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More Electrify America EV chargers are coming, this time at TA rest stops
TravelCenters of America buys 1,000 DC fast chargers from Electrify America.
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Electrify America general discussion
- Thread starter Mockingbird
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SalisburySam
Active Member
Nearly all of our driving is within a single charge on our Model 3 and Ioniq5. That said, we’ve taken several long trips in our Model 3 and know how the Supercharger network works…pretty well for us indeed. For grins and chucks, we wanted to try out an EA charger for our Ioniq5 to learn (a) how to actually use one and (b) compare its use to a Supercharger. I had the Ioniq5 charged to 70% and we took a short 25-mile trip to the nearest EA location and to do a drive-by of the Hyundai dealership close to EA as they are the nearest one that services Ioniq5s. It is not the dealership from whence we bought our car.
As to the dealership, it is large, clean, and they had one Ioniq5 in their lot and an accessible charging station in front easily visible to all. We didn’t stop at it though It was unoccupied at the time. From there we went to the EA site down the road. It was a sunny mid-afternoon with temperature in the 50’sF. Our 2023 Ioniq5, acquired 3 months ago, came with 3 years of free EA charging up to 30 minutes a session.
There were four pedestals, two were CCS only, two were CCS and CHAdeMO, all spaces were unoccupied. We chose one of the CCS-only options, opened the EA app on my iPhone, set the charge limit in the car for 90%, plugged in, and then our confusion began. We tried holding the iPhone up to the NFC credit card reader…no joy. We called the EA tech support, they answered immediately, spoke English/American as a first language, and walked us through using the app to begin charging. Charging began and worked fine. Given our beginning state of charge at over 60% I didn’t expect much speed at the 350 site and got 145 initially, going down to 45 as I passed 80% state of charge. It clicked off correctly at 90%. The price was $0.43/kWh pre-tax rate, 27.617kWhs added, $11.61 total, just under 17 minutes of charging, and no cost to me under the Hyundai/EA agreement. A few minutes after disconnecting I received an email with all the details of the charging event.
As we were finishing our charge, another vehicle drove up and began charging at one of the other pedestals. They had no issue and also used the app to begin the charge.
We achieved our goal of trying out our first CCS fast charging at an EA location and once we stumbled through the connection process it worked well, at least in this best-case scenario. I didn’t want our first experience to be in bad weather with a desperate state of charge at night in the middle of BFE and weak cell service. I know many folks report many problems at many EA sites, but for us, this was a good experience and a learning one. The lesson: use the app and skip all the input devices on the pedestal itself.
As to the dealership, it is large, clean, and they had one Ioniq5 in their lot and an accessible charging station in front easily visible to all. We didn’t stop at it though It was unoccupied at the time. From there we went to the EA site down the road. It was a sunny mid-afternoon with temperature in the 50’sF. Our 2023 Ioniq5, acquired 3 months ago, came with 3 years of free EA charging up to 30 minutes a session.
There were four pedestals, two were CCS only, two were CCS and CHAdeMO, all spaces were unoccupied. We chose one of the CCS-only options, opened the EA app on my iPhone, set the charge limit in the car for 90%, plugged in, and then our confusion began. We tried holding the iPhone up to the NFC credit card reader…no joy. We called the EA tech support, they answered immediately, spoke English/American as a first language, and walked us through using the app to begin charging. Charging began and worked fine. Given our beginning state of charge at over 60% I didn’t expect much speed at the 350 site and got 145 initially, going down to 45 as I passed 80% state of charge. It clicked off correctly at 90%. The price was $0.43/kWh pre-tax rate, 27.617kWhs added, $11.61 total, just under 17 minutes of charging, and no cost to me under the Hyundai/EA agreement. A few minutes after disconnecting I received an email with all the details of the charging event.
As we were finishing our charge, another vehicle drove up and began charging at one of the other pedestals. They had no issue and also used the app to begin the charge.
We achieved our goal of trying out our first CCS fast charging at an EA location and once we stumbled through the connection process it worked well, at least in this best-case scenario. I didn’t want our first experience to be in bad weather with a desperate state of charge at night in the middle of BFE and weak cell service. I know many folks report many problems at many EA sites, but for us, this was a good experience and a learning one. The lesson: use the app and skip all the input devices on the pedestal itself.
The consortium controlling the decision making for these standards was a bunch of gasoline car manufacturing companies. They were reluctant to allow electric car charging standards to be too capable for fear it would make it a suitable replacement for their gasoline cars, thereby hurting their existing business.
I don't really get the question--what do you mean "how"?
The specifications they proposed were lower speed charging, and they voted for them.
The specifications Tesla proposed were higher speed charging, and they voted against that.
They were the vast majority colluding together, so their votes determined what happened.
I expected the parties involved to deliberate before voting, so I imagine those that favored a lower charging speed had to bring forth an argument for it. Or was this just a ganging up kind of situation?
