Ecotricity

[nowtta60]

Out of my 16000 miles I think that 80% is by using Rex. Clearly not the objective when purchasing a £42000 i3.

Another waste of time experience today while driving up to Middlesbrough.
Ecotricity CCS station at Ferrybridge services still out of order but the truth is that it has never been "in" order. Ever since the fanfare installation the CCS has never worked. I continued driving up to Wetherby and again CCS out of order. I last reported this in December and yet nothing has been done. For a change I plugged in to the AC for 35 minutes. Connection was swift and I managed to bank 19 miles but the station on screen menu displayed 0.0Kw .

Tomorrow I'm heading off to London and will be checking into Leicester Forest, Newport Pagnell and London Gateway, all on the M1. I shan't be holding my breath.

Newport Pagnell south was working on Friday. Went from 11% to 85% in 30 minutes. Was down to 35Amps from 110A by that point!

One thing with these charges and maybe the i3 combination - they are very sensitive to how you do things. I've found the following routine leads to more sucess when the unit isn't broken broken... ie. if you can get it going it will stay going...

1) Get the stuff you need out of the car and lock up. I've found opening the drivers door can cause a session termination (it does that on my EVSE at home too sometimes so think the i3 is to blame).
2) Don't plug is straight away. Go to the unit, clear any previous sessions on the screen then give it a couple of seconds at the main menu before selecting DC charge.
3) Authenticate with RFID.
4) When prompted go and connect.
5) Come back and press the button. Make sure you are ready to run back to the charge port and lift it a little to ensure good contact of the comms pins.
6) If all goes well you should get a blue flashing chage port. A red error means comms failed. Try again from step 2.

If the system fails with messages about voltages dont give up. Go and select DC Chademo, let it do some clicks and stuff and then cancel the session. And then this time select DC CCS. I've not had this issue myself - but have read it can rescue a unit that says DC not available after you selected CCS.

All a bit pants, compared to getting out the car plugging in and going to bed/having tea without worrying about what order to do things.

And don't forget to cancel the session at the charger - not just by unplugging. I have a sneaky suspicion this might be one of the things that upsets them and knocks them offline - ie the software didn't power down before 50kW was suddenly disconnected and they go into WTF? mode.

All that doesn't help the journey I was going to make at the weekend - Brum to Poole. There's a black hole on the M40 down to er, Pooole. Warwick South and Chievely both down. I looked at doing the M5 route and just thought, sod it, I'll get up to date with the accounts and DIY and see if they are working in a couple of weeks.

 

[BoMW]

My drive down the M1 to Tottenham was free of any problems. Stopped at Leicester forest East services for a CCS charge of 15 min and continued down to Newport Pagnell for a 35 min charge up. There was a Zafira parked in the AC bay but was not blocking my CCS station. Eventually I saw the driver leave after scraping off heavy frost, he looked like he worked at the services.
On my return I stopped off at London Gateway and sadly it didn't go well with the charging. My batteries were completely flat for the last 30 miles of Rex driving. The connection was made quickly but when the supply reached 70A it just shut down, a problem I had regularly in 2014. I tried 6 times in the freezing rain without success. I rang Ecotricity and the polite girl suggested I change my charging intake from maximum to reduced. This did nothing neither did driving round the car park, in the end I gave up, filled up and warmed up after a miserable 25 minutes.
I then decided to stop off at Newport Pagnell north bound, just to check the facility and was pleasantly surprised with an immediate charge. I didn't stay long as I had already spent 3 hours of a 4.5 hour journey which only took 2.3 hours this morning.

 

[electricvirgin]

I tried my first long(ish) trip in my sixth month of ownership yesterday.

Just under 130 miles from home in surrey to Bristol (for the hifi show) and stopped at 4 Ecotricity DC fast chargers on the way up the M4. None worked, with only one being labelled as such.

I am bitterly disappointed that the network has failed so comprehensively. I think the 7kw chargers may have been working but had they are just too slow. Up to now i have used their chargers in Cobham and maidstone without issue, i must have been lucky. One would think they could make more of an effort to get at least one working when a cluster down the M4 corridor have all failed.

Furthermore one of the failed attempts to charge seems to have initiated a driveline fault which i shall have to get the dealer to resolve. Clearly some forum members are luckier than others but if the network is as unreliable as my experience suggests then EV ownership will stall soon. I cant remember the last time a petrol pump failed on me...

