Letter to Ecotality/Blink concerning Balboa Park Failures

[thankyouOB]

Guy,
if you read all of the thread, you can see all of my discussion was an effort to get San Diego-based Leafers to push for Ecotality improvement without going to the media.
I dont support shoddy work or crony capitalism. Crony capitalism -- including building parts of the B2 bomber in every state -- is corrupt and endemic.

my comments you quote are about not OUTING Ecotality to the right wing via the media because it would result in all the subtlety being lost; then the Ecotality failure would become a universal failure of EVs and subsidies used to get us off oil.

As I say above on this post and elsewhere, I too was actively engaged in contacting Ecotality at the highest levels to get results. I have had considerable experience with them in the workplace and residential spheres.
This was not to applaud the company's performance where it was inadequate.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

Actually, I don't think you are hearing thankyouOB.

the tactics in this thread have been quite effective, the thing that miffs me is Tony actually going directly to an extremist anti EV web site and pouring fuel on their fire... this will not help get us more of what we want. Fox news has zero interest in anything constructive coming from their muck racking, they just love to fire people up to fight to kill.

I do get the feeling that if Ecotality doesn't get it together soon, it's not the press we need to turn to, but the source of their funding, as Tony did. IMHO, Ecotality is on the verge of having the entire EV community turn against them and fight to have their contract revoked and given to, say, Aerovironment.

Going to fox news only threatens the entire EV revolution.

...
Since more gentle forms of persuasion have been manifestly ineffective, and you reject a more vigorous approach, AFAICT you're saying that we should be content with shoddy performance and having our taxes squandered, and just accept the status quo. Why should we protect Ecotality when we know other companies are doing the job far better? Sure, it may lead to some bad PR in the short term, but it will lead to better results (and better PR) in the long run.
...

 

[GRA]

Actually, I don't think you are hearing thankyouOB.

the tactics in this thread have been quite effective, the thing that miffs me is Tony actually going directly to an extremist anti EV web site and pouring fuel on their fire... this will not help get us more of what we want. Fox news has zero interest in anything constructive coming from their muck racking, they just love to fire people up to fight to kill.

I do get the feeling that if Ecotality doesn't get it together soon, it's not the press we need to turn to, but the source of their funding, as Tony did. IMHO, Ecotality is on the verge of having the entire EV community turn against them and fight to have their contract revoked and given to, say, Aerovironment.

Going to fox news only threatens the entire EV revolution.

Replying to both thankyouob and George: I have read the whole thread (and have participated in same). Behind the scenes prodding hasn't worked. Getting politicians involved has gotten Ecotality off their butts, but hasn't improved the
EVSEs; they're still down more often than they're up. At some point you have to say enough's enough, stop throwing good money after bad, and find someone else who can do the job. If feeding the maw of the right-wing outlets is what it takes to get the government to move (for political reasons) to use OUR money more effectively, then so be it. The sooner this sort of thing ends, the sooner we'll all benefit.

The people who get their info from Fox News aren't going to support any programs that they perceive as liberal, left-wing, green etc. in any case. That leaves the rest of the country, whose support for these programs varies from miniscule to fanatic. But only the fanatics don't care if the government is wasting tax money, when we've got deficits as far as the eye can see and a dysfunctional government. So let's fix this now, while the problem is still small -- I drive past the Solyndra factory regularly, and I'm really not interested in seeing a whole parade of Solyndras in the EV field. There will be more than enough that fall by the wayside naturally owing to market forces (as Solyndra largely did), without propping up underperforming companies that only exist due to government largesse.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

Sounds like you are ready to pull the plug, I'm not quite there yet. We've got 50+ DC QC's scheduled to be installed by Ecotality in this area. On one hand I'd hate to have them installed and not work, I'm hoping they get things cleared up so that we end up with functional units. My worst fear is that trashing Ecotality publicly will result in their funding being pulled and the project stopped and if so, there will be a giant hole in the QC network in the seattle metro area thet may never get filled. I am holding out some hope that some last straw appeals like the one this thread represents actually gets Ecotality to shore things up and salvage this situation. If they fail to start producing QC's in the coming months, I will be right behind you in pushing to pull the plug. I do not see the installation of L2's as an adequate indication of progress, I think we need progress in the QC department before a bunch more L2's are installed. I see Quick Charging as the backbone on the public charging network, it should take first priority from here out, IMHO.