Oh, well, I wasn't there and hadn't read the meeting minutes or anything to see exactly what was said. I was just referring to how it ended up.
Thanks @Rocky_H
The best way to understand the issue with electrification faced by the legacy ICE manufacturers is by comparing a block diagram of the car's systems with the organization chart of the company.
In the system block diagram of an ICE: You have fuel system connected to engine with thermal with transmission/power train, emissions, NVH, electrical systems, lubrication systems, chassis, body, paint etc, The big dogs being engine and power train. The org chart has VPs or managers in charge of divisions responsible for each of these.
In an EV system block diagram: You have some of the ancillary things (chassis, body, paint, etc) but none of the big dogs. This means that transition to BEV's will eliminate a significant number of high paying positions and divisions. PHEVs, however, will preserve all with the only corporate political risk being to elevate the electrical guys (of course, that can be outsourced).
By guaranteeing that charging infrastructure could only provide about 12 MPH charging at home or ~120 mph on the road, one needed an ICE in order to be viable for road trips or even weekend errands.
Now, why would an ICE company want faster charging?
Why would an upstart EV company want it?
Why would the dominant ICE folks push for anything the upstart EV company (from California intruding on their turf) wants?
So in addition to the reports of a bricked F-150 Lightning and R1T, someone says that their Bolt was bricked as well, and the dealer finally looked at it and it is ~$20k worth of damage:
I have also seen someone say that the PCS in their Tesla was fried by an EA charger...
I hope they figure out what they problem is and resolve it quickly. (Maybe their "next gen" chargers are designed to resolve this issue.
I have also seen someone say that the PCS in their Tesla was fried by an EA charger...
I hope they figure out what they problem is and resolve it quickly. (Maybe their "next gen" chargers are designed to resolve this issue.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
It's pretty rare to find Level 2 that will deliver that. The one in your house might if you pay for a pretty hefty install. There are a few destination chargers that do it.
This is one of those cases where getting a home level 3 at 20kw might make more sense. Though admittedly they are still overprice, but the price of the OBCs has been dropping like a stone as they are made in quantity, and if there were demand, I think 15-20kW DC chargers for the home could be fairly reasonably priced. You need something like that if you dream of V2G, though you should not dream of that.
Indeed. There are very few public J1772 EVSEs that have 80 amp max output. Most in the US are 30 or 32 amp.
Gen 1 and 2 HPWC/WC were capable of 80 amp max on a 100 amp circuit. My work used to have 5 of gen 1 WCs serving the buildings I work at, each on 100 amp circuits. They served 10 parking spaces. Fortunately, they were spread out and (to make a long story short), we got them replaced w/10 gen 2 WCs in a load sharing arrangement (each pair sharing a 100 amp circuit) and they line up w/the 10 parking spaces. We do have some older Teslas that have 80 amps of OBC and I had one of those guys go through and test at least 1 WC on each pair to make sure they were configured right. At the beginning, at least one had its amperage set too low.
Some older Model S folks w/80 amps of OBC sprang for 100 amp circuits to do 80 amp output at home.
The above guy at Electrify America charger just bricked my Bolt said he's done w/that thread and that forum. I guess one may need to monitor his tweets, if he chooses to give further updates there/anywhere. He sounds pretty hosed, so far (Electrify America charger just bricked my Bolt).
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RTPEV
Active Member
Looking at it in hindsight in 2023, with Tesla being a dominant player and long range EVs becoming more common, it might be easy to imagine that the choices were between an elegant high power system that combined AC and DC into a single connector, or a clunky lower power (at the time) system, and that there was some kind of democratic vote where the voting members were using technical merit as their sole guiding principle. I wasn't there either, but I'm certain that's not how it played out.
First, at the time, Tesla was not even a factor. They were viewed as a niche startup that wouldn't even be around in 5 years and quite easily ignored. Putting your company behind that kind of proprietary system (if it was even proposed at all) would have been foolish. I doubt the CCS consortium members were seriously worried about Tesla. They were more concerned with Nissan and the other Japanese automakers that had actual EVs on the road, years ahead of where the other incumbents were in their development. So the discussion, if any, was about whether to adopt CHAdeMO (which required a second charge port) over a to be developed connector that would build upon an already established and standardized (J1772) connector. And while the technical merits of going with evolving J1772 into CCS as a single connector solution were probably a sufficient argument, most of the consortium members were more concerned with slowing down Nissan so they could all have time to catch up (this is very common in our world: VHS vs. Beta; DVD vs. DIVX; Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD; EISA vs. MCA).
But even if it had played out as you imagine, plausible arguments for CCS vs. Tesla would not have been "lower charging speed", but rather:
- Builds on an existing standard (J1772)
- Doesn't require additional contactors/devices to switch between AC & DC
- Doesn't require high power (and thus high cost) components to support vehicles that don't need it (and in their mind, wouldn't for MANY years). I.e. the power levels would have been way overkill.
