That's up to the owner. They need to understand about the impacts of cold. In this case it was an extreme weather event, so clearly not something they'd deal with regularly. Hopefully the owners have learned to charge before, and charge often so they aren't caught waiting in line with a cold battery and low SoC.
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Supercharger failure - Oak Brook Mall (dead Teslas?)
- Thread starter Teetoogrn
- Start date
Rusty1
Member
I agree, but the bigger need is infrastructure where people park. That starts with building codes. All new or modified parking lots/garages should be required to have a percentage of spots with plugs.
Rusty1
Member
It was directed to Tam. I like you advice. Thanks
This is definitely a learning opportunity.
Summary of 38 minute video:
- Some dispensers down at Tesla, EA, EVgo, etc
- Some slow charging cars (Bolt, Kona, etc)
- Some people charging to 100% when not needed, not moving when done, etc
- Many ride share operators with inflexible charging demand
- Not enough garage / street L2 charging for urbanites
- Some people not informed enough, or cars not giving good enough control to pre-condition batteries enough / at the right time after being in line
In other words, all situations we've all known about with public EV charging infrastructure for years, but combined up made for a bad mess when the system was strained.
- Some dispensers down at Tesla, EA, EVgo, etc
- Some slow charging cars (Bolt, Kona, etc)
- Some people charging to 100% when not needed, not moving when done, etc
- Many ride share operators with inflexible charging demand
- Not enough garage / street L2 charging for urbanites
- Some people not informed enough, or cars not giving good enough control to pre-condition batteries enough / at the right time after being in line
In other words, all situations we've all known about with public EV charging infrastructure for years, but combined up made for a bad mess when the system was strained.
The main missing infrastructure is knowledge.
With wider adoption, it has become clear that the average EV owner is about as good at understanding their vehicle and its needs as the average car owner was before wider EV adoption
I bet I could have sold a lot of blinker fluid up there last weekend
I bet I could have sold a lot of blinker fluid up there last weekend
I suspect Tesla is concerned that folks will use the precondition when they don't need to and unnecessarily heat the batteries for too long. Remember, that the heat does degrade the batteries to some extent. If only done for a few minutes before a fast charge, this probably isn't an issue but if someone does it all the time it could do damage.
Since we know there are shorters out there who will intentionally damage Teslas and then sue, Tesla is very careful about what they let users do.
Rusty1
Member
I saw the same story on fox news. People tried charging 3 hours at oakbrook. Here is another.
www.fox19.com
Tesla drivers stranded amid charging struggles in frigid cold
Many drivers had to leave their cars behind after the batteries died during the long wait for a charging station.
www.fox19.com
TomServo
Active Member
Sadly those photos and stories will live forever on the internet.
Being retired USAF anytime we had an incident or unintended consequence to an activity we always conducted a "LESSONS LEARNED" review to understand what happened, how to fix it, and what not to do again. I have to assume Tesla has done the same thing.
Surely by now, they pulled as much data as they could from the various stations, individual stalls, and vehicles themselves to uncover the "ground truth"?
Being retired USAF anytime we had an incident or unintended consequence to an activity we always conducted a "LESSONS LEARNED" review to understand what happened, how to fix it, and what not to do again. I have to assume Tesla has done the same thing.
Surely by now, they pulled as much data as they could from the various stations, individual stalls, and vehicles themselves to uncover the "ground truth"?
If there are people at Tesla doing AAR's they certainly aren't doing it across the board and/or with any input from customers. autowipers team I'm looking at you
But I think the charging team is probably the most successful of everyone - it's the one aspect of the brand people actually seem to trust so maybe they'll do more than promote somebody to fix the problem lol
But I think the charging team is probably the most successful of everyone - it's the one aspect of the brand people actually seem to trust so maybe they'll do more than promote somebody to fix the problem lol
Assuming they keep the nice wiper button readily accessible on the end of the turn signal stalk, I'd say they have their priorities right.
I need good charging infrastructure to get to my destination.
Autowiper control is just a mild convenience factor.
It's also clear what technologies were driven by JB and which were driven by the AI hype peddlers that seem to be infesting the world today.
