New EA Chargers Are Failing in the Cold - Fixed!!?

[crashmtb]

I fully expect to see hot weather issues when out in the desert during the summer at 115F /46c and up, but I never imagined that COLD weather would create problems since heat dissipation is usually the limiting factor. Right?

Laughs in -30


cold fucks everything up.

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[s4wrxttcs]

EA has defenders? Seriously?

They either don't exist or its a paid gig.

If its a paid gig then where do I sign up?

I know its a hard job, but there are worse jobs. Like being the next CEO of twitter.

 

[s4wrxttcs]

Anyone know if the RAN hardware is more robust to deliver good charging at the high and low temperature extremes?

What I do know is all the RAN chargers were online both times I visited them.

So far EA is averaging at least one or more stalls being down each time I charge at an EA charger. I've charged at an EA charger maybe 24 times so far. Once one time out of the 24 was a complete disaster as multiple stalls were broken and cars were waiting with people arguing over who arrived first. It was a mess.

To make matters worse in the same parking lot area there was a Supercharger station where all the stalls were working with lots of Tesla's coming in and out like an efficient machine.

 

[opnwide]

cold fucks everything up.

 

[jjswan33]

What I do know is all the RAN chargers were online both times I visited them.

So far EA is averaging at least one or more stalls being down each time I charge at an EA charger. I've charged at an EA charger maybe 24 times so far. Once one time out of the 24 was a complete disaster as multiple stalls were broken and cars were waiting with people arguing over who arrived first. It was a mess.

This is exactly what I am talking about with all you miserable haters. OMG I had to wait to charge 1 out of 24 times using EA and I saw a youtube video once where someone got stranded lets all bitch about how terrible it is.

Fact is without EA you would be stuck to your home charger... thanks for making my point.

 

[zefram47]

Shame the chargers are not working in the cold, it's new equipment so I'll judge them based on what they do next.

It's new hardware that should've been adequately tested before it was deployed. This is inexcusable. It's not like it's one or two units...it's all of the new hardware with the same fault at low temperatures that aren't uncommon. Worse, EA thinks the stations are online and have no issue and then CS seemingly doesn't care that they aren't working properly. Shameful, really. Add to that the new hardware providing more power than some cars ask for resulting in failed charges....just ridiculous.

 

[ohseedee]

What do you expect from a charger network from Volkswagen that was born not from them wanting to built out a robust charging network but from "part of a consent decree reached with United States officials in 2016, Volkswagen agreed to numerous actions, with US$2 billion in total, to promote electric vehicle use over 10 years to atone for the additional air pollution it caused. One aspect of the program was a pledge to establish a public electric vehicle charging network. " -Wikipedia

Does anyone think they actually give a shit? They just need to burn 2 billion over 10 years, which can probably more easily be done by installing shitty chargers.

 

[NY_Rob]

Fact is without EA you would be stuck to your home charger... thanks for making my point.

Fact is, you're still stuck to your home charger.. because none of the new EA stations are working in cold temps.

Kyle was out experimenting so he left extra reserve in his battery. How would that have worked out for someone who actually needed to charge looking at the EA app seeing those chargers as "available" and showing up with a very low SOC in -6 deg weather?

EA is a mess no mater how you spin it....

 

[s4wrxttcs]

This is exactly what I am talking about with all you miserable haters. OMG I had to wait to charge 1 out of 24 times using EA and I saw a youtube video once where someone got stranded lets all bitch about how terrible it is.

Fact is without EA you would be stuck to your home charger... thanks for making my point.

To add some more detail.

In my entire 6+ year experience with a Tesla I was never nervous whether a Supercharger would work when I arrived. The reliability of the Tesla Chargers seemed to actually be superior to that of my experience with gas stations with my Diesel vehicle.

In my 4 month experience with EA I'm really troubled by how often I see chargers broken, and how long it takes them to get the chargers repaired.

In my own case I only ran into a serious problem 1 out of those 24 times. But, I'm not counting the numerous times I've seen other people have issues. I've also helped out people a bunch of times due to the equipment being fussy, and them being new to the fussy equipment. I'm also not counting all the times I've had to switch stalls to get it to charge.

