US Plans Push To Upgrade Fast Chargers

[RickLightning]

Follow the link below to view the article.

U.S. Plans Push to Upgrade Fast Chargers
https://wallstreetjournal-ny.newsmemory.com/?publink=0684f711f_134ad26

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[Maquis]

Other than throwing money at the problem, there are no details on exactly what is going to be done to fix it.

 

[bmwhitetx]

More info here including how to apply: https://highways.dot.gov/newsroom/b...lion-available-improve-ev-charger-reliability

Here’s the list. Filter for Electric, temporarily unavailable, public access: https://afdc.energy.gov/stations#/analyze?status=T&fuel=ELEC&country=US&show_map=true

You can further filter by network and connector type. Most are Level 2. Only about 500 are DCFC but that number can grow since owners can update the database before the awards are granted.

Edit: Electrify America only shows 2 locations with 10 ports total as temporarily unavailable and thus eligible for this money. So this isn’t helping us at all.

 

[bmwhitetx]

Database results for Electrify America. Two locations, 10 ports. Will be curious to see if EA goes in and updates the database by the 11/13/23 deadline and applies for the funds. And uses them.
Edit: EA just entered these two stations today. One opened a couple of months ago. Updated chart.

Station Name	EV DC Fast Count	Date Last Confirmed	Updated At	Open Date
La Quinta Grand Canyon (Williams, AZ)	4​	9/14/2023​	2023-09-14 01:18:29 UTC	2/12/2021​
Columbine Knolls Village (Littleton, CO)	6​	9/14/2023​	2023-09-14 01:16:54 UTC	6/22/2023​

 

[ivan256]

Supposedly it's for repairs to broken or outdated chargers. Though I'm not sure why the taxpayers should be picking up the maintenance costs for private equipment.

The part that kills me is this:
" Some of the “temporarily unavailable” chargers might just be old: About 20% were installed before 2019, according to the data. "

Is 4 years beyond the life expectancy for charging equipment? Would they like to state that alongside the other big investments we're making? "I've voted in favor of $N billion in EV charging equipment that will last 5 years before we need to spend it again!"

I also refuse to believe the 1 in 5 attempts to charge fail. Unless you're counting somebody who has to re-plug three times while they fumble with a billing app before succeeding on the fourth attempt as 75% failures.

 

[ivan256]

More info here including how to apply: https://highways.dot.gov/newsroom/b...lion-available-improve-ev-charger-reliability

Here’s the list. Filter for Electric, temporarily unavailable, public access: https://afdc.energy.gov/stations#/analyze?status=T&fuel=ELEC&country=US&show_map=true

You can further filter by network and connector type. Most are Level 2. Only about 500 are DCFC but that number can grow since owners can update the database before the awards are granted.

Seems to me like there's some incentive to take some charging stations offline so they start to qualify.

 

[RickLightning]

Supposedly it's for repairs to broken or outdated chargers. Though I'm not sure why the taxpayers should be picking up the maintenance costs for private equipment.

The part that kills me is this:
" Some of the “temporarily unavailable” chargers might just be old: About 20% were installed before 2019, according to the data. "

Is 4 years beyond the life expectancy for charging equipment? Would they like to state that alongside the other big investments we're making? "I've voted in favor of $N billion in EV charging equipment that will last 5 years before we need to spend it again!"

I also refuse to believe the 1 in 5 attempts to charge fail. Unless you're counting somebody who has to re-plug three times while they fumble with a billing app before succeeding on the fourth attempt as 75% failures.

Apparently you don't do much DC fast charging. 20% failure rate? If a failure includes getting 34kW instead of 150kW, that's low.

Taxpayers are paying $7.5B to install new chargers, what's $100M?

 

[3rdgenfan]

Supposedly it's for repairs to broken or outdated chargers. Though I'm not sure why the taxpayers should be picking up the maintenance costs for private equipment.

The part that kills me is this:
" Some of the “temporarily unavailable” chargers might just be old: About 20% were installed before 2019, according to the data. "

Is 4 years beyond the life expectancy for charging equipment? Would they like to state that alongside the other big investments we're making? "I've voted in favor of $N billion in EV charging equipment that will last 5 years before we need to spend it again!"

I also refuse to believe the 1 in 5 attempts to charge fail. Unless you're counting somebody who has to re-plug three times while they fumble with a billing app before succeeding on the fourth attempt as 75% failures.

The 1 in 5 attempts pretty much nails my experience on the way to Maine.

The EVgo in Sturbridge MA didn't work, one was in use, 2 were hard down and the one I plugged into wouldn't connect nor could it be remotely initiated even after a reboot. Caused a re-route to Auburn MA where every charger was then derated to 45kW.

 

[ivan256]

Apparently you don't do much DC fast charging. 20% failure rate? If a failure includes getting 34kW instead of 150kW, that's low.

I do plenty, thanks. I don't consider getting slower charging a "failure" though. Also, in a year and dozens of sessions I've never seen a charging rate that low. I saw 45kW once. In Auburn MA, actually. And it was stupidly hot out.

Even if you do consider a slower charge to be a failure, I'd not count it if you move to the next stall and that one is fast. If you went to a location with chargers and left with a charge, it didn't fail.

Taxpayers are paying $7.5B to install new chargers, what's $100M?

$100M is $100M. For context, Y! Combinator seeds startups at $500k. So that's 200 new tech companies worth of money.

The median mortgage payment in the US is $1600. So that's a year's mortgage payments for 5200 families.

According to the Florida department of transportation, in 2022 it cost $676K per mile to mill and resurface a 4 lane urban roadway and add 4' bike lanes. So $100M is almost 150 miles of updated urban roadway.

