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Recent freeze in US Midwest exposed a lot of literally frozen Superchargers and long, looong lines of Teslas hoping to charge before already cold the battery d

Recent freeze in US Midwest exposed a lot of literally frozen Superchargers and long, looong lines of Teslas hoping to charge before already cold the battery drops to 0. Some people ended up stranded in the cold, so bad it made the news. How could a Supercharger freeze? I don't know all details, but some connectors would report as NO LATCH and Tesla would refuse to charge. Apparently it's about some moisture freezing in the connector and preventing proper mating with the port. Literally, some ice in the 'needle' holes. Maybe some other issues. I'm not sure if this is a design problem or maybe some improvements are due if this type to become standard.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Don't believe the clickbait. The solution is straightforward: more charging stations (to mitigate stalls or entire stations being down), a bit more user education (cold batteries charge slower, and if the vehicle has enough battery charge, will improve pack temp on the way to the fast dc charger so the battery is warm on arrival, to optimize for optimal charge curve), and probably a bit of software tweaking (don't route to down fast dc chargers, improved polling rate of stations for health to communicate to the fleet availability for nav). Perhaps some improvement for cold weather chargers is needed as well, to route cable coolant (which keeps conductors thinner for UX and cost) to other key components to keep them at operating temp. Tesla should be able to figure this out, considering how they use a heat pump and motor stalling to warm the vehicle battery pack when needed. Tesla is on version 4 of their Supercharger, and many improvements have been made since v1. Iteration is progress, expect it to continue. We're only at the beginning of a historical mobility transformation. https://insideevs.com/news/705075/uber-lyft-rideshare-electrify-america-charging-ev-disaster-chicago/ https://insideevs.com/news/705075/uber-lyft-rideshare-electr... https://insideevs.com/news/705057/chicago-tesla-stranded-ev-charging/ https://insideevs.com/news/705057/chicago-tesla-stranded-ev-... https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map?siteID=7341 https://supercharge.info/map?siteID=7341 (52 stall station Tesla is building by ORD in Chicago) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger (own several Teslas, in 6 years have never arrived at a down station in over ~200k aggregate miles traveled long distance in the US; one of my residences is in the greater Chicago area, so I am very familiar with the charger network there)
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  Gas stations screw up too. There was a case where they hadn’t properly desulpherized gas down south so the fuel contained an acid that damaged the fuel gauge so the gauge would always read “full” and you’d drive till you ran out of gas. There was another case where gas got contaminated with water in NJ which led to the strange spectacle of people noticing a lot of broken down cars as they approached the gas station, then they drove a block and broke down https://archive.ph/2024.02.07-190857/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/nyregion/19gas.html https://archive.ph/2024.02.07-190857/https://www.nytimes.com... This just in: https://www.thedrive.com/news/fuel-shipping-company-charged-with-selling-waste-gas-to-stations https://www.thedrive.com/news/fuel-shipping-company-charged-...
- zoomablemind 3y ago
  > ...Don't believe the clickbait. Frozen Supercharger connector is not a clickbait. It's a reality of -9F over 3-day weekend. At some stations snow drift would be up to the charger so that cable may accidentally fall into the snow when putting it back. I can see how such connector would be then put upright and the moisture would end up in the mating holes. Also, waiting in the line at the charger (some waits were over 1hr) would likely cool the battery, unless driver would manually keep the battery conditioning on, which eats the charge too! Then it goes to slow charge due to cold battery. Which increases the wait time to the others in the line... Dismissing these issues on personal experience does little to improving the infrastructure and charger design.
1970-01-01 3y ago
The US Midwest is massive. The issue was localized to the Chicago area: https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/198g0o5/the_tesla_situation_in_chicago_is_odd_yes_news/ki7r4xx/ https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/198g0o5/t...
- zoomablemind 3y ago
  The reporting was localized, not the freeze. The Tesla connector latch issues in freezing temps are likely common as well.
throwaway5959 3y ago
EVs are popular in Norway. NORWAY.
uxp100 3y ago
I had rented a Tesla that weekend, first time driving an EV since I drove a a 90s EV conversion Geo Metro and here is my understanding from talking to people and charging myself. That was a windy and wet storm, lots of deep drifts, road signage covered, etc. now there are quite a few Tesla drivers who are not enthusiasts and don’t know everything about the tech. Issue one: if you don’t precondition the battery it’s going to take a while to warm up before charging, and if you are unfamiliar you may think something is broken, and tell other people a charger is broke when it isn’t. In fact you might even leave the charger hanging to indicate it isn’t working instead of putting it back in its receptacle, causing it to ice over. Issue two: some chargers iced over even when returned to their receptacles properly. Superchargers aren’t new to the Midwest and this was a nasty storm but not something we hadn’t seen before, I don’t think there is some fatal flaw, but idk what the stats are for how many ice up. Issue three: non preconditioned batteries take way longer to charge, lowering the throughput of the chargers that were not (mistakenly or otherwise) broken. Issue four, that I didn’t see anyone on the news talking about: you have to back into superchargers. Snow had drifted against the chargers and backing up into them with a RWD version of a Tesla was real hard. I saw several people struggling with this. My rental was AWD and had no problems. Overall, I’d say I didn’t love the vehicle (AWD model Y) but DC charging was the one thing that really worked well for me, regardless of storm. Before the storm I went 20% to 50% at like 230 kW. That’s fast. I didn’t get that sort of speed during the cold (but I was also on the slower part of the charging curve above 50%) but it still worked well for me.
- zoomablemind 3y ago
  Battery preconditioning is automatic, when a Supercharger is picked through the Navigation map. Whether it will be sufficient, that depends on the temp and distance to the charger. Latch problems in freezing temps is not new. Some drivers even work around the frozen connectors by parking sideways (!) to the charger then bringing the connector indoors just to warm it up enough for the moisture to thaw out. Don't know how long this could take. Perhaps, some heated receptacles on the charger or some antifreeze laced cradle could deal with that. Again, this is the reality of wider EV adoption, extension of field-test. So some adjustments are due.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Don't believe the clickbait. The solution is straightforward: more charging stations (to mitigate stalls or entire stations being down), a bit more user education (cold batteries charge slower, and if the vehicle has enough battery charge, will improve pack temp on the way to the fast dc charger so the battery is warm on arrival, to optimize for optimal charge curve), and probably a bit of software tweaking (don't route to down fast dc chargers, improved polling rate of stations for health to communicate to the fleet availability for nav). Perhaps some improvement for cold weather chargers is needed as well, to route cable coolant (which keeps conductors thinner for UX and cost) to other key components to keep them at operating temp. Tesla should be able to figure this out, considering how they use a heat pump and motor stalling to warm the vehicle battery pack when needed. Tesla is on version 4 of their Supercharger, and many improvements have been made since v1. Iteration is progress, expect it to continue. We're only at the beginning of a historical mobility transformation. https://insideevs.com/news/705075/uber-lyft-rideshare-electrify-america-charging-ev-disaster-chicago/ https://insideevs.com/news/705075/uber-lyft-rideshare-electr... https://insideevs.com/news/705057/chicago-tesla-stranded-ev-charging/ https://insideevs.com/news/705057/chicago-tesla-stranded-ev-... https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map?siteID=7341 https://supercharge.info/map?siteID=7341 (52 stall station Tesla is building by ORD in Chicago) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger (own several Teslas, in 6 years have never arrived at a down station in over ~200k aggregate miles traveled long distance in the US; one of my residences is in the greater Chicago area, so I am very familiar with the charger network there)