I know how to ride a horse pretty well. Trail rides up in high mountains. Etc. Can put a saddle on. and off. Take a horse out in the morning, and do some of the horse things. Yet I could never care for a horse. I have yet to understand many of the things that it takes to care, and properly train a horse. To trailer a horse, what feed to do, and when. I could learn.
I am going with a majority were never taught. Taught absolutely nothing about how to handle deep cold. Nothing about cold soaking, nothing about how long it takes a car at a supercharger to even start at a cold soak. Never taught maybe find a garage for a day or so that has charging so you don't have a cold soak.
Right the tech isn't there, but I wish more were taught about these items as we progress down the road of EV's. Building codes and such are good for the future, but some common sense principals seem to be a little lost in the purchase of an EV.
I am going with a majority were never taught. Taught absolutely nothing about how to handle deep cold. Nothing about cold soaking, nothing about how long it takes a car at a supercharger to even start at a cold soak. Never taught maybe find a garage for a day or so that has charging so you don't have a cold soak.
Right the tech isn't there, but I wish more were taught about these items as we progress down the road of EV's. Building codes and such are good for the future, but some common sense principals seem to be a little lost in the purchase of an EV.
Sounds more like people trying to make a business (rideshare and livery) and expecting to externalizing their costs onto someone else.
Hopefully, Tesla will start charging them enough to build out an infrastructure, even at high NYC land costs.
Unfortunately, I'm sure the same entitled people will be just as enraged at the necessary costs as well and MSN will make hay out of that too.
They've been taught now
You tend to learn one way or another, self/mentor-taught or universe-taught
I think there is a lot to this point. EVs can work fine in extreme cold, as Norway, etc. proves. But there is a very important fundamental difference in the paradigm that people need to learn once (usually by getting burned if they haven't researched or asked questions).
With gasoline, filling is effectively just a physical, mechanical process. It is simply moving an object from one location to another. You just need to physically move the liquid from this tank to that tank. Temperature is effectively meaningless and a non-factor at all. It works the same way and the same speed in all conditions.
With electricity, it is not just a physical process. It is a chemical process. Cold very much impacts that. The cars do have the heating equipment to compensate for cold to make it work, but you need to leave them some margin (in time and energy) to let those systems work. Showing up with 1% and expecting to quickly "pour" the electricity into it isn't conducive to that. So going with 10-15% left in the battery is giving it something to work with to pre-heat to get it ready for that charging, and letting it have time to do that instead of panicking and giving up is another thing.
EfficientWatts
Member
There's two aspects to this:
For the example of initial charge being slow, the message about having to warm up could be made more prominent. There are already similar messages about it when supercharging today, but I would say in extreme cases something larger should pop up to be made more apparent.
Something similar could also be shown when starting to drive in similar conditions, in more extreme conditions the alert sound could play and a message displayed.
The infrastructure could have been improved as well; some of the stations did go offline.
This won't fix everything, but the goal is to reduce the impact to get the issues down to a manageable value.
But some here are doing too much victim blaming here which doesn't serve to solve the issue at all, but only makes people feel good about themselves or because they take any failure too personally here. I take it akin to a gas station not working when someone arrives with an empty tank. Yea the driver should have planned better, but that doesn't mean that the gas station shouldn't be absolved of any responsibility.
- whether the end user could have done better
- whether Tesla could have done better
For the example of initial charge being slow, the message about having to warm up could be made more prominent. There are already similar messages about it when supercharging today, but I would say in extreme cases something larger should pop up to be made more apparent.
Something similar could also be shown when starting to drive in similar conditions, in more extreme conditions the alert sound could play and a message displayed.
The infrastructure could have been improved as well; some of the stations did go offline.
This won't fix everything, but the goal is to reduce the impact to get the issues down to a manageable value.
But some here are doing too much victim blaming here which doesn't serve to solve the issue at all, but only makes people feel good about themselves or because they take any failure too personally here. I take it akin to a gas station not working when someone arrives with an empty tank. Yea the driver should have planned better, but that doesn't mean that the gas station shouldn't be absolved of any responsibility.
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