plugshare.com

Willing to share the locations of the problem (for you) stations so that I/we can check Plugshare and the CP app?

Have you updated the firmware on the Lectron CCS adapter to a revision that seems to work best, if there is one?

 

[SteelClouds]

My Tesla's Chad adapter has been pretty flawless.. assuming the chad station works. Keeping them going doesnt seem to be a high priority. I. have a SETEC coming only because I'm curious.. the Unkraine CCS adapter is actively being blocked by EVgo for being unsafe.. there is not any CCS adapter from Tesla yet for the states.. and I'm not convinced us with the older models will get support for it. At the min it requires a board/card to be added by the service center plus the adapter.

 

[avs007]

Yes, this is a general problem, not just the Bolt and i3.

Bjørn Nyland has noted a similar problem when testing a number of different vehicles at Ionity chargers in Europe.
He suggests always to plug in and support the cable until the charging starts.

YEah, I remember he explained that the communication pins are the top pins on the plug, and with the size/shape of the plug, if it droops, it can pull the top pins out slightly, causing handshake issues. I remember he said the Polestar was the worst with regards to this, becuase of the angle of the chargeport caused the connector to sag extra..

 

[Mockingbird]

Have never needed to lift to charge on any J1772 EVSEs on Bolt and non-EA ones. The heavy Huber + Sunher cables and handles aren't commonly used outside of EA. That may change as more and more 150+ kW CCS DC FCs that aren't EA pop up.

EVgo uses the same Huber+Suhner cable for its 350 kW chargers.

 

[Earl]

the communication pins are the top pins on the plug

The communications pins are undoubtedly also shorter than the power pins so that they disconnect before the power ones enabling a slow power down without arcing.
CCS is basically a bad design;
big, heavy, etc. Not unexpected when it was developed by companies who were not making, and did not want to make EVs.

 

[cwerdna]

My Tesla's Chad adapter has been pretty flawless.. assuming the chad station works. Keeping them going doesnt seem to be a high priority.

The first point isn't surprising. Tesla developed and supported it. Presumably, they've also done a fair amount of testing on it with CHAdeMO chargers in the markets where they offered it.

This is in stark contrast to 3rd-party hacky CCS adapters or Tesla's South Korean one that currently is only intended to be sold and used in SK.

 

[avs007]

The first point isn't surprising. Tesla developed and supported it. Presumably, they've also done a fair amount of testing on it with CHAdeMO chargers in the markets where they offered it.

This is in stark contrast to 3rd-party hacky CCS adapters or Tesla's South Korean one that currently is only intended to be sold and used in SK.

Even in Europe, where Tesla's have CCS charging ports instead of the Tesla connector, when the model 3 came out, there was an interop bug with the model 3 and Ionity chargers, such that both Ionity and Tesla had to release a firmware update. Here is a video where Bjorn talks about that.

 

[avs007]

FWIW tho, the 3 and Y have been available in CCS regions for a while, So would hope any interop issues have already been worked out. The adapter doesn't have any smarts in it, the car is using it's native CCS support, which should be just reusing the same firmware.

 

[cwerdna]

FWIW tho, the 3 and Y have been available in CCS regions for a while, So would hope any interop issues have already been worked out. The adapter doesn't have any smarts in it, the car is using it's native CCS support, which should be just reusing the same firmware.

Yes on the bolded part for the regions where it's been available.

But, for the US market, it hasn't been rolled out and there's no guarantee that the CCS chargers in those rolled out regions are the same as where it hasn't been. And, the software on the chargers is a moving target just like that of the vehicles.

Electrify America itself uses 4 different vendors for their DC FCs. From Electrify America Talks Charging Network Problems, Has Solutions

We mostly talked about the challenges of having four different versions of their DC fast chargers. Electrify America currently uses units made by ABB, BTC, Signet, and Efacec. Every time they have a software or hardware update, it has to be done on all four brands, and they don't always all work the same afterward. Fitezek has to work out the kinks with all four partners and they all respond on different timelines. I could see that this was clearly a pain point for him.

ChargePoint on their DC FCs has at least 2 other vendors (e.g. IES and Tritium) besides their own. EVgo off the top of my head uses several different models of BTC Power besides ABB, Efacec and Delta.

I pointed this out at Setec CCS to Tesla Adapter.

 

[cwerdna]

Oops, I left out Signet from EVgo.

EVgo is finally installing High Power Chargers is an example EVgo site with both Signet and Delta.