Actually, I don't think you are hearing thankyouOB.

the tactics in this thread have been quite effective, the thing that miffs me is Tony actually going directly to an extremist anti EV web site and pouring fuel on their fire... this will not help get us more of what we want. Fox news has zero interest in anything constructive coming from their muck racking, they just love to fire people up to fight to kill.

I do get the feeling that if Ecotality doesn't get it together soon, it's not the press we need to turn to, but the source of their funding, as Tony did. IMHO, Ecotality is on the verge of having the entire EV community turn against them and fight to have their contract revoked and given to, say, Aerovironment.

Going to fox news only threatens the entire EV revolution.

Replying to both thankyouob and George: I have read the whole thread (and have participated in same). Behind the scenes prodding hasn't worked. Getting politicians involved has gotten Ecotality off their butts, but hasn't improved the
EVSEs; they're still down more often than they're up. At some point you have to say enough's enough, stop throwing good money after bad, and find someone else who can do the job. If feeding the maw of the right-wing outlets is what it takes to get the government to move (for political reasons) to use OUR money more effectively, then so be it. The sooner this sort of thing ends, the sooner we'll all benefit.

The people who get their info from Fox News aren't going to support any programs that they perceive as liberal, left-wing, green etc. in any case. That leaves the rest of the country, whose support for these programs varies from miniscule to fanatic. But only the fanatics don't care if the government is wasting tax money, when we've got deficits as far as the eye can see and a dysfunctional government. So let's fix this now, while the problem is still small -- I drive past the Solyndra factory regularly, and I'm really not interested in seeing a whole parade of Solyndras in the EV field. There will be more than enough that fall by the wayside naturally owing to market forces (as Solyndra largely did), without propping up underperforming companies that only exist due to government largesse.

 

[davewill]

... Behind the scenes prodding hasn't worked. Getting politicians involved has gotten Ecotality off their butts, but hasn't improved the EVSEs; they're still down more often than they're up. ...

It seems obvious that they can't fix them properly at this time. You can generate all the bad pub you like, but they simply are unable to just fix them. They are probably going to have to do significant software/hardware work to improve reliability. You don't get milk by beating the cow, and definitely not by shooting it.

 

[thankyouOB]

Here is the point in a nutshell. There is no there there with the so-called Solyndra scandal. Read the below and the link.
The goopers have managed with smoke and mirrors and the help of the puke machine to cast Solyndra, sometimes even in the mind of the informed, as a scandal. But surprise; there is no scandal, there is just a change of economic circumstances, and allot of BS.
And people now hear Solyndra, and maybe soon Ecotality and EVs, and they think: what a waste of my money.
Feed into that, if you dare or are foolish enough to think that is not what is happening.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74564.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

More than a year into a probe that's extended to the Energy Department loan guarantee portfolio, Republican investigators even acknowledge they've fallen short of substantiating their allegations that the administration helped political allies like Tulsa oilman George Kaiser secure hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies through a loan guarantee to Solyndra.

"Is there a criminal activity? Perhaps not," Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa told POLITICO after last Tuesday’s showdown with Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "Is there a political influence and connections? Perhaps not. Did they bend the rules for an agenda, an agenda not covered within the statute? Absolutely."

In some respects, Republicans have accomplished their mission. Even if no one goes to jail, they've turned Solyndra into a four-letter word, vilified the Nobel laureate Chu and left a popular DOE program in shambles. They also make no bones about how they've turned Solyndra into a campaign issue.

"Ultimately, we'll stop it on Election Day, hopefully," Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told Environment & Energy Daily. "And bringing attention to these things helps the voters and citizens of the country make the kind of decision that I hope helps them as they evaluate who they are going to vote for in November."

Solyndra’s presence can be seen on the campaign trail, from the swing state TV ads paid for by the Koch brothers-linked nonprofit group Americans for Prosperity to Mitt Romney's perpetual use of "crony capitalism" during his stump speech.

“Solyndra’s become an iconic issue much like Keystone has,” said Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.). “All you have to do is say those words and it raises an image, and the image is wasted tax dollars on some type of fairy tale chase of trying to create a market when one doesn’t exist.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74564.html#ixzz1qTR3z41M" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Wake up, EV people!