True
Tesla did not propose anything proprietary. Its features were proposed to put in the standard. Remember that from the beginning, the Tesla Roadster adhered to the J-1772 signalling protocols, which were fairly standardized and resonable, even if they delayed ratifying 70 amp charging or a connector.
GM was also concerned with Tesla but they had all their EV "eggs "in the Volt PHEV "basket".
lower power car and charger connectors would not need to handle high power (and cost) since signalling protocols would ensure that cheap connectors only get lower power.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
Load sharing is absolutely the way. I mean not even a model X would take that long to fill at 80 amps -- almost 20kW in the very unlikely event it was totally empty and trying to get to totally full. Having 100a individual circuits is nuts.
The reality is the typical car needs just 10kWh per day (for model 3/Y) on average. Some days you need more, even a 50kwh to 90kwkh "fill up" but you don't have all the cars all needing that massive fill-up. And if you ever did (you won't) then they should just head to a supercharger.
What that means is to serve 10 cars overnight (10 hours) you need an average of just 5 amps per car. Which means on a 100a circuit you should put 16 EVSEs sharing it if you could. Now that's cutting in fine, so you would not put that many, but if you put 8-10 you are going to charge everybody to the 80-90% they want every night, or every workday. 5 wall connectors each with 100a was crazy.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
More will have some improvement, of course, but it costs more money and there are diminishing returns. A lot of people size their charging assuming every car is going to be empty and draw max current all the time. Which would leave them to install much more than they are every likely to need, and possibly at high cost.
If you have a lot that is either for overnight users (hotel/apartment) or for all-day users (office) the cars are going to be there for at least 10 hours overnight and a bit over 8 at the office.
The above install could deliver 21 kWh to all 16 cars in 8 hours. That's over 80 miles to each car. But the average car drives only 35 miles/day. So it's going to be plenty and in fact on a typical day only half the capacity will be used.
Of course it's different if you have an office lot that has to support way more than 16 cars and people are charging for a couple hours and moving their car for somebody else. This can be the case at commercial lots or lots that wanted fewer EVSEs. But if you have cars that stay in the space all day, they are doing fine with the above recommendation or even a bit less. (Is 225a a common service level, usually it's 200a around here.)
Bias disclaimer -- I am an investor in a company that does even better than this. It monitors what the main building is using, and gives the rest to the cars. So while your chargers need to get a 200a panel for them, you don't need to add 200a to the building, because in reality, no building is maxing out its service, except maybe at 6pm on a very hot night, and people aren't usually charging then.
I had no say nor visibility into the original plans our facilities group (I don't work in it either) had for that parking structure's EVSEs.
At the time they were installed, AFAIK, gen 2 WCs didn't exist yet, so it's not like load sharing was an option. And, for sure the Model 3 didn't even exist yet. So the vehicles using them were S or X.
Fortunately, they had the foresight to install 5 gen 1 WCs spaced out for 10 parking spaces. Back then, we (I helped even though I never owned nor leased a Tesla) and other Tesla drivers would need to coordinate plug swapping via Slack. Drivers of completed cars would be pinged so they could remotely unlock their plug since Tesla stupidly doesn't provide an option to either never lock or auto-unlock the plug when done.
At least opening the charging doors w/the WC handle was easy on the S: push the handle's button. All the S charging flaps in the surrounding area open. On Model 3, we learned that you usually had to wake the car first by tugging a door handle, otherwise pushing the WC handle's button was useless. We never found a way to do it on the X.
And, back then, virtually no other EV/PHEV maker had self-closing charging doors. To this day, on most EV/PHEV models, if you want to leave the charging door open, it stays open. It doesn't auto-close.
To make a long story short (which I think I've posted here before), as part of expansion/improvements, I discovered gen 2 WCs existed w/load sharing and made the suggestion. I'm guessing the quote from electrical contractors was far less than the crazy quote I'd heard for adding a few more WCs (each on 100 amp circuits) due to electrical capacity limits. That's what caused the 5 gen 1 WCs to be replaced with the 10 gen 2's in a load sharing arrangement.
Prior to COVID, we had WAY more than 16 plug-in vehicles charging each day. Besides those 10 WCs, we have several dozen J1772 handles. Before COVID, our EV/PHEV charging on many days of the week was maxed out. Now, it's not so bad due to low office turnout.
Some of our employees did have commutes of ~50 miles one way. Anyway, we're getting way OT. This has nothing to do with EA.
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brainhouston
Active Member
I was at the SuC in Sandy OR on my way to Mt Hood and saw a Tesla X across the parking next to EA charger
First i thought, oh hey someone else got CCS and using it but then the guy in orange vest got out n started working on EA cabinet
Irony
Sorry didn't snap a pic...
First i thought, oh hey someone else got CCS and using it but then the guy in orange vest got out n started working on EA cabinet
Irony
Sorry didn't snap a pic...
Got an email today saying EA js raising prices to 36 cents and 48 cents for Pass+ and Pass.
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