 

[SteelClouds]

So the message is that CCS is half baked.. or to be more kind, not really mature yet. It shouldn't matter which charger is used and it shouldn't matter how the car body body is designed. As good as the EVs are today.. they have a ways to go for people like my in-laws who can barely use their smart phone.. Not slam against them but just a fact of life for them. Its the "cant teach an old dog new tricks" and they freely admit it. My father inlaw has a 2015 Model S and the Tesla charger is perfect for him. Plug it in and it works. No mess.. no fuss.

When I read about the issues of CCS in Europe.. it drives home the point that we in the US are really not ready for it.. or not "we" but the manufacturers are not. One of the threads a while back about the SETAC charger was a comment from one of their engineers about how some chargers tend to drift out of spec on voltages. You would think they would have a self correcting feedback loop to keep the voltage in spec.. but that costs money and probably was viewed as not that important. The fact that that my i3 cant use EA handles unless I hold them a certain way and that the car was first.. the EA network came later and still doesnt work right. All points to an immature solution.

I love reading the details you guys know about who makes what charger, who's using it and so on.. good stuff. Thanks for sharing all the cool details

 

[cwerdna]

So the message is that CCS is half baked.. or to be more kind, not really mature yet. It shouldn't matter which charger is used and it shouldn't matter how the car body body is designed. As good as the EVs are today.. they have a ways to go for people like my in-laws who can barely use their smart phone.. Not slam against them but just a fact of life for them. Its the "cant teach an old dog new tricks" and they freely admit it. My father inlaw has a 2015 Model S and the Tesla charger is perfect for him. Plug it in and it works. No mess.. no fuss.

Other than the need to lift and support the CCS handle until it's locked to the car and some DC FCs being down or flaky, I don't totally agree on the first point.

I posted the below before you joined:

Tesla CHAdeMO adapter

I'd rather get an official CCS adapter then the Chademo adapter. Seems like it would be more useful. the problem is, Tesla hasn't announced if they will even make one available in the U.S.

teslamotorsclub.com

Setec CCS to Tesla Adapter

I made SEVERAL attempts to charge and they all failed. It would connect and spend a minute negotiating, the car would always say "ready to charge" but the EA would often fail with Timeout waiting for car. Two times though I DID get a bit further, and I heard the car close the supercharger...

teslamotorsclub.com

I think I pointed to ARob's Spring 2022 Cross Country Bolt Trip Thread here on TMC before. He did an over 7100 mile road trip using his Bolt and had 61 EA charging sessions.

I will agree with some of your latter points. It is silly that one may need to lift and support a handle to allow a session to start. (CHAdeMO doesn't have this problem.) It is silly that credit card readers on DC FCs can often suck and lead to failures then often, drivers don't know that they should try or be using another method.

 

[SteelClouds]

t is silly that credit card readers on DC FCs can often suck and lead to failures then often, drivers don't know that they should try or be using another method.

I have the poster child of this just two miles down the road. The DCFC and Chad units ( 6) have been down for 5 days now due to "no payment methods available" and when I tried to call the company, it just rang and rang. These are brand new units.. less than 5 months old but the company running them is locally based and not really a charging company per say.. this looks like a side gig for them. EVOLV is the owner/operator.

 

[avs007]

Yes on the bolded part for the regions where it's been available.

But, for the US market, it hasn't been rolled out and there's no guarantee that the CCS chargers in those rolled out regions are the same as where it hasn't been. And, the software on the chargers is a moving target just like that of the vehicles.

Electrify America itself uses 4 different vendors for their DC FCs. From Electrify America Talks Charging Network Problems, Has Solutions

ChargePoint on their DC FCs has at least 2 other vendors (e.g. IES and Tritium) besides their own. EVgo off the top of my head uses several different models of BTC Power besides ABB, Efacec and Delta.

Quick google search, (and watching Bjorns videos), shows that ABB, BTC, Efacec, Signet, Tritium, and Delta, all have deployed CCS chargers in Europe. That means interop with Tesla's CCS solution should/hopefully already be there.

 

[cwerdna]

Quick google search, (and watching Bjorns videos), shows that ABB, BTC, Efacec, Signet, Tritium, and Delta, all have deployed CCS chargers in Europe. That means interop with Tesla's CCS solution should/hopefully already be there.

And how many of the DC FC network providers in Europe have a substantial # of chargers here? Are they even the same models? The UI of the software already is likely going to be different due to customization by each operator.

Electrify America's software at least in terms of the UI exposed to the user looks mostly identical regardless of which company made the charger but the EA ABB chargers seems super slow to respond to input vs. BTC Power and Signet. And, see the quote I posted in post 50.