 

[elptex]

London Gateway

Worked for me 3 weeks ago. Followed my usual procedure: lift/hold up the plug during the communication phase of plugging in.

 

[BoMW]

London Gateway

Worked for me 3 weeks ago. Followed my usual procedure: lift/hold up the plug during the communication phase of plugging in.

You used the CCS?

 

[elptex]

London Gateway

Worked for me 3 weeks ago. Followed my usual procedure: lift/hold up the plug during the communication phase of plugging in.

You used the CCS?

Yes. That is what we're talking about

 

[Bunter]

And don't forget to cancel the session at the charger - not just by unplugging. I have a sneaky suspicion this might be one of the things that upsets them and knocks them offline - ie the software didn't power down before 50kW was suddenly disconnected and they go into WTF? mode.

I'm not sure that can be a factor - the car will not unlock the cable while charging on DC I think. This is based on the fact that when using Fleet South the other week, I didn't need my card to activate the charge. But I did need a card to terminate it so that meant I couldn't disconnect. So I had to ring Ecotricity who terminated remotely.

Bill

 

[sithsmith23]

Interesting chat with Ecotricity today...
Was using a 'Fast' AC charger (marketed as 43kw,63a) in Ikea Croydon. 1.9 kw/h in 60 mins - so not even a trickle! I called them up when got back to work and they said best to see what issue is when connected up, so went back after work and gave them a call.

They could see it was slower than slower and I confirmed all things like battery was only 10% SOC, all elec were switched off etc. The answer they gave me was that I3 on board charger is not as good as other EV and this can mean non-existent charging on fast chargers

Anyone else heard this? Sounds like a cop out to me as I used a AC 7KW which was next door which performed as should.

As an aside, what i thought was an ICE VW Polo was parking in a EV space next to me and I was about to give it the 'do you know you should not park here', when I noticed how silent the car was....low and behold conversion from ICE to EV as part of Electrical Engineering degree! Got 30 miles range & top speed of 45mph....

 

[jadnashuanh]

Unless the car is broken...or you have set the charge level to less than maximum, it is the car looking at the pilot signal that tells it how much power the EVSE has. THen, depending on what it thinks it needs, it can actually draw up to its maximum. In the i3's case, that's 7.4Kw. It's irrelevant that the EVSE can provide more than 7.4Kw in the case of the i3, but it causes no harm to either the car or the EVSE.

 

[sithsmith23]

thanks, just so I'm clear then...fast AC will not work (eg - i won't get 30min charge up to 80%) on i3 (as max is 7.4kw), so if I want fast charge I need to find DC (which I had added as extra). If i think about (don't do much of that)...then explains why DC is offered as extra (why would we need DC on i3 if AC fast worked)

thats the sound of a penny dropping.

In other news on my chat with Ecotricity, I was discussing the reliance of the EVSE network and that is clearly a pain in the arse for EV owners and a potential barrier for non-EVSE if they were thinking about switching from ICE.

She explained it was emerging tech and it's always going to have teething problems due to varying designs/tech of both EV & EVSE, her boss described it as a similar moment with Henry Ford & Model T - eg, no standard petrol, no standard pump/nozzle etc....it felt like a bit of an OTT comparison.
I mean - we've been plugging in 'things' for years, not aware electricity is a new invention + Li-Ion is not new tech either..so for Ecotricity - are they just lazy/have no desire to keep their surface at least 80% reliant because as far as I can see they don't have an income stream?

 

[jadnashuanh]

There are essentially three 'systems' out there for dc fast charging: Tesla's, CHADEMO, and CCS. In order of implementation: CHADEMO, Tesla, CCS. But, all of the recent 'converts' to EVs have chosen CCS for the fast charge standard AND the ac charging plug. That includes, BMW, MB, VW, Audi, GM, Ford, and maybe a few others. CHADEMO is mostly used on Japanese vehicles (and the BMW i3 uses that when sold in Japan). The EVSE standards have been around longer for using acv, but the connector has been up in the air for awhile until the standard got approved, especially when it comes to the combo connector that combines the ac and dc into the one socket used on the i3 and others. With CHADEMO, there are two separate connectors, one for ac charging, and a second one for DC fast charging.

To throw more confusion into the mix...the i3 can be built with two ac charging units, or just one. In the USA, two are standard and are what allow it to recharge on ac in about 3-4 hours, in parts of Europe (all?) the second unit is optional, and is what some call the fast ac option (it's not an option in the USA). THen, there's the DC fast charging option which, in many markets, will become standard on the i3 in the 2015 model year rather than optional.

