Reliability - Plug-In Sites

I Tested Every BGE Fast Charger in Maryland – Here’s What I Found

September 15, 2022November 30, 2022 Lanny

Rationale

It’s been over three years since the Maryland Public Service Commission approved an EV charging pilot that allows the utilities to use ratepayer funds to own and operate public charging stations. When they petitioned for approval of the pilot, my utility, BGE, had assured regulators that their public EV charging stations would be highly reliable and that they would respond quickly to resolve outages and issues. How are they doing in that regard? I wanted quantitative data to find out.

95% to 99% uptime is the range described in the utilities’ semi-annual EV charging reports. That seems quite optimistic compared to what other EV drivers and I have experienced. The only way to actually find out the ground truth is to go out and visit the chargers. I chose to evaluate all the utility-owned fast chargers in the BGE service territory.

Professor David Rempel of the University of California, Berkeley recently published a study on the reliability of the public (non-Tesla) electric vehicle fast chargers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The results showed that more than a quarter of the chargers in the Bay Area were not functioning or had a design failure. The non-functioning stations suffered from non-responsive displays, payment system failures, initiation failures, network failures, or damaged connectors.

The Berkeley study utilized a group of volunteer EV drivers who visited the chargers and tested each one by plugging into their EV and attempting to charge for two minutes. The methods used in the Berkeley study inspired the procedure that I used to test the fast chargers in Maryland.

Procedure

Between August 28 and September 6, 2022, I tested all 69 public fast chargers that are owned and operated by BGE. I created a map of the charger locations and divided the locations into manageable groups that I could visit and evaluate over a number of days.

I drove to each site and worked through a checklist of tasks to test each fast charger. First I took a series of photos of the chargers. Then I recorded the Station ID, model and serial number of each unit. I visually inspected the equipment including the display, cables and connectors for damage. I documented the online status of the charger in the Shell Recharge mobile app. Then I attempted to initiate a charge via the app. If the unit began charging, I let it run for two minutes. Meanwhile I took note of the charging speed and made sure that the charger was operating as expected. After two minutes, I’d stop the charge and then attempt to initiate a charge using the RFID card reader.

If a charging session failed, I reported it to Shell Recharge customer service. This should have alerted BGE of the specific chargers that were having issues. In many instances, when I reported the issue, Shell Recharge responded that a service ticket had previously been created.

Results

A charger was classified as fully functional if it authorized via the Shell Recharge app (or started free), initiated a charge, and maintained the expected charging speed for two minutes.

71% (49) of the BGE fast chargers were fully functional as defined above.

14.5% (10) of the chargers were completely inoperable.

2.9% (2) consistently displayed error codes and would not charge.

4.4% (3) were offline and did not respond via the app. However, these did initiate via a tap of a Shell Recharge RFID card. Most drivers however do not carry a Shell Recharge card.

7.2% (5) initiated a charge but delivered very low power, around 15 kW. That is a fraction of the 50 kW rated power for those stations.

ChargerAudit – Crowdsourcing EV Charger Reliability Data

August 23, 2022November 30, 2022 Lanny

An experiment, born today on social media.

EV drivers on Twitter are frustrated by broken chargers and the lack of transparency around charger uptime metrics.

Version 0.1 of the Citizen #ChargerAudit Project is very simple.

US Transportation Secretary Says NEVI Program Will Prioritize EV Charging Experience

July 21, 2022November 30, 2022 Lanny

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg testified before Congress on July 19, 2022 about transportation infrastructure.

During the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure hearing, Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia’s 7th district asked Secretary Buttigieg about the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program and how the Administration has prioritized the charging experience for consumers “to ensure it’s easy, consistent, and mirrors their current experience at the pump.”

Buttigieg responded, “There’s tons of opportunity but a lot of challenge in getting it right for this electric vehicle infrastructure especially because we’ve not had something like this at scale in the US. It’s very different from the infrastructure for fuel and gas cars. We need to be mindful of that as we go.”

