QC Repair Crusade

[Evoforce]

More and more ABB (QC) charge stations are biting the dust in the Phoenix metro area. These are the stations located at the Nissan dealerships. I want myself and others to do what is necessary to keep charge stations up and running. My initial reaction was to believe that the dealers were not caring to maintain them. Here is what I found out so far...

After speaking with the General Manager at one Nissan dealership, he told me to complain to Nissan Corporate and gave me the number yesterday. He told me that they contact Nissan Corporate through a technical service line and they get ahold of ABB. So today I called Nissan Corporate to complain of the situation. No one knew how to field the call and I eventually was given a number to call that was a regional number for Nissan. They proceeded to tell me that it was out of their hands because the dealers were given a choice of equipment vendor and Nissan Corporate was not in the loop.

So, back to the dealership I went to again talk with the General Manager. Here are some facts that I gleaned today. Nissan Corporate did not give them a choice of vendors but rather said here is the equipment vender that we want you to use. For this dealer the cost was $12,000 because it was a short electrical run. We will also subsidize a percentage of the install and you can choose to bill or not bill your customer for the service. ABB would have also received a percentage of the proceeds if dealers billed for service to the customer end user per charge. Since most dealers in the metro Phoenix area opted to offer free charging this General Manager believes that ABB has lost some incentive to repair equipment.

In this round of equipment failure at this dealership, the main motherboard failed. ABB wanted to bill the dealership over $4000 for repairs. The dealership says however that the machine is still under warranty and should owe nothing. Said dealership is procuring a copy of the contract from Nissan Corporate just to confirm what was remembered.

In the meantime, tomorrow, I will be talking to the person at this dealership who is responsible for making contact with Nissan and ABB and will get the contact number for ABB. ABB appears to have raked in the money for installs but does not want to put any back into repairs or maintenance.

This begs the questions, why are these equipment failing? Heat? Poor quality circuit boards? Are replacement parts easily procured? What needs to be changed to stop these failures? I believe that dealers will not want to pay what appears to be high costs to maintain these QC machines once out of warranty.

I suspect it is heat that is causing failures. I directly asked the GM if thought had been given to shading the equipment. He responded that when the QC was installed he posed that question to the installers and ABB said that it was not necessary. The dealer said, that he would have been willing and still is, but he would have to have plans and approval from Nissan Corporate because everything has to be exactly how Nissan wants it designed to look. He also said that he would entertain a different QC company once the warranty period was over.

 

[Firetruck41]

I have seen other reports on the forum where the cause of QC failures was overheating as a result of filters not being maintained.

 

[cwerdna]

I have seen other reports on the forum where the cause of QC failures was overheating as a result of filters not being maintained.

I'm generally only aware of that for Nissan-branded DC FCs that are common at Nissan dealers, not ones from ABB. The former would overheat with temperature errors.

That said, some folks in Salt Lake City complained about poor reliability of ABB units there until they were removed and replaced.

The joke is that ABB stands for Another Broken Box.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

Dealers here did have a choice of vendor and either have the Nissan branded QC (Sumitomo?), or an Eaton.

 

[Evoforce]

OK, I had a very good meeting with the Executive Manager of a Nissan dealership today. This man has also been the one diligent in trying to keep the QC online. He even has personally installed parts to try to keep it working.

Well, they had a very rude awakening today when they discovered that they were in fact out of their two year warranty. To compound that, they also found out that they were full-fledged owners of the equipment. So all repairs were now squarely on their shoulders. I suggested that since all of the dealers in the area are facing the same facts, that they band together to collectively solve this problem. As an end user, I do not want them to give up the fight. We need as many working QC as possible.

If it were me, I would demand that ABB reinstall a warranty and upgrade the equipment to not constantly fail. Heat is one of the main problems. I would argue they were doomed to fail by design from the onset. Shading of the equipment I believe is vital in hot climates and it can have the added benefit of shading the vehicle that is charging. I also believe there should be refrigerant for cooling. The Blink units here have refrigerant but no shading which also causes a fail for their QC charging units.