 

[TonyWilliams]

the tactics in this thread have been quite effective, the thing that miffs me is Tony actually going directly to an extremist anti EV web site and pouring fuel on their fire..

Ok, let's cut out the back and forth.

Mea Culpa.

I'm bad.

Now, let's get back to doing what we can to get things going in the right direction. Out of the blue (ok, obviously not out of the blue) Ecotality called to fix my home Blink charger that has been offline since sometime last year.

They didn't send out the same technician who had been out twice before last year (to replace the SD card and I don't remember the other issue). When I had called about it, it was always on a repair ticket, with no date or even guess when some action would be taken.

The interaction started out tense, and the technician (who had been here almost one year ago when it was originally installed) actually said, "I don't want to even talk to you". Ok, I get all that. I tried to explain my point of view, and offered a few anecdotes like this one from Dec 3, 2011.

and this time

and this time

and this time

and this time

I get the sense they are frustrated, and I get that too. I think he finally got it that I'm frustrated, too. We tried a bunch of experiments; I grabbed 50 feet of coax and brought the wifi router next to the Blink (as I had done myself in the past). Of course, it mostly didn't work, but did work very intermittently. I called my son to get all the security info on my firewall/router, etc (he's a professional in that field). We probably spent 45 minutes total.

He measured some voltage inside the unit that was a little low (I have no idea what it was for... about 5 volts). But, it looks like the real problem was simply a lose antenna wire on the circuit card. It's a tiny little pin that it presses on, and it was just loose. The Blink found the internet easily when hard wired with Cat5e. So, they'll send that back to be repaired, and are installing a new unit tomorrow. I probably would have just tried squeezing it a bit with the needle nose pliers, but it's not mine to tinker on.

We talked a bit about Balboa Park, and they are working on it (now). He mentioned that there are issues with the old transformer that the 7 Blinks are connected to at Palisades/Pan American Plaza. I don't know that it can explain why the 3 at Reuben H. Fleet are also broken regularly. He said they can't put on a filter or replace the transformer without first doing a 30 day survey of the voltage. That begs the question, if the units were faulty from day one (June 2011) with a bad transformer, why are we started the 30 day survey now? And, of course, the RFID card reader issues.

We chatted a bit about future DC charger installs, and then he left. Should be back tomorrow with my new unit.

 

[DaveEV]

But, it looks like the real problem was simply a lose antenna wire on the circuit card. It's a tiny little pin that it presses on, and it was just loose. The Blink found the internet easily when hard wired with Cat5e.

Intersting. My wifi on my Blink completely stopped working a few months back and won't find any access points when trying to scan to find one. Hardwired (thanks to a wifi bridge) works fine. Wonder if it's the same issue...

 

[GRA]

Sounds like you are ready to pull the plug, I'm not quite there yet. We've got 50+ DC QC's scheduled to be installed by Ecotality in this area. On one hand I'd hate to have them installed and not work, I'm hoping they get things cleared up so that we end up with functional units. My worst fear is that trashing Ecotality publicly will result in their funding being pulled and the project stopped and if so, there will be a giant hole in the QC network in the seattle metro area thet may never get filled. I am holding out some hope that some last straw appeals like the one this thread represents actually gets Ecotality to shore things up and salvage this situation. If they fail to start producing QC's in the coming months, I will be right behind you in pushing to pull the plug. I do not see the installation of L2's as an adequate indication of progress, I think we need progress in the QC department before a bunch more L2's are installed. I see Quick Charging as the backbone on the public charging network, it should take first priority from here out, IMHO.

I definitely think Oregon should be considering re-awarding the northern I-5 QC contract, either to AV (assuming they're satisfied with their performance) or else putting it out for bid. And I have a different take on what Ecotality should be doing now; I think the government should stop them installing _any_ new systems, and give them say 60-90 days to bring all the ones they've already installed up to spec. If they can't, it's auf Wiedersehn, and the contract should be re-bid.

And this isn't just Ecotality that's not performing, the government's oversight has also fallen short. Where have they been while the EV Project wasn't gathering much of the data it was supposed to because so many of the home units weren't communicating? And the systems weren't being installed on time, and were unreliable when they were installed?