You can imagine, if you are taking a road trip and every third or fourth gas pump didn’t work.
Pete Buttigieg

One thing we are thinking about in particular in regard to the consumer experience is making sure that these charging stations are interoperable and are available. You can imagine, if you are taking a road trip and every third or fourth gas pump didn’t work, or if you had to be a member of a particular gas station chain in order to even use the pump. That would not be a positive or efficient experience. In some places, in some cases in the past, that’s what some EV drivers have faced. So we need to make sure that we are not only getting the dots in the right places on the maps, but paying attention to the quality as well as the quantity of these EV charging stations, especially those that would be supported with taxpayer funds.

Thank you Representative Bourdeaux for asking about the consumers’ experience at EV charging stations. And thank you Secretary Buttigieg for assuring Congress that the Joint Office is mindful of the quality of the EV charging stations that will be installed as part of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program. Reliability of public charging is an important issue. I look forward to seeing how the Administration will ensure accountability.

EV Charger Reliability Standards Report Issued by Maryland PSC Work Group

July 20, 2022November 30, 2022 Lanny

“Consistently delivering on your promise reinforces trust.” ― Bernard Kelvin Clive

Will people develop trust that electricity can replace gasoline as “fuel” for their transportation? This must happen before electric vehicles enter mainstream adoption. Sure, we are told by advocates that 90% of charging is done at home. But we also know that ubiquitous public charging is important to ensure equity so that all citizens may benefit from driving electric. After all, many people do not have access to charging at home or work. For those folks, DC fast chargers are practically their only option. And those chargers better deliver on the promise of convenience, reliability and affordability. Otherwise, people won’t trust the chargers. Consequently, they won’t trust electric cars.

On January 14, 2019, the Maryland Public Service Commission approved a five-year pilot program to allow utilities to install public EV charging stations in their service territory. The utilities promised to maintain a high standard of uptime. BGE was quoted in the Carroll County Times saying, “BGE is being held to the same reliability standards as our electric distribution system, so they must be operational at all times.”

Some EV drivers have raised concerns that the utilities’ public EV chargers are not as reliable as we’d hoped they’d be. The Maryland Public Service Commissioners heard that a charger at Howard County Community College had been down for weeks while the one next to it only delivered a fraction of its promised charging speed.

EV Charger Reliability Standards

In January 2022, the Commission directed the utilities to work with a stakeholder work group to develop public charger reliability standards. The standards, if approved, would be used in the semi-annual progress reports that utilities are required to submit. The standards were to be filed prior to the next semi-annual reports which are due August 1, 2022.

Work Group Asks to Delay Uptime Reporting Until Next Year

EVgo Blames AT&T for Outage Sunday Evening

July 18, 2022November 30, 2022 Lanny

Charging Sites Completely Down for Hours

EVgo experienced a widespread network outage Sunday evening as many EV drivers were returning from their weekend travels.

Around 6:30 PM July 17th, I noticed an unusual number of chargers on the EVgo network were reporting as offline and unavailable on the EVgo mobile app. At least 16 sites in Virginia were completely down. See the map above for the locations in Virginia that reported no working chargers.

Around 8:00 PM an electric vehicle driver tweeted that the last six EVgo chargers he tried did not work.

AT&T is experiencing communications issues that is impacting our network, please refer to the EVgo app for current charger status and Plugshare for alternative charging options.
evgo

Comments to the Federal Highway Administration on EV Charging Deployment

January 27, 2022November 30, 2022 Lanny

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) will invest approximately $7.5 billion for the deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the US. The Department of Transportation (DOT), in coordination with the Department of Energy (DOE), is required to develop guidance for States and localities to deploy electric vehicle charging. A Request for Information (RFI) was published under Docket No. FHWA-2021-0022 to invite public comments to inform the development of the Guidance for an Electric Vehicle Charging Program.

