How about just having all manufacturers put the charge port in the same spot, and not repeat the same mess we had with gas filler doors. You know how annoying it is to have a rental car if there's no arrow near the fuel gauge showing you which side of the vehicle the door is on?
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Electrify America general discussion
- Thread starter Mockingbird
- Start date
Not necessarily. That's why I posted these pictures. The cable is longish, but they are so stiff, it doesn't really work when you stretch the cable out, becuase you won't be able to angle the handle correctly.
RTPEV
Active Member
That is one thing the MCS, Megawatt Charging System, standard covers. It is mainly for things like Semis, but for it they said the charge port has to be on the left side of the vehicle and is behind the most forward axle and in front of the most forward rear axle. So essentially they want it near the driver's side door. (They didn't specify driver's side as they want the charge port on the same side of the vehicle regardless of region.)
Does it really matter? The important thing isn't what spot it's in, just that every manufacturer puts it in the same spot.
RTPEV
Active Member
Okay, let me rephrase my question. Which manufacturer gets to decide what spot is THE spot.
All of the ones that participate in the standard setting process. (Which is handled by the CharIN committee think.)
And thus one of the biggest issue with standards occurs . . .
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RTPEV
Active Member
Thank you! I figured an XKCD or Dilbert would explain the situation that I am trying to get across.
Folks, the location of the charge port is a religious debate. There will never be an agreement about which is best. Nor should there be. Different cars have different designs which dictate different optimal locations of charge ports.
I think it's much better to take a page from gas stations and just design the sites so that even with the constraints of the charging cables, multiple different charge port locations can be supported, as well as bike racks and trailers. Put the things on islands!
Standardization will never be agreed on…
CCS2: exists
China: how about we use your standard but backwards (as in female instead of male inlet on vehicle)
This action infuriated the heck out of me. Like, what for?
Exelion
Member
I think the charging cabinets on islands (like gas station pumps), and having longer reaching cables is the best way to go.
Looking back in history, while almost all cars have fuel filler doors towards the rear of the car on the left or right side, I can distinctly remember some with very odd placements, like under the rear license plate, or under the hood, or in the trunk. But even those cars can get fuel without having to park “weird”.
I think its more on the charging station than the car mfgr to correct this issue.
Looking back in history, while almost all cars have fuel filler doors towards the rear of the car on the left or right side, I can distinctly remember some with very odd placements, like under the rear license plate, or under the hood, or in the trunk. But even those cars can get fuel without having to park “weird”.
I think its more on the charging station than the car mfgr to correct this issue.
RTPEV
Active Member
It's probably not as simple as having longer cables...especially with higher powered stations. Longer cables will require thicker conductors, which would become not just expensive (and prone to vandals stealing the cables), but also heavy and unwieldy. Yes, cables can be liquid cooled, which adds expense, but there are practical limits to that as well.
ambudriver03
Member
The 350kw liquid cooled electrify America cables are heavy and stiff, found that one of the stations I charged at I could physically reach, but the cable was so stiff, I couldn't rotate the connector around to the right orientation, without putting too much torque on the ccs adapter.
And this was on a warm spring evening in California.
I can imagine that trying to wield those elephant trunks in freezing weather would be even more difficult.
On a recent trip to Charlotte,NC I decided to try out the nearby EA station instead of the trusty but packed supercharger. It was a hot day and the particular EA station had 3 out of 8 chargers out of service and 3 are occupied by an ID4, an ioniq 5, and a bolt (nice to see them). I tried the first unoccupied one and couldn’t get it to activate even with the support on phone. I then moved to the second one realizing the cable just won’t reach no matter how I orient. Support on the phone was nice and courteous, gave me a free session for next visit as compensation. But I had no option to charge (at least without waiting for one of them to leave and try to activate charger on phone again cuz card readers/app activation were down on all chargers at this location.) Left the Walmart went to the nearby supercharger instead. 7 out of 8 stalls are up and there was 1 person in line. Waited for less than 2 minutes two Tesla left at same time, started charging at our typical 150kw without further incident.
Oh and my “beloved” nearby EVgo only has a 50kw handle and completely offline due to maintenance.
Oh and my “beloved” nearby EVgo only has a 50kw handle and completely offline due to maintenance.
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That Electrify America charging station in Charlotte, NC has a PlugShare score of 4.4, which is the lowest score I've ever seen of an Electrify America charging station that isn't down for maintenance or undergoing upgrade.
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The "All Electric Family" just did a road trip towing a trailer with a Rivian
Perhaps if EA would spend their money fixing their network instead of hiring @Mockingbird to try to convince us that it is ok, it would actually be OK. Of course, given @Mockingbird's lame work quality, clearly that entity is not a high-priced asset (probably a part-time student job) while electricians would cost real money.
Because then they have control of it. It's China, if they can control it, they will.
EVGo 50kW here often have reported failures. But I do wonder how much is that there's only 1 charger, so if it doesn't work people can't try another/the other stall. So that gets reported to EVGo and Plugshare. It might be working but flaky, or it's just that it's an old slow charger that people generally avoid, and EVGo makes it a low priority. In Maine, where possible, avoid the Hannaford 1-charger EVGo and use the Chargepoint 2-charger locations instead.
I’m from China and yes I had first hand experience of it.
Some EVgo 350kw locations I’ve visited (NC, VA, DC) are so well built and they do provide impressive speed hence why I like them. Just sucks that their large pool of 50kw locations around urban area are just wasting away.
Seimens makes a sizeable investment in Electrify America.
driveteslacanada.ca
Siemens invests in Electrify America, valuing charging network at $2.45 billion
Volkswagen’s Electrify America has welcomed its first outside investor with Germany’s Siemens announcing today they are investing more than $100 million into the electric vehicle (EV) charging network. The exact amount of Siemens’ investment was […]
driveteslacanada.ca
FlatSix911
Porsche 918 Hybrid
It appears that Tesla still maintains a sizeable 10x lead over EA in network size and reliability.Seimens makes a sizeable investment in Electrify America.
Siemens invests in Electrify America, valuing charging network at $2.45 billion
Volkswagen’s Electrify America has welcomed its first outside investor with Germany’s Siemens announcing today they are investing more than $100 million into the electric vehicle (EV) charging network. The exact amount of Siemens’ investment was […]
"As of their latest update, Electrify America currently has around 800 stations with 3,500 individual chargers. In comparison, Tesla recently celebrated the opening of their 35,000th Supercharger stall in China this month, pegging the value of the Supercharger network at least $25 billion, but likely much higher considering the wide coverage and reliability of Tesla’s network."
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