Anyway... whomever is willing to help our cause please contact ABB at 1-800-972-9778. They will direct you to an email to their Program Manager. Please email him to get these QC charge stations repaired and upgraded in the Greater Phoenix Metro Area and/or in the area that you live as well. Let's make this ABB company provide good customer service. Also it would help to call Nissan at 1-800-343-6913 even though they will send you to Leaf specific help, please complain to them about the bad QC or non existing chargers at dealers everywhere. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[GetOffYourGas]

I wish I had failing QCs nearby to complain about. That would mean that someone installed them in the first place!

Good luck with your quest. Ultimately, though, we need a network provider who will own and maintain an entire network of QCs, such as FastNed in Europe.

 

[Evoforce]

Please continue to comment on this thread. I would like to know what brand of QC charge stations that are good performers. We can then direct businesses to them thereby making it a win for all of us!

 

[Evoforce]

I wish I had failing QCs nearby to complain about. That would mean that someone installed them in the first place!

Good luck with your quest. Ultimately, though, we need a network provider who will own and maintain an entire network of QCs, such as FastNed in Europe.

I so much agree! Maybe and hopefully that day will come soon. What about electric car owners banding together to become owners of their own network? Are there enough of us yet? Could we get everyone onboard?

 

[GetOffYourGas]

I wish I had failing QCs nearby to complain about. That would mean that someone installed them in the first place!

Good luck with your quest. Ultimately, though, we need a network provider who will own and maintain an entire network of QCs, such as FastNed in Europe.

I so much agree! Maybe and hopefully that day will come soon. What about electric car owners banding together to become owners of their own network? Are there enough of us yet? Could we get everyone onboard?

I have tried that and in upstate NY there don't seem to be enough of us. The "good" news is that NY is starting to put some QCs along the main highway (NYS Thruway). The bad news is, they are moving at the speed of government. And I fear that 2-3 years from now, we will need to start our own "QC Repair Crusade".

 

[Evoforce]

I'm wondering if we could get the utility companies involved as owners. Could possibly be a bad idea. But, It would give them a new branch to charge (overcharge?) customers for electric.

I believe more and more people are going to go off-grid because of the surcharge game the utilities are in the process of playing with solar households. The cheaper and better batteries in the near future will make having a battery bank a better option.

Anyway... we still need the QC stations we have (now) up and useable now. Future could be great but I needed that QC charger up the street shoving electrons months ago. Bigger batteries are going to put even more heat on these charging stations. Let's push them to solve their engineering problems with existing machines spurring upgrades and develop better ones from now on...

 

[Nubo]

At least it's good to hear that your dealership is working with you to this degree. Kudos to them.

 

[finman100]

Aeroenvironment
http://www.evsolutions.com/ev-charging-products-for-business

'Nearly' flawless here in PNW. Just need more stalls per location.

 

[Evoforce]

Well... found out yesterday that all of the equipment 20kW units at all of these dealers is now considered fatally flawed equipment by the manufacturer. They are recommending total replacement at a cost of roughly $14,000ish per unit for an upgraded 50kW unit that ABB claims is holding up better. I suggested that the dealers circle their wagons, drag in Nissan Corporate, and go after ABB for some satisfaction. The dealers now have some incentive. Some are out of warranty period now and remaining will be out in just a few months. Repairs will be very expensive and repetitive and problematic.

I have also been heavily suggesting that they need to prepare for the near future now. Larger kW machines as well as preparing for more in number. Bigger batteries and more EV's loom on the horizon.

Also found out that ABB produced the charging equipment for NRG. Do any of you have those stations in your area, and how are they doing? Is it Crusade time? Provide any contact numbers for your area, for all of us to help with your QC problems, so we can get whomever inspired by sheer numbers of interested people, to effect change for the better.

 

[lkkms2]

I will make some phone calls. And share what I find.

Thanks for your efforts. Having working QCs in my area of San Diego has been a big help to me!

 

[TonyWilliams]

ABB *provides* chargers to NRG, just like GM provides cars to Hertz.