I submitted the following comments:

Docket No. FHWA-2021-0022
January 27, 2022

As an electric vehicle driver of nearly ten years, I appreciate this opportunity to provide comments on the Development of Guidance for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Deployment from an EV driver’s point of view. The consumer experience at public EV charging stations can have a profound effect on the success of charging infrastructure deployment.

Comments are directed at the EV Charging Program statutory considerations as indicated by their corresponding numbers below.

Statutory Consideration 1

50 miles is a reasonable distance between publicly available EV charging stations. This is especially critical for colder climates where the winter temperatures can reduce the range on battery electric vehicles.

Statutory Consideration 3

Priority should be given to EV charging infrastructure that is located at or near locations that have 24-hour amenities such as off-highway travel centers, fuel retailers, convenience stores, and local small businesses.

Broken Chargers, Broken Promises

December 16, 2021November 30, 2022 Lanny

How long should a public EV charging station be down? Should broken chargers be fixed within 24 hours? 48 hours? A week? What if the local power company owns the charging station, what then would be your expectation?

Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE) convinced the Maryland Public Service Commission to allow them to enter the electric vehicle charging market. One of the assurances they made was that they could provide reliable service. They were quoted about EV charging reliability in the Baltimore Sun…

“BGE is being held to the same reliability standards as our electric distribution system, so they must be operational at all times. … Customers will have the sense of ease that they can go to a BGE charger and that it will be working and operational.”
Baltimore Sun/Carroll County Times June 14, 2019

3 Weeks in September

Essex EV Charging Stations Broken Chargers — BGE owned & operated chargers in Essex, Maryland

In early September 2021, an EV driver posted a Tweet that both fast chargers at Kenhill Center in Bowie, MD were faulted and asked Greenlots and BGE how long it would take to get them repaired.

I added to the thread that both fast chargers in Essex, MD were also reporting as inoperable due to a fault condition. BGE responded via Twitter that they were aware of the outages at both locations. They explained that all four units appeared to be experiencing an internal capacitor issue. They said they were working with the chargers’ manufacturer, Tritium, to replace the failed components.

Comments to Maryland PSC on Reliability of Public Charging

October 13, 2021November 30, 2022 Lanny

PSC charging reliability — Video screen capture during PSC virtual hearing

The Maryland Public Service Commission held a hearing today on the utilities’ EV Pilot Mid-Course Review in Case No. 9478.

I spoke to the Commissioners via video from a broken charger to stress the need for better reliability for the utilities that are using ratepayer funds to provide public EV charging stations. [Link to YouTube Video]

Here’s a transcript of those remarks.

Hi, I’m Lanny Hartmann. I want to comment today about the reliability of public charging from an EV driver’s point of view.

I’m at Howard County Community College, this is near my home. The stations behind me opened in January. And if you look behind me, there’s two DC fast chargers. This one right here has a sign, it says “Out of Order.” This sign, I don’t know who put it up but it’s been there since at least September 12. So this station has been inoperable for at least a month.

There’s a station next to it, sometimes both of the stations are down. Today that one is lit. I was here earlier and used the Greenlots card and passed it over the RFID reader and it didn’t recognize it. Luckily I have the Greenlots app which I was able to start a session. But once I started the session, it was only giving me 20 kW. These are 50 kW stations, so I was only getting 40% of the capacity. But I was paying $.34 a kilowatt hour for DC fast charging. The people who have used this have known that this has always been slow. When you come here, you hope this one is working because that one is going to be slow.

You’re talking about fast charges to serve apartments and MUDs. Right across the street, on the other side of the road, there are apartments and condos. Probably at least 100 within a mile of here. Imagine if you depended on these for your daily fill-up and they are down for a month. That’s an issue.

And these are not the only ones.

There’s a station that had a ribbon-cutting with the Governor up in Essex, Maryland. That was in April. About six weeks ago, they both went down at the same time. That’s all there is, there’s two DC fast chargers there. They were both down for at least three weeks. Same thing happened about the same time at Kenhill Center in Bowie. Both of those fast chargers went down at the same time and they were down for weeks. Finally, after three weeks, one of them [in Essex] got fixed. The other one is still down.

