daveo4porsche

it's a terrible design - you need look no further than waiting at an EA charging stations to watch an older/senior woman attempting to plug in her VW ID.4 with a CCS EA charger cable and connector that simply can not be manipulated physically to actually successfully insert it into the charging port, I eventually convinced her I was there to help and gladly inserted it for her as it was physically too poorly designed and implemented to allow her to actually successfully use the charging cord…

it's a botched design - the handle size/ergonomics is too large for human manipulation - and they have tons of wasted space in the design contributing to a volumetric minimum size for the port-connectors that make it impossible to design something that is easy to handle - and the communications/protocol(s) are complex and legacy driven…

it's the ultimate example of design by committee by a whole group of people that didn't really care or think about the entire problem set…

it may be functional but it's not well designed.

I will however also note that vendor implementation also has a lot to be desired…

why for example does it take 45-90 seconds _LESS_ time for my son's 2022 Tesla Model Y to start charging at an EA charger with. the Korean CCS adapter than it does for my Taycan to start charging which is CCS native?

I used to think it was the CCS design that caused it to take so long to star charging - but since using my son's Tesla Model Y w/CCS adatper @ EA america - the start of electrons flowing once the charging session has been approved is much much much much faster than with either a Taycan, Bolt, eTron…the later 3 taking an embarassing amount of time to actually start charging after the session has been authorized…so it's not CCS it's the CCS implementation in these vehicles…

also interesting to NOTE: when using the Tesla CCS adatper - the EA station "complains" that it can't find a plug&charge account - interesting becasue my Bolt, eTron, and Taycan never show this message on the EA station - so that means the Tesla and EA seems to thing Plug&Charge might be a "thing" but given Tesla hasn't offically released the CCS adapter in North American there is no way to configure a plug&chargte account - but interesting that Tesla seems to support this and yet VW/Audi/Porsche seem to require a hardware update to support this for their vehicles - I'm betting they are just lazy and don't want to do the work to their charging software to add support on their previous models…but Tesla being better than the rest of these guys in this space is unsurprising

I've also read reports in europe that the supercharger CCS experience is faster/better/more-seamless than the CCS experience at other vendors…

so everyone has a lot to learn in this space.

many many many {facepalms} need to be distributed regarding the CCS network, it's design, it's roll out, and it's implementation.

whiz944

Tesla with the proper charge port ECU, using the Tesla passive CCS adapter, HAS a native CCS implementation. Not like CHAdeMO - where there is some active protocol handling/translation going on in the smart adapter. (I have a newer charge port ECU and "bundle of wires" to convert my older Model 3 to include CCS compatibility. Just waiting for the next OTA software update to come along. Also have the Korean CCS adapter.)

Speaking of CCS Plug and Charge, there are apparently at least two different and incompatible variants: The "Plug & Charge" that EA uses, and the "Plug and Charge" that EVgo uses. You can use the latter with your Bolt EV and GMs upcoming Ultium-based products.

daveo4porsche

Dr. G7

What did you insert in her?

“a camel is a horse designed by committee"

Then add to the fact that the charger port is near the driver /passenger doors, and the charger unit is near the front bumper. Ever seen gas pump that one cannot drive alongside it? Almost all EA charger cables (that weigh a ton) are not retracting/extendable. It takes three or four tries before one can get the the charger plug (designed for hands of gorilla) plugged into the (minuscule) charger socket; exactly aligning (with a set of calipers) the plug with the socket. Only to find out the charger is not working. I almost pend more time getting the charger connected and charging process to initiate than to fill-up my 25 gallon ICE Cayenne.

Also, EA placed concrete barriers on the ground, well ahead of the charger. If I ever forget to lift the front of Taycan ...I shudder.

Also, the name of this thread, charging in the rain. In the dark. On occasion, I had to use a flashlight to align the plug with the socket.

