Featured EVgo Limiting our Rights

Safe assumption there. Chevrolet Performance is also offering an installer training program.

 

Training and Certification. I’m guessing certification might be a requirement for purchasing the system, but I don’t think the article stated as such.

 

Home built ICE vehicles have also lit on fire

The original OEM Volt “charger” was noted as causing dozens of fires.

OEM ICE vehicles light on fire everyday, every day a Post Office delivery vehicle lights up.

In Texas power plant related stuff apparently also has a propensity to light on fire.

OEM Washer / Dryers light on fire everyday

Even battery powered kids toys and cell phones light on fire,
nothing to see here right?

 

Not complaining, just a side note about this thread's title. EVgo is not limiting our rights. It's limiting our options. There is no right to interconnection in this case. If there was, then the same complaint would be made about Tesla, which (until recently) did not provide any way for a competitor to use the supercharger network.

 

How many of those things catch fire in a gas station?

My comment was relating to EVgo's actions here in limiting home built and modified EVs from their chargers, and @alanclarkeau not allowing a friend charge a hypothetical EV at his home.

Tesla offered to give others access back in 2014.

 

Why You Shouldn't Use Your Phone When Pumping Gas | Reader's Digest

I guess cell phones have lit on fire at least once at a gas station, though the real thing to know is how often has a said thing occurred vrs how many of them are out there.

I remember my college wanted to ban bicycles to strictly public streets because of a danger to pedestrians and my first question was how many times have bicycles caused an “incident “ let alone injury
and the answer was never .
My thought then was bicycles are an irritation and should instead have a speed limit in case someone is harrissing people with one but not an all out ban.

Many remote forested public places have developed full dog bans because one kid was bit 20 years ago by a Rottweiler two states away
These bans are poorly published outside the park resulting in people coming from some distance only to discover that their dog can’t exit the vehicle in a 20 mile radius, this has caused several canine deaths at these parks since there is no safe way for the pets to be there in the summer, there is no cell access and fuel is a ways off resulting in people running out of gas leaving their cars idling due to the ban.
These are the types of problems you get when you just ban something instead of dealing with the individual responsibility issue.
In the case of a dog the owner should be responsible and the rules should be written to ban particular size/types of dogs so the authorities have the ability to enforce on bad actors.

Usually when we dig into nimby stuff like this the incidents were related to something else.
We have a fairly significant number of electric golf cart fires, including causing garage / outbuilding fires, in these cases they were pure OEM but a lead battery caused an explosion from a failing cell.
On the diy forums there have been fire incidents falling into a couple categories
1. Welded / failed contactor
2. Cell phone style batteries
3. Overcharging lead acid batteries
4. Chinese Motor controller lights up while driving
5. 110vac Outlet fires

Some of the above occur in OEM vehicles, gotta wonder how often a reckless builder has lit off his car versus the number of OEM related issues.

What’s more most builders use the same EVSE and inlet you get on an OEM car, leading me to believe the danger would be inside the car and have nothing to do with the station

 

how will they stop us?

 

I suspect some digital checks or some other type of electronics will check for legitimacy. Try plugging a LEAF into a SuperCharger - even if you manage to install the right plug.

Not like the olden days - reminds me of "friend" who took his pushbike to the local Mechanic's compressor - and ignored the "DO NOT USE TO PUMP UP PUSHBIKE TYRES". He walked home. Beside the bike.

 

There are somewhere north of 20,000 home built car like EVs on the road, I doubt every single one has a YouTube presence (or even a small percentage)

There are a much larger number of OEM antique EVs kicking around like my 1981 comutacar at least one of which has an EVSE.

The OEM quality EVSE plug (inlet side) is literally the easiest part to source and a lot of folks have replaced it on their OEM car.

I really don’t see any valid argument for blocking because of damage to the station given you can easily source a better than OEM inlet for your car.

The only risk would be to a substandard battery or battery controller

Use LIFEPO4 battery (common on conversions of the last 10 years)
and there is no fire risk even if the BMS or charger failed since the battery is inflammable.

Me thinks they need a list of compliant EVSE inlets, prove its there non-issue over nimby can go f themselves.