So, when it comes to charging up an i3, depending on where you live and the model year, there are four options:
- single ac charger
- fast (double) ac charger (standard in the USA)
- DC fast charging (not a stand alone, always included with one of the previous because it uses some of the same pins to work)
- CHADEMO (Japan only, as far as I know - this connector is mounted in the 'frunk' plus whatever interface electronics needed to make it work on the i3)

Confused yet?

 

[Bunter]

Yes rapid AC charging is not compatible with the i3 - it users 3 phase AC (so 3 x 7 kw) and the i3 can only charge off a single phase AC. CCS or rapid combo is the rapid charging standard the i3 uses and that is DC.

Your confusion probably has not been helped by i3 owners who have reported using the Ecotricity rapid AC charger as single phase fast chargers to top up if needed. That should charge at a full 7kw just like a type 2 or fast charger.

However it is not a practice which should be encouraged unless you are prepared to be with the car while it is charging and relinquish the charger should a car equipped to use 3 phase AC and needing a charge arrive IMO. By using an AC rapid as an AC fast you're effectively ICEing the chargers full capability so should move if someone who can use that capability arrives.

Bill

 

[jadnashuanh]

Someone from the Netherlands indicated that the EVSE sold there for the i3 is designed to connect to their more typical 3-phase systems, but it still is limited to the 7.4Kw max input on that port.

 

[sithsmith23]

whats general view of the issues with reliance of ecotricity (and others in UK)? Is the tech that different, new, ground-breaking? Electricity is not a new thing, nor is plugging 'stuff' in....am I missing some special new tech from a DC point of view?

 

[BoMW]

Thursday gone was the most reliable drive to London yet.
Stopped at Leicester forest East -SB services for 15 minutes using the CCS and then continued to Newport Pagnell for a further 35 min. Both without any issues and no issues on my return heading back up the M1 and charging at both services.

 

[jadnashuanh]

whats general view of the issues with reliance of ecotricity (and others in UK)? Is the tech that different, new, ground-breaking? Electricity is not a new thing, nor is plugging 'stuff' in....am I missing some special new tech from a DC point of view?

AC charging is easy...the actual charging circuits are IN the car...the EVSE is essentially a big switch.

DC fast charging, OTOH, relies on an external, monster, DC power supply. TO ensure that things work well and safely, once connected with either AC or DC, the car and the external units must communicate. The communication is more sophisticated with DC. With the AC, it is more simple interlocks than actual talking back and forth. Think about your typical battery charger...it gets hot, but it's also not trying to pump up to 50Kw out at nearly 400VDC like the DC fast charger for the car. Keeping one of those cool, protected from the rain, snow, dust, etc., is much more complex than the EVSE which, as I said, is a fancy on/off switch. As a result, the things cost more to build, install, and operate.

 

[sithsmith23]

But does not sound like DC is such an new thing that 'clever' people cannot sit round a table and say 'look we know it has these challenges (size, environment, heat, cost etc), but here are the solutions which improve reliance' (whatever they maybe)

if it comes down to cost (initial & ongoing) & prohibits the current 'FOC' strategy from companies like Ecotricity then I would rather pay to ensure improved reliance.
Feels like they are waving a 'no cost' flag and that gives them an excuse (not publicly) to have a poor/hit & miss product on the market - and a hit & miss product which is essential to success of growing EV market cannot be a good thing.

The conversation I had with Ecotricity and the analogy they used about this is the same as Henry Ford, Model T and a complete new dawn of the transport age. IMO - it 's not... AC/DC is not new (including the band), EV cars are not new and as per my point at the top,it cannot beyond the wit of man to improve the service that is offered, if this means paying for it, then so be it.

 

[i7fan]

Last week did Birmingham to London and back. On the way down charged in Corley, Milton Keynes and London Gateway. Then back via Beaconsfield and Warwick. More than 200 miles using not a drop of petrol!

 

[PluviaPlumbum]

Got my Ecotricity card last week, and out of curiosity took a closer look at one of their Units on the Northbound M74 yesterday; I'm picking my Rex up Tuesday so I guess I will find out soon enough if the useful tips for making CCS rapid charging work successfully or not!

 

[Themass31]

I see there is still no improvement on the M1 north or A1 north from the Midlands and upwards.
Craig