Who knows what's going on behind the scenes and what type of interop work would be required with Teslas? After all, there are 4 Tesla vehicle models and they've changed over time, esp. older models like the S and X. The software on the cars is also moving target. I'm not sure which is a great tracker but there are these:
https://www.teslafi.com/firmware.php

https://ev-fw.com/reports.php

Vehicle Software Updates - Teslascope

View the release notes and other metrics for all Tesla vehicle updates.

teslascope.com

 

[avs007]

And how many of the DC FC network providers in Europe have a substantial # of chargers here? Are they even the same models? The UI of the software already is likely going to be different due to customization by each operator.

I work in international standards. I work with tons of companies from all over the world that implement said standards. It is quite rare to find a company that will implement more than one protocol stack to use in different markets.. On the contrary, you'll find it is more common to unify on a single protocol stack. Even to the point where you can have a country like China, which places it's own requirements on what standards/options must be implemented.... And said companies will refuse to have to implement a parallel stack to accomodate said changes, so they'll find a way to get parts of the additions required by the Chinese government ratified into the standard used by other countries, so that they can use a single stack.

As far as interop goes... It's not like there are no Teslas in Europe, and it's not like E-Trons, Mach-Es, EV6s etc, are unique the US market... I've gone to many interop events for various international standards, so I'm well aware of how they work.... And as far as products go... The UI should have no bearing on the inner-workings of stuff lower in the OSI stack.

 

[cwerdna]

I work in international standards. I work with tons of companies from all over the world that implement said standards. It is quite rare to find a company that will implement more than one protocol stack to use in different markets.. On the contrary, you'll find it is more common to unify on a single protocol stack. Even to the point where you can have a country like China, which places it's own requirements on what standards/options must be implemented.... And said companies will refuse to have to implement a parallel stack to accomodate said changes, so they'll find a way to get parts of the additions required by the Chinese government ratified into the standard used by other countries, so that they can use a single stack.

As far as interop goes... It's not like there are no Teslas in Europe, and it's not like E-Trons, Mach-Es, EV6s etc, are unique the US market... I've gone to many interop events for various international standards, so I'm well aware of how they work.... And as far as products go... The UI should have no bearing on the inner-workings of stuff lower in the OSI stack.

Sure, but China has its own GB/T standards for AC and DC charging.

There are numerous EVs that exist in Europe that are not sold in the US at all. Take a look at the list at 2021 (Full Year) Europe: Best-Selling Electric Car Models and Brands - Car Sales Statistics. We haven't gotten New 500 Electric Range | Electric Cars | Fiat UK in the US (yet?). We had a previous gen that couldn't be DC FCed before it was discontinued. We don't have the Opel/Vauxhall Corsa-e nor MG ZS EV (The ten best-selling electric cars in the UK | Move Electric). Peugeot, Skoda, Dacia and Renault don't sell in the US. Opel/Vauxhall were GM's European operations that they sold to PSA Groupe which ended up buying FCA --> Stellantis. Corsa-e was a PSA Groupe creation and meant to replace the Opel Ampera-e (aka Chevy Bolt). Otherwise, Opel would need to keep buying those cars from GM.

There's no ID.3 here. IIRC, Merecdes has only 1 DC FC-capable car in the US vs. more outside the US.

And, it's possible that the charger vendors are ok with having two divergent stacks, one for CCS2 and another for CCS1.

 

[avs007]

And, it's possible that the charger vendors are ok with having two divergent stacks, one for CCS2 and another for CCS1.

I find that to be doubtful, especially if you are a global supplier selling into two markets where one is a subset of the other. ie, all the EVs for sale in the US, are also available the EU, etc.

For example, Walmart has strict requirements on Energy Star v10 compliance (or v8, it's been a while since I worked with the vendors on this), for all electronics sold in their store, which places like Best Buy do not require to sell products in their box stores. OEMs must develop and certify for this compliance to sell products at walmart. As a vendor, if you sell to both these chains, you'll end up selling the walmart sku at both outlets, becuase developing two stacks just adds extra cost, if one stack will work for both. And this is the exact thing that I saw happen with all the ODM/OEMs I worked with for this issue.

The same would apply to CCS1/CCS2, becuase the signaling is compatible between the two, particularly when talking about DCFC, as the main difference stems from J1772 not supporting 3 phase AC.... There's no reason to diverge a 2 stack solution just for the US, all it would do is add unnecessary cost.

But I digress. I don't care anymore...

 

[Prairie]

I need a link or info on a part that makes the connection between the Tesla charger and the CCS adapter secure so someone can’t disconnect you if you don’t sit with the vehicle. Any suggestions? Thank you. I could find it by searching.