NRG / eVgo only uses DC chargers provided by:

1) Nissan / Sumitomo
2) ABB
3) BTC
4) AreoVironment (the first installations in Houston)

The Phoenix auto dealers that now "own" these low powered and faulty ABB units probably all are not going to spend even more money to get more ABB equipment. Some of them will just pull the plug and write off the entire experience... no DC chargers at all.

The Nissan / Sumitomo units are not suitable for Phoenix or other hot environments. The "50kW" (120 amp) ABB units are mostly reliable in moderate climates, but I don't know about their reliability in heat.

Any other charger choices will require a big fat check from each dealer, in addition to upgrading the electrical service for 50kW.

I don't see this ending well. I'd be happy to have a phone conversation with the Nissan dealer, if somebody will give me his name / phone.


Some Networks in the USA:

1) ChargePoint - no monthly charge, individual charge station owners determine rates (Note: I'm part owner of the very first DC charger on the ChargePoint network with over 5000 paid charge events). Largest network by far.

2) West Coast Electric Highway (AeroVironment) $20 per month, free unlimited charging (Oregon and Washington states). Fantastic and dependable, well placed through those two states only.

3) NRG / eVgo - $14.95 per month, $3 per thirty minute timed charge (if charging more than thirty minutes, the session needs to be restarted). Their billing department is ATROCIOUS !!! Quickly spreading nationwide.

4) Greenlots - an "up and comer", no monthly fee, generally free sessions

5) OPconnect - very small, but they have been very useful in locations that I go

6) Blink / Car Charging - absolutley the worst equipment on the planet. All paid for with over $100 MILLION in tax payer funds. Only about 60 working units nationwide, and that's on a good day.

7) EVconnect

8) SEMAconnect

This following list has nothing to do with who's network sticker is on the charger, but instead is the actual manufacturers of the charger used by the networks:

All CHAdeMO or CHAdeMO w/CCS

ABB
AeroVironment
Blink
BTC
Eaton
Efacec
Fuji
JFE
Nissan / Sumitomo
51 Fast Charger
Aerovironment Fleet Fast Charging Station Line
Aerovironment DC Fast Charge Station
Aker Wade Level III Fast Charger
Andromeda Power ORCA-Mobile
Delta EV DC Quick Charger
Eaton Pow-R-Station DC Quick Charger
Ecotality Blink DC Fast Charger
Efacec QC50
Epyon Power Terra 50.X System
Epyon Power Terra 50.1 Charge Station
EVTEC MobileFastCharger
EVTEC PublicFastCharger
Fuji FRCH50B-2-01
Nichicon Quick Charger
Nissan NSQC-44 Series
Schneider Electric Fast Charger
Veefil

To be perfectly clear, NRG / eVgo does NOT produce any charger. They are a network.

 

[nickandre]

I think the problem is that EV users scoff at paying $5/charge at a QC station that cost $14,000 to install.

All the QCs in the Boston area look the same (I hadn't checked the brand) but they all appear to be 50 kW units. I've used both the Nissan ones and the NRG units.

If anyone has the connections to do so, we are in dire need of a convenient QC station on I-95 north out of Boston. The closest one is at the intersection of I-93 and I-95, but there's nothing for getting up to Portland, ME and everything else within 2 EV ranges of Boston. A QC station along I-95 in NH would see a lot of use.

 

[Evoforce]

Well it seems there is no progress at the dealers so... more time on my part is needed to address this issue. I Just have no time but what choice do I have. NRG/eVgo is now starting to put up DC charge stations. What a ripoff on what they charge. We all need to fight against their high prices too. Call them and complain if you would... 855-509-5581.

 

[ebuonaccor]

The only reason I use NRG/EVgo is because their DCQCs are free with the NCTC card. If I had to pay their prices I don't think I would be using their charges. I do have to say their equipment has worked flawlessly for me expect one time where the Chademo adapter was broken and cut my hand, but I was still able to charge. In my area our local government and electric company (National Grid) have installed free to use ChargePoint level 2 chargers. They too have worked very well. As far as I know National Grid maintains them. Not many Nissan dealerships around here have DCQCs.