Something as simple as a big extension cord inlet doesn’t have to be a complex thing to certify.
An EVSE (cord side) is a $79 disposable commodity extension cord you can pick up anywhere even on Amazon, the inlet is no different and considering how few people this affects nobody needs to make a thing out of it.
Set simple requirements and move on.

 

This may be more about CYA if someone burns down their car while charging with them.

It has a working communication system?

 

Yes, $5 part

There is a built thread somewhere about it.

 

I think @Trollbait hit it on the nail with this:

"There is a third party CCS adapter available for Teslas. In the couple videos I've seen, it doesn't work too well. EVgo may have already had to repair chargers because of it."

I've been to many J-1772 stations that were somehow "broken" and have tried when available to contact the station servicer. It isn't the simplest process to report a station as broken. Sometimes it is met with disbelief. They spent money/time to come up with the new restriction likely because adapters such as these has caused damage to their stations and they are trying to limit that going forward.

moto g(7) power ?

 

m

I doubt the Track record of years of broken “chargers” has much to do with 3rd party adapters and more to do with weather and worn OEM car inlets.
Carelessness and frustration may play a part in it as well or even vandalism in some cases.

Ive had to replace my inlet port once and my EVSE 3 times in a hundred thousand miles.

From what I can tell it’s all weather related and why I rather have an old fashioned extension cord rather than an EVSE.

And for comparison, my 1981 Comutacar has the original 110vac inlet in good shape and used in bad weather, never burned an extension cord on it either.

 

The majority (more than half maybe up to 75 % is my rough estimate) of chargers that I've dealt with are/were located in covered garages. Ours is installed inside the garage with a pet door to access from the outside. Maybe having a Leviton 40A UL listed EVSE has proved reliability as in roughly 90k mi spanning out prior C-MAX Energi and current Clarity PHEV we've had one hick-up where it stopped working after a power outage. Unplugging the 5-50 plug from the wall outlet and plugging back in resolved that.

Most "broken" chargers I''ve seen were the card reader not recognizing the card I placed in front of it. If you're in a covered garage sometimes you can get the ChargePoint app to activate the station if you have cellular signal. I don't even bother to report those as I got it to work. Some just didn't work after connecting, maybe 3 or 4. 1 or 2 were just completely dead and another 1 or 2 the connector was actually damaged. I'm guessing I've seen roughly 10 to 12 non-functional stations/connections...


moto g(7) power ?

 

Largely agree, but how would they enforce that? Making sure that auto manufacturers abide by SAE (J1772) standards is complicated enough, but ensuring that all DIY EV hacker meets those standards would be quite a challenge.

Then again, I’m not sure how they enforce that even in the case of EVs from major automakers either.

 

Helps that the standard comes from the Society of Automotive Engineers, whose standards are used for measuring interior dimensions and cargo space, trailer ratings from cars to commercial trucks, and several things that go into car design and safety I'm unaware of.

I agree that is true in most cases. With the third party adapter, I was thinking it might have tripped a safety breaker in the software that required outside resetting.

With this being the US, the real reason is that EVgo doesn't want to pay lawyers to defended them for a car fire they had no fault in causing.

And I've found an inside outlet and extension cord plug scorched and hot when used by the mother-in-law for a space heater. Some of the general public is simply clueless when comes to electrical safety. The highest power outlets likely in their home is for the oven and maybe a dryer, and they likely haven't even seen those, let alone plug something into them.

I like the Comuta-Car's funky design, but let's be real, it's a high speed golf cart that is street legal. The Wikipedia article even claims it was inspired by the Club Car. The 48 volt system isn't going to kill a healthy adult if it shocks them. Even then, the original frame ground wire installed by Citicar was too small, and would melt during charging.

Sticking with just a 110vac outlet would work for most peoples daily trips, but fully 'filling' a modern BEV would take over a half a day for the shortest ranged ones available. Fast charging simply isn't possible. The SAE overengineered the charging(and hydrogen fueling) standard to such a degree because we really can't trust the general public to regularly to handle the transfer of such amounts of energy safely.

 

While charging at this location, someone must have gotten angry that I was taking more than 15 minutes while off getting a burger, because it looks like they took a baseball bat to it.



Like the old-fashioned Timex commercial used to say ?.... it took a lickin' and kept on tickin'
.