Electrify America - Redesigned labels coming to charging stations

[jvincent]

Just a question for those who get annoyed with ev drivers that use a 350…is it the expectation that they should wait for the 150 to open? And how does this waiting situation work?
I ask bc I take whatever is open. There’s like a line of 3-5 cars waiting and I’m just happy if people don’t cut in front of me after I’ve waited 30 mins. And then what about the 350 that is really only charging at 120-150kwh…is it fair to say that someone shouldn’t use that when it doesn’t even give 350?

I’m just confused on how the whole process would work if you limited people by their charge speed. I have a taycan and a mache, My experience in the taycan is negative bc a lot of people don’t know it’s an ev (polestar drivers) and they tend to just cut in front of me as I wait. And I think I’d be mad if I was in my mache and someone told me to wait longer bc I can’t charge as fast as them. Only for the 350 to barely give 120 kWh anyways.

You must be taking the piss:

1. one dispenser open, take it
2. two dispensers open, one is 150 kW and one is 350 kW, take what is appropriate
3. waiting in line, see option 1

The Mach-e needs to take the 150 kW dispenser in scenario 2. Its charging performance is definitely subpar.

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[Marcad80]

Interesting new terms…

According to Webster’s;

Ultra means Extremely
Hyper means High Strung, Exciteable

I’ll use the Extremely Fast one because I’m usually in a hurry, but if I have time to kill, the High Strung one sounds like more fun.

 

[Deleted member 6348]

From a practical perspective, it’s a labeling that solves nothing for end users.

For EA, it’s a way to get away from the 150kw and 350kw nomenclature to introduce cheaper “balanced” chargers. The new EA balanced chargers effectively share power. By “balanced”, you’ll be sharing that “350kw” with another car(s) that are charging. This approach will allow EA to scale more quickly and cost effectively, giving us more charging stations, even if they may be a little slower in the real world.

 

[daveo4EV]

From a practical perspective, it’s a labeling that solves nothing for end users.

For EA, it’s a way to get away from the 150kw and 350kw nomenclature to introduce cheaper “balanced” chargers. The new EA balanced chargers effectively share power. By “balanced”, you’ll be sharing that “350kw” with another car(s) that are charging. This approach will allow EA to scale more quickly and cost effectively, giving us more charging stations, even if they may be a little slower in the real world.

hmmm just like Tesla superchargers which share a total capacity with 2 or more stalls…

 

[daveo4EV]

ultimately it doesn't matter - they don't work/function as advertised - so the lack of visual distinction is tacid admission that it really doesn't matter when the station is down or you can not activate your charging session because one of the 257 steps required can't currently be accomplished…so you call them to find out that they have no way of knowing the actual status of their charging network stalls…

but I'm glad they identified the "core problem" with EA charging sites - the signage was/is the problem - yep it's the signage that is the problem guys - we nailed it! Mission accomplished! We've upped our game on this whole let's fast charge EV stuff - it was the signage that was lacking. Phew glad we've over come that hurdle. Team bonuses all around, and pizza party!!

 

[TDinDC]

From a practical perspective, it’s a labeling that solves nothing for end users.

For EA, it’s a way to get away from the 150kw and 350kw nomenclature to introduce cheaper “balanced” chargers. The new EA balanced chargers effectively share power. By “balanced”, you’ll be sharing that “350kw” with another car(s) that are charging. This approach will allow EA to scale more quickly and cost effectively, giving us more charging stations, even if they may be a little slower in the real world.

That blows. Seriously. Nothing worse than having your rate sapped by someone else.

As demand for charging increases, designers really need to do a much better job of focusing on human behavior. They need to design for reality and foster friendlier, safer charging scenarios. When other people can impact your charging experience, it leads to friction and strife.

Also, start making trash cans available for heaven's sake. I know everyone is lazy so they don't want to empty them, but yesterday there was a shopping cart near the charging station full of trash because nobody wanted to walk to the nearest trash can when none are in sight.

 

[kort]

From a practical perspective, it’s a labeling that solves nothing for end users.

one issue that the new labeling might solve is making easier to ID what level the charger is before pulling into the slot.
I find it challenging to see what level the unit is from just driving by the units

 

[DerekS]

but I'm glad they identified the "core problem" with EA charging sites - the signage was/is the problem - yep it's the signage that is the problem guys - we nailed it!

Well, it was definitely "a" problem.

When I did my summer road trip to CA and back, I found multiple issues with EA:

• Signage too small making it difficult to identify 350kW pumps until you're right up on them
• Cabling frequently too short (or parking curbs too far out) to reach
• Chargers down, difficult to identify until you're close
• Charger failure after plugging in
• Fast chargers blocked by slow-charging vehicles
• And of course, broken or under-performing chargers

I've seen action from them on the first two items - longer cables on the newer installations, and now these new stickers.

They've got a lot more to work on, and I still think this "researched" sticker decision is faulty since ultra/hyper mean and look the same. But it's nice to see something.

 

[Zcd1]

Why, oh why, didn't they make the 150 kW and 350 kW labels different colors? They are almost indistinguishable from each other at a distance (like when you're trying to ID the 350 unit). Not an improvement.