95% uptime. What would you call that one if it’s only working at 40% capacity? These things need to work.

BGE is asking for $1 million to go from the supposed 95% uptime to 98% guaranteed uptime. I commented before the Commission back in 2018, when you were considering this pilot, and Mr. Chairman, you directed a question to me if I supported it as an EV driver, as a member of the public, as a ratepayer. I remember my comment was, that I expected BGE would have a better way to keep these reliable. Because at the time, I was also concerned about reliability and at that time, I told about some issues with the reliability that we were having before. I based my answer on the supposition that BGE would keep these up like I’m used to BGE keeping the power on and the reliability of my home electric service.

As a ratepayer and as an EV driver, I cannot support $1 million for, as what Commissioner Herman said, to go from [95%] to 98% guaranteed uptime for 2 1/2 years. That almost seems like a ransom. Like, “You’ve got these nice charging stations, now if you want them to work, you’ve got to give me a million dollars.”

I’m also concerned about using hubs of fast chargers as a substitute for Level 2 at the Multi-Unit Dwellings themselves. I think that ultimately, we need to learn how we can get power to people’s parking spaces where they park overnight.

And with that Mr. Chairman, that’s the end of my comments. Thank you very much.

Tip: How to Start a Session with an RFID Card

May 13, 2021November 30, 2022 Lanny

Method to Attempt if Charging Station is Offline

Sometimes a public EV charging station will have power but it is not communicating with the service provider’s network. This could prevent you from being able to initiate a charge using the mobile app associated with that network. If the station is offline, then the signal to authorize a session may not be able to reach the unit from the charging service provider.

For example, the screen image above is a message on the Greenlots app that displayed when I tapped the “Start Charge” button for a Pepco owned and operated station that was showing as “offline” in the Greenlots app.

When this happens, you can call call customer support and see if they can help. Sometimes they are able to reach the station and either reset it or help you initiate a charge from their end.

When all else fails, it is worth trying to use an RFID card instead of the app. Sometimes the card will be successful in starting the charging session even if the unit appears to be offline.

You may need to order an RFID card from the various charging networks in order to be prepared for this contingency. In some cases, there may be a small fee for the card.

Hope this tip is useful. Enjoy your travels and happy charging!

To the Maryland Public Service Commission from an EV Driver

December 27, 2018November 30, 2022 Lanny

When the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) held a hearing to decide on allowing utilities to provide EV charging, many parties with a vested interest showed up. There were the charging network companies, the utility companies, automobile manufacturers, industry consultants, lobbyists and trade associations, local government officials and more.

What I did not see on the agenda was a list of individuals from the public. Regular citizens. EV drivers. People like us. So, I called and asked if I could come speak. They put me on the “Additional Advocates and Consumer Panel.” I wanted to look the Commissioners in the eye and speak from the heart of the challenges that we face when depending on public charging infrastructure. Here’s a transcript of those comments.

Maryland PSC Case No. 9478 Hearing Sept 7, 2018, In the Matter of the Petition of the Electric Vehicle Work Group for Implementation of a Statewide Electric Vehicle Portfolio – Consumer Panel

My name is Lanny Hartmann, I live in Howard County, Maryland. I’ve been driving an electric car since April, 2012. My wife and I have two electric cars, we bought the first, which is an 80-mile all-electric battery-only car, and we also have a Tesla Model S that we’ve driven across the country, coast-to-coast, two times. We’ve driven that car to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado and across Death Valley.

In those trips, we don’t know what range anxiety is. The Tesla private network is highly reliable and if a station happens to be out, it tells you right there on the screen, it will alert you, so that you can make preparations to skip over it.

Now, the question was asked, “has anybody ever pulled up to a station needing to charge and not been able to?” On these other stations that exist out there, unfortunately, the answer is yes.

I have a few stories to tell that I’m concerned about, because Tesla owners on their own private network are probably fine, but what you’re talking about installing here in Maryland is the network of CCS and CHAdeMO stations.