The fact that we've gotten used to stupidly big dollar figures on government spending projects doesn't justify wasting huge amounts of money that are slightly less huge. How about these companies pay to fix their own stuff?

Also stop to think that earlier billions got us these existing stations that people are unsatisfied with! Clearly an extra hundred mil will fix it....

Personally I'd take a different approach. If companies can't keep their equipment in working order to some standard level, then they should cease to be eligible for future subsidies. This funding is rewarding - and thus encouraging - incompetence.

 

[On the Road with Ralph]

I also refuse to believe the 1 in 5 attempts to charge fail. Unless you're counting somebody who has to re-plug three times while they fumble with a billing app before succeeding on the fourth attempt as 75% failures.

I have absolutely NO PROBLEM believing that it is a 20% failure rate - in fact, I think the notion that 80% of DCFC sessions work the first time is laughable on ElectrifyAmerica. Maybe 50%. Or less. Supporting this view is both my personal experience and the work of folks like Rate-Your-Charge:

On a recent 1600 mile road trip from Arkansas to California, EVERY EA charging site I used required me to "plug hop" because the first charger I used either wouldn't work or delivered a ridiculously low rate of charge (like 28 kW). At one site - in New Mexico - that had ten dispensers, I had to move FOUR TIMES to eventually get a charge. I rate that a fail.

No company that I buy a product or service from more consistently disappoints and frustrates me than EA. If someone doesn't force it to actually deliver the services that they were ordered to do by a court consent decree, EA will single-handedly kill the transition to EVs.

 

[sotek2345]

I have absolutely NO PROBLEM believing that it is a 20% failure rate - in fact, I think the notion that 80% of DCFC sessions work the first time is laughable on ElectrifyAmerica. Maybe 50%. Or less. Supporting this view is both my personal experience and the work of folks like Rate-Your-Charge:

On a recent 1600 mile road trip from Arkansas to California, EVERY EA charging site I used required me to "plug hop" because the first charger I used either wouldn't work or delivered a ridiculously low rate of charge (like 28 kW). At one site - in New Mexico - that had ten dispensers, I had to move FOUR TIMES to eventually get a charge. I rate that a fail.

No company that I buy a product or service from more consistently disappoints and frustrates me than EA. If someone doesn't force it to actually deliver the services that they were ordered to do by a court consent decree, EA will single-handedly kill the transition to EVs.

This lines up with my experiences as well. If I get a station to work as intended on a trip, that is a BIG DEAL and worthy of rememberence.

 

[ivan256]

I have absolutely NO PROBLEM believing that it is a 20% failure rate - in fact, I think the notion that 80% of DCFC sessions work the first time is laughable on ElectrifyAmerica. Maybe 50%. Or less.

I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing. My assertion is that for the statistic to be that bad you have to apply qualifiers like "on the first try" or "at maximum speed".

I think that the level of urgency is a lot different if you fail to get home because you can't charge at all one in five times, vs, one in five times you have to unplug and try again. (Reality is somewhere in the middle, but probably a lot closer to the second one)

 

[On the Road with Ralph]

I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing. My assertion is that for the statistic to be that bad you have to apply qualifiers like "on the first try" or "at maximum speed".

One of the problems in the charging industry is the lack of a set of basic, universally used definitions that correctly describe the operational status of a charger. There is a HUGE difference between how ChargePoint uses the term "operational" and how EA uses it. Guess which one is more disingenuous.

My view is this: The standard ought to be the same as a gasoline station pump. In the 50+ years I have been driving, I doubt that I have seen more than 50 pump handles with a plastic bag over them indicating they don't work - in other words, one per year when I made at least 100 stops to get gas. And, of course, it was only one pump out of four or six or more. I have NO MEMORY of an unmarked pump not working. On my most recent road trip of 1600 miles and 12 charging stops, I had a failure (and had to plug hop) ON EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE SIX EA CHARGING STOPS. That is ridiculous.

 

[Maquis]

I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing. My assertion is that for the statistic to be that bad you have to apply qualifiers like "on the first try" or "at maximum speed".

I think that the level of urgency is a lot different if you fail to get home because you can't charge at all one in five times, vs, one in five times you have to unplug and try again. (Reality is somewhere in the middle, but probably a lot closer to the second one)

Keep in mind that in order for EVs to become mainstream, the DCFC experience needs to “deliver maximum rate on the first try.” That needs to be the benchmark. Does that need to happen 95% of the time or 99% of the time? That’s a fair debate…

Just being able to limp home after spending 2 hours finding a working charger can’t be considered success.

 

[ivan256]

Just being able to limp home after spending 2 hours finding a working charger can’t be considered success.

Having to sign into the app a second time or move over one stall should be considered success though. Have you never had to re-swipe your card at a gas station? And everything gets flakier once you involve some stupid app designed to track you first and provide the service you want second. I had WalMart+ for the gas discount for a while and cancelled it 'cause it frequently failed, and required some dumb login every time..... That's not gasoline's fault. I wouldn't even blame the station.

Also, somebody having a bad experience generates complaints. But people move on when a mundane task works correctly.

There's also an issue of expectations. Look at that graph from Rate-Your-Charge above. I think if you did a survey you'd pretty universally find that people ranked non-tesla charging networks something like:

1. EA
2. EvGo
3. Other
4. .
5. .
6. .
7. ChargePoint

But if you go to a ChargePoint and it doesn't catch your car on fire you're amazed. If you go to EA and you "only" get 45kW, you're pissed off. Meanwhile the EvGo chargers in the same parking lot only go up to 50kW to begin with. But look who's at the top and bottom of the chart.

Regardless none of the issues here are going to be fixed by throwing $100M at maintenance. What's actually going to happen is a bunch of chargers are going to get taken off line on purpose so that companies can get paid to "fix" them.

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