It also doesn't take into account the times I've skipped locations that I knew were problematic.

EA does have some things I like.

They tend to have a lot of locations at least in places like Portland, and they're situated at places like Fred Meyer so you can do some shopping while waiting for a charger.

The App works well in determining roughly how many stalls are working.

During the Upgrades the EA chargers were free, and this saved me a non trivial amount of money during late summer road tripping.

So its not all bad, but they're no where as reliable as the Tesla Superchargers.

 

[jjswan33]

Fact is, you're still stuck to your home charger..

I beg to differ. 24k CCS miles and counting.

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...rip-north-of-the-border-with-rivian-r1t.7769/

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/roadtrip-portland-or-to-northern-wisconsin.6894/

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...nd-boise-slc-moab-flagstaff-sf-portland.5076/

So far so good for me but I guess I'm just lucky, or that is the argument I keep hearing.

 

[NY_Rob]

Does anyone think they actually give a shit? They just need to burn 2 billion over 10 years, which can probably more easily be done by installing shitty chargers.

You pretty much nailed it dead center.... no one at EA seems to actually care that their service sucks. They are collecting their paycheck either way. The problem is EV owners depend on chargers to complete long distance trips.. constantly failing chargers just make that ridiculously more difficult than it needs to be.

 

[SANZC02]

We should all keep in mind this is not a common temperature in most of the US. Sure not optimal and we should be aware of the situation and monitor for the fix to be implemented but the sky is not falling. This is a rare and extreme scenario.

 

[jjswan33]

It's new hardware that should've been adequately tested before it was deployed. This is inexcusable. It's not like it's one or two units...it's all of the new hardware with the same fault at low temperatures that aren't uncommon. Worse, EA thinks the stations are online and have no issue and then CS seemingly doesn't care that they aren't working properly. Shameful, really. Add to that the new hardware providing more power than some cars ask for resulting in failed charges....just ridiculous.

I agree that it is a miss but that said I am sure they did cold weather testing of some kind. Apparently their test procedure missed something. I'd be surprised if this isn't fixed soon.

I'm sure as a software engineer when you release software to the public/user you often find bugs after the fact. Any controlled testing has parameters and never can account for everything same goes for hardware.

 

[s4wrxttcs]

What do you expect from a charger network from Volkswagen that was born not from them wanting to built out a robust charging network but from "part of a consent decree reached with United States officials in 2016, Volkswagen agreed to numerous actions, with US$2 billion in total, to promote electric vehicle use over 10 years to atone for the additional air pollution it caused. One aspect of the program was a pledge to establish a public electric vehicle charging network. " -Wikipedia

Does anyone think they actually give a shit? They just need to burn 2 billion over 10 years, which can probably more easily be done by installing shitty chargers.

That's all factually correct as I understand it.

I even agree that they really don't care, but I think they SHOULD care.

The reason they should care is that Road Trip charging is extremely important to consumers of EV's. It's why Tesla continues to sell so many EV's despite the fact that they don't tend to have all the bells and whistles of competing EV's,

A lot of the people I saw impacted by bad chargers were VW customers. Like the person who had to drive slowly to the next charger who had an ID4.

In fact I'd say the EA reliability issue is a bigger issue than the SW issues VW has.

I really wish the federal money for fast chargers could be linked somehow to overall station reliability to keep operators honest.

 

[ohseedee]

You pretty much nailed it dead center.... no one at EA seems to actually care that their service sucks. They are collecting their paycheck either way. The problem is EV owners depend on chargers to complete long distance trips.. constantly failing chargers just make that ridiculously more difficult than it needs to be.

This is why if the cybertruck was available today, I'd get it over the R1T. Not because I prefer the Tesla, I don't, but because my life would certainly be better. Tesla built out a network because they wanted a great experience for their owners (Rivian I'm sure wants that, but not able to). However EA was not built for customers, it was built as a punishment. It would be like expecting criminals to pick up trash on the side of the road as part of their sentence to do as good of a job as an environmentalist doing volunteer work... Sucks for us (non-Tesla people).

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