I have empathy with early adopters, in 1900, with their tin lizzie

whiz944

As we'd say in the computer biz: "The nice thing about Standards is that there are so many to choose from..."

daveo4porsche

I'm well aware of the plethora of standards and again {facepalm}

cometguy

Well, the lack of lots of good public-charging stations will keep the adoption of BEVs slower than would be the case with lots of good, working stations. But it'll only delay the widespread adoption some more years. It took a while for ICEVs to have lots of decent roads and lots of conveniently located gas stations a century ago for long road trips, also. Eventually lots of companies will see the profitability in setting up good public-charging stations and maintaining them the way that gas pumps are maintained -- with better locations, proper lighting for plugging and for reading any charging screens, back-up working credit-card readers like you have at almost all gas stations now, overhead protection from the weather, maintained windshield-wiping squeegie stations, proper cord lengths, parallel parking for charging like at gas pumps (which have to deal with many different locations for ICEV fuel ports based on car/truck length, different sides of vehicles), universal plug-and-charge, and quick fixing of broken stations. Eventually there will be more-successful charging stations that aren't in crappy Walmart locations (or worse), with decent food/shopping or internet accessibility, washrooms, etc.

We'll get there. It's just frustrating for those of us dealing now with BEVs and road-tripping, knowing that we have a long, long way to go. All Taycan buyers can also own PHEVs and/or ICEVs for those road trips, but many in the general populace can't afford more than one car (if even that much). BEV adoption amongst the (moderately) wealthy is a given, but for BEV adoption to work and get the charging stations near a level of competence that approaches gas-station functionality will take a concerted effort by charging companies, utilities, and the auto industry -- as well as state and federal governments. I'm hoping that the federal funding for building out public-charging stations will have oversight to make sure that stations are maintained and repaired quickly, not just built out and "forgotten" (early news reports from the last month or two suggest this will be the case, but we'll see...).

Dr. G7

“The top 9 most terrifying words in the English Language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.”

cometguy

"For its part, the New York Power Authority, which works with EA, Shell, and other networks to provide charging around the state under the Evolve NY program, told Ars that its current service agreements with those companies list a requirement for at least 95 percent uptime, but it's working to increase that to 97–98 percent over the long term. And 97 percent is the uptime requirement for chargers that will be built as part of the federal government's Interstate charging network."

- from https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/07...nt-get-better/

++++

Like I said, hopefully the government can help make these more reliable, as well as building new stations. With the federal and state governments not involved at all, it will be even more painfully slow and take many more years to get anywhere.

DerekS

I recently drove from Texas to NorCal and back.


I had a few minor bumps:

• Frequently, a charger would fail requiring me to switch pumps (and add overhead to the stop.)
• Once I had to wait in line for a charger, adding overhead to the stop.
• At one station (Flagstaff) only a single pump worked.
• At Albuquerque the pumps were heavily throttled and got nowhere near desirable speeds.
• Multiple times the desirable 350kW pumps were blocked/used by Mustang Mach-E's which max out at 150kW, which was frustrating.
• Sometimes the parking curbs were too far back, the cable too short, or both.

On the positive notes:

• I paid $0 to EA for the entire trip
• I never had to charge > 30 mins, even on slower chargers
• Plug-and-charge worked 100% of the time.

Like the OP in the thread, I wondered why we don't get shelter like seemingly all gas pumps do:



I only found this at one charger in Needles, CA.

earl pottinger

If Tesla does make their systems available for you, I would love to see a comparison to this trip. I do not expect you not have wait overhead, but I would like to see what is it like for non-Tesla cars.

Earl Colby Pottinger (BEVs lover)

whiz944

Funny you ask. Bjorn's latest video shows the problems non-Tesla EV create at Tesla Superchargers in Europe. (Note that Europe uses CCS 2, which is a somewhat better committee design than the CCS 1 used here in North America.) The various charge port locations are very problematic. The Porsche and VW owners seem to be taking parking lessons from BMW owners...

earl pottinger

You forgot to mention how much laughing I would have listening to all the different location names. And the parking methods of some of these people.

Earl Colby Pottinger (BEVs lover)

Don40

The European CCS 2 charge plug is a very well designed plug. It is standard to all BEV vehicles which is just awesome in Europe. I was in Norway where they take electric vehicles very serious and the available chargers are just phenomenal compared to the US, granted they have been on this bandwagon long before the US. The adoption of the CCS 2 as standard worldwide for all electric cars would be a great start. Just like we have one size gas hole in all gas vehicles and another size hole in diesel vehicles, keep it simple stupid is the solution to this issue. I always wondered why Elon as a business person did not just let the other car manufactures license his charger design for like 5 bucks a copy, he would have gotten a cut on every BEV ever manufactured in the future. JMHO.

kort677

Elon offered his charging tech to anyone who cared to use it, for a fee, which I do not know what it was. there were and are no takers on his offer.