Re Solyndra, this article in Feb's "Wired" is the best I've seen:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/01/ff_solyndra/all/1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

... Behind the scenes prodding hasn't worked. Getting politicians involved has gotten Ecotality off their butts, but hasn't improved the EVSEs; they're still down more often than they're up. ...

It seems obvious that they can't fix them properly at this time. You can generate all the bad pub you like, but they simply are unable to just fix them. They are probably going to have to do significant software/hardware work to improve reliability. You don't get milk by beating the cow, and definitely not by shooting it.

I think the level of reliability is so bad that it indicates the product is essentially defective. I don't know what level of reliability (if any) the contract specified, but if their public chargers are only up 70% of the time or less, which based on Balboa Park seems to be the case, I can't believe that anyone (other than Ecotality) would consider that acceptable. How often is a gas pump, which has more moving parts, filters that need regular cleaning etc., down? I would expect charger reliability to be in the high 90's, at least 97% or higher if not 99+%. There's only one moving part on these things to fail, the rest is electronics and communications. There isn't any single technical feature I can see that hasn't been done elsewhere before.

I don't know what has caused Ecotality's problems: poor management, undercapitalization, lack of the necessary trained personnel or something else. Barring some huge change in performance soon it seems that the job is too big for them, so it should be given to someone else who is capable of handling it.

 

[Herm]

I don't know what has caused Ecotality's problems...

They hired some engineers from out of high school, and THEN nickled and dimed the project to death.. they figured it would not be that hard to build a glorified safety extension cord.

 

[davewill]

I don't know what has caused Ecotality's problems...

They got greedy. They thought they could engineer their charging equipment and the whole backend needed for billing and data collection, all from the ground up starting with no engineering capability. They didn't have the experience to create products that would hold up in the field. In hindsight, they should have bought an EVSE and QC solution from an existing third party and just had it customized for their cabinets.

 

[saintyohann]

All seven chargers near the Air and Space museum are working (all full of Car2Go vehicles).

 

[TRONZ]

Two of the four Blink stations at IKEA Costa Mesa are always offline. I have never seen these two working and none of them appear connected to the web app. Pretty shoddy.

 

[saintyohann]

Scratch that, unit 211133 stuck in RFID loop after a Car2Go was unplugged.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I did get a new Blink unit at my house today, and it's charging right now.

Rueben H. Fleet Science Museum:

Serial number:
102309
*103115 (fixed, 3/20/12, down again 3/24 self test fail)*
103173 (fixed, 3/20/12) >the handicap spot<


Pan American Plaza / Palisades / Aviation Museum:

Note: all 7 went down Wed, 3/28, when the breaker was tripped (or deliberately switched off)

Serial number:
*205600 (down 3/21, up 3/24, won't read card 3/27) >the handicap spot<*
103119 (down 3/24, up 3/27)
103127 (down, 3/21, up 3/24)
*200917 (fixed, 3/20, down 3/27)*
*211133 (down, 3/30)
*208124 (down, 3/21, intermittent 3/27)*
205222 (fixed, 3/20)

 

[KMG365]

As of 13:30 April, 3rd:

Rueben H. Fleet Science Museum:

Serial number:
102309 working
103115 working
103173 working


Pan American Plaza / Palisades / Aviation Museum:

Serial number:
205600 RFID down/wouldn't read >the handicap spot<
103119 stuck in a loop
103127 working (Car2Go)
200917 working (Car2Go)
211133 working (Car2Go)
208124 working, used it for a few minutes then it crapped out, stuck in loop
205222 working (Car2Go)

 

[saintyohann]

I was using 103119 until about 1PM. It was working fine. These unit seem to have a new "feature," immediately after unplug they go into an RFID loop that lasts anywhere from 5-60 minutes.

 

[TonyWilliams]

It's like shooting ducks over there. Sunday, think, I counted 3 down, but haven't posted that data yet.

 

[GRA]

Any improvements to report, or is it same old same old?

 

[TonyWilliams]

Any improvements to report, or is it same old same old?

I did go by Macy's in Fashion Valley. All four Blinks were charging Car2go's. I suspect you won't ever get in here to charge without a Car2go account.