Exactly - it's almost as if they don't care whether the "improvements" actually improve things or not... (shrug)

 

[jvincent]

That blows. Seriously. Nothing worse than having your rate sapped by someone else.

As demand for charging increases, designers really need to do a much better job of focusing on human behavior. They need to design for reality and foster friendlier, safer charging scenarios. When other people can impact your charging experience, it leads to friction and strife.

Also, start making trash cans available for heaven's sake. I know everyone is lazy so they don't want to empty them, but yesterday there was a shopping cart near the charging station full of trash because nobody wanted to walk to the nearest trash can when none are in sight.

EA's Balanced power dispenser sounds like (maybe) a good thing. Sharing a full 350 kW is really pretty strong charging for both parties; 175 kW each or any split in between won't be hard to accept. Worst case, a 10-50% charge at 175 kW takes a mere 3.5 minutes longer than the same at 250 kW. The rest of the charge is not much impacted at all.

A single dispenser platform also solves numerous usage problems with cars of varying charge rates (or charging at different states of charge). Maintenance and parts availability should improve as well. And thank god for the long cabling.

If EA were to replace the common 2x350, 2x150 install with four balanced chargers, it would be a definite improvement. Pulling up to any available dispenser and getting a guaranteed 175 kW sounds dreamy at this point. If power is split by amperage, 800V architecture for the win!

 

[DRR]

I already lost track of which is faster, "Hyper" or "Ultra."

Why not just make the 150 and 350 numbers larger?

 

[TDinDC]

EA's Balanced power dispenser sounds like (maybe) a good thing. Sharing a full 350 kW is really pretty strong charging for both parties; 175 kW each or any split in between won't be hard to accept. Worst case, a 10-50% charge at 175 kW takes a mere 3.5 minutes longer than the same at 250 kW. The rest of the charge is not much impacted at all.

A single dispenser platform also solves numerous usage problems with cars of varying charge rates (or charging at different states of charge). Maintenance and parts availability should improve as well. And thank god for the long cabling.

If EA were to replace the common 2x350, 2x150 install with four balanced chargers, it would be a definite improvement. Pulling up to any available dispenser and getting a guaranteed 175 kW sounds dreamy at this point. If power is split by amperage, 800V architecture for the win!

You make complete, logical sense. It shouldn’t matter. But psychologically, it does matter and people seem to be shorter and ruder to each other all of the time. If we acted logically, we would all board planes differently, drive the car in the right hand lane unless you need to pass (I’m looking at you fellow Americans), and a whole range of other behaviors. We wouldn’t even need half of the laws we have (or may be none). But we are all deeply flawed and having a fellow driver reduce the speed of your charging will set many off. I mean, it annoys me to see a leaf blocking me from 350 kW. I know it annoys many others. Imagine if you are the only car at a station and someone else pulls up to your shared station and slows you down needlessly? You would think it wouldn’t happen, but I’ve been standing alone at a urinal in a restroom with 10 urinals only to have someone come and stand right next to me, so you KNOW the crazies will not act logically.

In short, I just think that we all know human behavior, so design should take this into account and intentionally reduce friction points. I view split charging as an unnecessary friction point.

 

[bsclywilly]

Had a late night charging session at a 14 stall EA station and the only other car to pull up was an ID4 and they went straight for the 350kW station. Got me going down the rabbit hole of what other EV owners think so I went on VW ID and MachE forums and searched “350kw.” It was enlightening…

On both forums there are owners who point out the charging limits of their cars and general etiquette but I don’t think it was generally understood. And I’ll assume the forum users are probably more informed than the average owner.

The ID forum surprised me with multiple posts pointing out that they just shouldn’t believe what other EV owners tell them when it comes to charging rates and why they shouldn’t use 350kW stalls. Multiple posts also proving they can get >150kW out of a 350kW stall which is quite misleading.

On the MachE forum, not much talk at all about 350vs150 stations except for a mirror thread to this same topic talking about the ridiculousness of this recent EA relabelling… that goes on for 7 pages… And the sentiment is definitely not about avoiding the 350kW chargers, unfortunately. You’d think Taycan (or Ioniq/EV6) owners would care more about this relabelling than owners who stand no benefit. I guess I’m also highly skeptical that these new labels will change any behaviour.

There was one post that some of you may relate with though:

Their new labels should be "Currently Unavailable", "Turned off Completely", "Charging Malfunction" and " We don't care"

 

[Marcad80]

EA simply needs to charge X$/min on a 150kW charger and 2X$/min on a 350kW charger. This would solve the problem. And in the cases where a person is still clueless, they can help EA make a really nice profit. Maybe the extra money would help them to build more chargers…

 

[kort]

EA simply needs to charge X$/min on a 150kW charger and 2X$/min on a 350kW charger. This would solve the problem. And in the cases where a person is still clueless, they can help EA make a really nice profit. Maybe the extra money would help them to build more chargers…

that really wouldn't work, because like Porsche, VW and other manufacturers give free charging so regardless of the rates people with free charging aren't concerned about what rate is charged.

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