Torv
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Torv
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2020
- Threads
- 69
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- 874
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- Location
- Marin County, California
- Vehicles
- Taycan 4S
- Thread starter
- #1
Perhaps Porsche’s investment will improve them. Personally, I've never heard of ABB and I’m resistant to being held hostage by Electrify America’s hit-and-miss approach to maintenance and EV charging. Nothing like a little competition to get everyone to up their game.the chargers that are most dysfunctional near me in Aptos are ABB chargers - so color me dubious that this is progress…
ABB makes equipment, and EA operates it (along with chargers from other manufacturers). Porsche is simply buying interest down the stack.Perhaps Porsche’s investment will improve them. Personally, I've never heard of ABB and I’m resistant to being held hostage by Electrify America’s hit-and-miss approach to maintenance and EV charging. Nothing like a little competition to get everyone to up their game.
ABB is a huge player. They're a $30B company with 100,000 employees. They make a lot of things, including assembly robots and tons of other elements for the auto industry. ABB isn't a network nor are they competition to Electrify America. ABB was one of the four suppliers of DC Fast Chargers to the initial rollout of Electrify America. I'm not sure if it was an even split, but it may be that 25% of the initial EA footprint was ABB hardware. EA is now swapping out some of its early chargers though, including many of the ABBs.Perhaps Porsche’s investment will improve them. Personally, I've never heard of ABB and I’m resistant to being held hostage by Electrify America’s hit-and-miss approach to maintenance and EV charging. Nothing like a little competition to get everyone to up their game.
Perhaps after the deep freeze in December during which EA’s latest pick for chargers proved worthless, they are going back to the only chargers which were actually still worked, even if not perfectly.the chargers that are most dysfunctional near me in Aptos are ABB chargers - so color me dubious that this is progress…
They've been making industrial automation/robots for a very long time. EV chargers, not so much. Big companies, different divisions. Porsche investment is probably in the whole company, so not just chargers.Most of the robots on Taycan assembly line are also made by ABB.
My father worked with ABB robots in manufacturing before he retired a while ago. He's always talked highly about their industrial robots, as compared to other brands.ABB = Always Been Broken
As far as I’m concerned , their name checks out
I only have experience with ABB's DC fast chargers. The software is terrible, slow. And they always have a problem of some kind; handshake not working, slow charging, or more generally charger offline. And it's not just with my car, I see many other customers struggling with their cars too at the fast chargers.My father worked with ABB robots in manufacturing before he retired a while ago. He's always talked highly about their industrial robots, as compared to other brands.
I've been spoiled with Tesla supercharging which "just works", but recently caught this video where all the new EA chargers failed, with only the ABB units left operational.I only have experience with ABB's DC fast chargers. The software is terrible, slow. And they always have a problem of some kind; handshake not working, slow charging, or more generally charger offline. And it's not just with my car, I see many other customers struggling with their cars too at the fast chargers.
Haha, I'm sure the ABB guys are doing a little victory lap with this one. In my experience, whenever there's a broken DC charger somewhere, it's nearly always an ABB charger. They have a ton of those 50kW at supermarkets (e.g. LIDL, but others too); these are 90%+ broken. Don't take my word for it, search on charge map in Europe for 50kW chargers, look at photos of interface (ABB chargers have that smooth 'designed in MS Paint' look) and then check the comments; Like clockwork you'll see that they are broken every 2-3 weeks.I've been spoiled with Tesla supercharging which "just works", but recently caught this video where all the new EA chargers failed, with only the ABB units left operational.
Could it be that 90% broken is still industry best (i.e. the rest are more then 90% broken)?Haha, I'm sure the ABB guys are doing a little victory lap with this one. In my experience, whenever there's a broken DC charger somewhere, it's nearly always an ABB charger. They have a ton of those 50kW at supermarkets (e.g. LIDL, but others too); these are 90%+ broken. Don't take my word for it, search on charge map in Europe for 50kW chargers, look at photos of interface (ABB chargers have that smooth 'designed in MS Paint' look) and then check the comments; Like clockwork you'll see that they are broken every 2-3 weeks.