5 ms·

Is it the connector itself that's broken? Or something about the connector's electrical characteristics that causes the charger to break? It seems like the main

by tdeck 3y ago

Is it the connector itself that's broken? Or something about the connector's electrical characteristics that causes the charger to break? It seems like the maintenance schedule is orthogonal to the connector design.

CameronNemo 3y ago
AIUI the connector requires a clip (at least go some vehicles), and if that clip breaks you cannot charge. At least that happened to me with some L2 chargers.
steveBK123 3y ago
Very much yes it would seem. Bigger plug also goes with bigger heavier cables, the liquid cables require cooling to charge at high speed, one of the many failure rates is the cooling system which then reverts the chargers to operate at 20% power. Another of the failures is the locking mechanism, which is obviously strained by the heavy cable. The plug has to be put in just-so at sort of an awkward alignment/angle, doesn't go in easily like a NACS plug. Presumably the alignment leads to a lot of thrashing wear & tear. I simply never saw Tesla stalls break at this rate. It isn't getting better either. EA changed brands and some of their NEW stalls begun failing. This after they abandoned maintenance at some sites as they were planning to replace with the new stalls. The other excuse is EA is fully beholden to OEMs for parts whereas Tesla makes their own. So another EA excuse has been they can't get parts. You don't read about Tesla chargers getting stuck to cars / frying cars / etc as the same rate. Remember in the US there's probably 10x more Tesla cars in the wild, so you should hear charging horror stories at 10x the rate if their chargers were equally bad. Instead, you hear 10x the CCS horror stories in US than you do Tesla, from 1/10th the population of cars. Honestly I just don't care about all these "principle of the thing" arguments, I just want to charge my car. And we aren't going to make a mass EV transition without working, ubiquitous, easy charging. Tesla is the only company to even remotely have this going on right now. And again I say this as a Tesla seller, BMW owner, Elon disliker.
WorldMaker 3y ago
Among other things the "latch" that secures the connector in place (both to make sure the fit is tight and to avoid accidental removal, especially in high voltage modes) is a part of the plastics of the connector on the charge cable in CCS1 and under human mechanical operation but a part of the connector design on the car itself in NACS and firmware operated. It can be too easy in rough removals to accidentally break the latch on the CCS1 charging cable (and busy car owners may not be careful enough to avoid the rougher removals) and it may be dangerous to operate with a broken latch so some of the software is (usefully) over-cautious about that. Even with the gentlest of usage by people, it's still a mechanical part prone to slow wear and tear from repeated use.

by tdeck 3y ago

CameronNemo 3y ago

AIUI the connector requires a clip (at least go some vehicles), and if that clip breaks you cannot charge. At least that happened to me with some L2 chargers.

steveBK123 3y ago

Very much yes it would seem. Bigger plug also goes with bigger heavier cables, the liquid cables require cooling to charge at high speed, one of the many failure rates is the cooling system which then reverts the chargers to operate at 20% power. Another of the failures is the locking mechanism, which is obviously strained by the heavy cable. The plug has to be put in just-so at sort of an awkward alignment/angle, doesn't go in easily like a NACS plug. Presumably the alignment leads to a lot of thrashing wear & tear. I simply never saw Tesla stalls break at this rate. It isn't getting better either. EA changed brands and some of their NEW stalls begun failing. This after they abandoned maintenance at some sites as they were planning to replace with the new stalls. The other excuse is EA is fully beholden to OEMs for parts whereas Tesla makes their own. So another EA excuse has been they can't get parts. You don't read about Tesla chargers getting stuck to cars / frying cars / etc as the same rate. Remember in the US there's probably 10x more Tesla cars in the wild, so you should hear charging horror stories at 10x the rate if their chargers were equally bad. Instead, you hear 10x the CCS horror stories in US than you do Tesla, from 1/10th the population of cars. Honestly I just don't care about all these "principle of the thing" arguments, I just want to charge my car. And we aren't going to make a mass EV transition without working, ubiquitous, easy charging. Tesla is the only company to even remotely have this going on right now. And again I say this as a Tesla seller, BMW owner, Elon disliker.

WorldMaker 3y ago

Among other things the "latch" that secures the connector in place (both to make sure the fit is tight and to avoid accidental removal, especially in high voltage modes) is a part of the plastics of the connector on the charge cable in CCS1 and under human mechanical operation but a part of the connector design on the car itself in NACS and firmware operated. It can be too easy in rough removals to accidentally break the latch on the CCS1 charging cable (and busy car owners may not be careful enough to avoid the rougher removals) and it may be dangerous to operate with a broken latch so some of the software is (usefully) over-cautious about that. Even with the gentlest of usage by people, it's still a mechanical part prone to slow wear and tear from repeated use.