PaulHoule 3y ago
Gas stations screw up too. There was a case where they hadn’t properly desulpherized gas down south so the fuel contained an acid that damaged the fuel gauge so the gauge would always read “full” and you’d drive till you ran out of gas. There was another case where gas got contaminated with water in NJ which led to the strange spectacle of people noticing a lot of broken down cars as they approached the gas station, then they drove a block and broke down https://archive.ph/2024.02.07-190857/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/nyregion/19gas.html https://archive.ph/2024.02.07-190857/https://www.nytimes.com... This just in: https://www.thedrive.com/news/fuel-shipping-company-charged-with-selling-waste-gas-to-stations https://www.thedrive.com/news/fuel-shipping-company-charged-...
zoomablemind 3y ago
> ...Don't believe the clickbait. Frozen Supercharger connector is not a clickbait. It's a reality of -9F over 3-day weekend. At some stations snow drift would be up to the charger so that cable may accidentally fall into the snow when putting it back. I can see how such connector would be then put upright and the moisture would end up in the mating holes. Also, waiting in the line at the charger (some waits were over 1hr) would likely cool the battery, unless driver would manually keep the battery conditioning on, which eats the charge too! Then it goes to slow charge due to cold battery. Which increases the wait time to the others in the line... Dismissing these issues on personal experience does little to improving the infrastructure and charger design.

1970-01-01 3y ago

The US Midwest is massive. The issue was localized to the Chicago area: https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/198g0o5/the_tesla_situation_in_chicago_is_odd_yes_news/ki7r4xx/ https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/198g0o5/t...

zoomablemind 3y ago
The reporting was localized, not the freeze. The Tesla connector latch issues in freezing temps are likely common as well.

throwaway5959 3y ago

EVs are popular in Norway. NORWAY.

uxp100 3y ago

I had rented a Tesla that weekend, first time driving an EV since I drove a a 90s EV conversion Geo Metro and here is my understanding from talking to people and charging myself. That was a windy and wet storm, lots of deep drifts, road signage covered, etc. now there are quite a few Tesla drivers who are not enthusiasts and don’t know everything about the tech. Issue one: if you don’t precondition the battery it’s going to take a while to warm up before charging, and if you are unfamiliar you may think something is broken, and tell other people a charger is broke when it isn’t. In fact you might even leave the charger hanging to indicate it isn’t working instead of putting it back in its receptacle, causing it to ice over. Issue two: some chargers iced over even when returned to their receptacles properly. Superchargers aren’t new to the Midwest and this was a nasty storm but not something we hadn’t seen before, I don’t think there is some fatal flaw, but idk what the stats are for how many ice up. Issue three: non preconditioned batteries take way longer to charge, lowering the throughput of the chargers that were not (mistakenly or otherwise) broken. Issue four, that I didn’t see anyone on the news talking about: you have to back into superchargers. Snow had drifted against the chargers and backing up into them with a RWD version of a Tesla was real hard. I saw several people struggling with this. My rental was AWD and had no problems. Overall, I’d say I didn’t love the vehicle (AWD model Y) but DC charging was the one thing that really worked well for me, regardless of storm. Before the storm I went 20% to 50% at like 230 kW. That’s fast. I didn’t get that sort of speed during the cold (but I was also on the slower part of the charging curve above 50%) but it still worked well for me.

zoomablemind 3y ago
Battery preconditioning is automatic, when a Supercharger is picked through the Navigation map. Whether it will be sufficient, that depends on the temp and distance to the charger. Latch problems in freezing temps is not new. Some drivers even work around the frozen connectors by parking sideways (!) to the charger then bringing the connector indoors just to warm it up enough for the moisture to thaw out. Don't know how long this could take. Perhaps, some heated receptacles on the charger or some antifreeze laced cradle could deal with that. Again, this is the reality of wider EV adoption, extension of field-test. So some adjustments are due.