My own experience - although limited - and other stories I've heard along the way, suggest that Evie chargers are better maintained/more reliable/both than those of Chargefox, even though they are almost all Tritium. Perhaps Evie is getting more of the newer RTM75's?
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Evie EV charging networks
- Thread starter baillies
- Start date
If only there had been a trailblazing company who rolled out a global design template for Charging Sites, that are reliable and customer friendly.
It helps when that other company has massive gobs of money available, plus a willingness to spend it on sizable transformer installations, and a willingness to install enough stalls to fill the transformer's capacity, courtesy of vertically integrated manufacturing that works out to a modest $USD43k per stall instead of ~5x times that if they bought them from other vendors.
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I think that's what Tritium is suggesting to larger buyers.
Certainly in Australia, on one of the interview with BP they mentioned they were cross-training their petrol pump techs to also work on the BP Pulse chargers (also Tritium).
(As an interesting data point Gilbarco Root, one of the biggest petrol pump manufacturers had a stake in Tritium and purchase option prior to the Spac/IPO)
Not sure whether Evie has their own team of technicians, or use third parties or Tritium? Has anyone seen a technician at an Evie site?
Also I guess a general question as to what should be a reasonable life for these chargers, particularly early ones. Remember they live a pretty hard life going from 0- high power quickly, and due to the heat involved need to be actively cooled meaning they can't be fully sealed.
(Ot. But that Eveleigh site I mentioned in #920 has seemingly now been properly faulted)
Certainly in Australia, on one of the interview with BP they mentioned they were cross-training their petrol pump techs to also work on the BP Pulse chargers (also Tritium).
(As an interesting data point Gilbarco Root, one of the biggest petrol pump manufacturers had a stake in Tritium and purchase option prior to the Spac/IPO)
Not sure whether Evie has their own team of technicians, or use third parties or Tritium? Has anyone seen a technician at an Evie site?
Also I guess a general question as to what should be a reasonable life for these chargers, particularly early ones. Remember they live a pretty hard life going from 0- high power quickly, and due to the heat involved need to be actively cooled meaning they can't be fully sealed.
(Ot. But that Eveleigh site I mentioned in #920 has seemingly now been properly faulted)
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Had a good conversion with a technician at the NRMA charger at Nabiac that he was fixing. Told me he comes up from Sydney to work on the local chargers in the area including the Evie chargers at Taree. He worked for Tritium he said.
Yes. He blamed vandalism as the main culprit and getting access to parts to fix the main reason for prolonged downtime.
But those symptoms may just for around this area ie Mid North Coast. Plenty of people around here see EVs as a threat.
The lack of spare parts seems to have been a Tritium problem forever. Some units have sat dead for months awaiting parts. It's just not good enough.
Yes noticed that. At the time I was talking to the Tritium technician he talked about how he had to pull out one of the cabinets completely at Taree.
Doesn't really explain why brand new chargers are going offline within weeks of being commissioned. Sure if it was a one off, you could say the parts were DOA, but this happens at basically every charger they install.
Don't think it's every.
Indeed I can't think of a single Evie Arena site in Sydney that's had post commissioning issues.
Think many of these are more down to the incoming power supply not delivering properly when put under load, rather than the actual charger itself.
Tesla had issues with its brand new transformer in Blaxland and delaying opening by a month, and some first weekend hiccups at Campbeltown.
And BP obviously had issues at its Ingleburn site.
Pretty sure I explained what the technician thought was mainly causing these chargers to go offline at least in this area where he serviced ie vandalism.
I would submit that if you had seen and heard the evidence the technician provided and had knowledge of what I will call the "social phenomena" of the local area where I live and regularly work throughout you may have a differing opinion. I already had suspicions of why for instance the Taree chargers are IMO regularly offline and the Tritium technician merely confirmed them for me.
This "good conversation" I spoke of earlier with the Tritium technician happened earlier this year and lasted for nearly 3 hours.
Talking to the NRMA guys at their EV Drive Days, one of the examples they had was someone trying to pry/break into some of their DCFC, which of course triggers the safety system and the machine faults.
Someone trying to force their way into the DCFC - even if it is just enough to fault the machine - is what NRMA consider vandalism.
You can never overestimate stupidity. They were probably looking for the coin tray.
I did say “obviously vandalised” meaning visible damage. I’ve driven a lot around NSW, VIC and some of southern QLD, and Evie Taree would be one of the ones I use the most. The NRMA charger at Walgett is the only one I’ve ever encountered that was physically damaged (screen and card reader smashed).
If a DCFC can be taken offline due to physical interference without any visible damage, then I posit that is poor design. Did the tech give specific examples of the types of physical actions that could take down a DCFC without any obvious damage?
@B3AU gave one example - trying to force an access panel open (maybe if you looked closely you'd see some pry marks).
I can think of a few others but I'm not about to give the 3-fingered brigade any ideas!
