Electrify America lately introduced a significant change to how the community conducts its enterprise. On August seventeenth, 2023, the community switched from a set pricing construction that provided constant pricing on all of its areas across the nation, to a dynamic pricing construction. In doing so, the community started charging completely different charges from location to location, relying on the price of electrical energy within the space. 

The corporate despatched out an e mail announcement to its clients alerting them of the brand new pricing guidelines and likewise indicated that the phrases of service had been up to date as properly. Once I learn the up to date phrases I observed one thing that I hadn’t earlier than, there was a piece that said third occasion adapters that weren’t made by automakers weren’t allowed for use on the community. 

A wide range of EV charging adapters which are at the moment out there 

EVgo has had the same coverage in place for a few years now, so I seemed up its phrases of service and located the language that prohibits non-automaker-made adapters and located the community additionally specified which adapters are allowed, all of that are made by Tesla. 

So I reached out to Electrify America and EVgo to ask about their respective insurance policies to ask for readability and obtained responses from each networks. Electrify America responded with a easy however clear message however EVgo was far more descriptive and adopted up its unique response with a second e mail from one other firm consultant. 

Electrify America’s Response

Relating to the adaptors, based mostly on testing in our lab:

Electrify America solely permits the usage of adapters bought by automakers on its chargers. Adapters bought by automakers are licensed to work with their autos. Use of another adapter on our chargers is prohibited. The integrity and reliability of third-party adapters can’t be assured and subsequently will not be permitted on our community.

A Kia EV6 charging at an Electrify America quick charging station

EVgo’s Response

First e mail:

The choice to name this out particularly and require “Approved Adapters” is for security causes – we’ve got seen unauthorized adapters for CCS to NACS not comprise a locking mechanism for the latch, which might enable removing throughout a cost, which is a critical security concern for arc flash. There’s additionally concern of the standard of development of those unofficial adapters, as neither the automobile or the charger are conscious of the presence of such an adapter and won’t restrict the present due to it (Tesla’s adapter is rated on the full present and cost curves of their autos). A poorly made adapter might be susceptible to thermal overload (or worse) whether it is subjected to excessive currents for prolonged intervals.

Second e mail:

EVgo method on adapters mainly follows the CharIN printed method that enables for adapters solely made by the automobile producer to be used with their automobile. EVgo additionally investigates the adapter earlier than approval, together with teardown and written report back to producer. To this point we’ve got authorised solely 3: Tesla AC adapter, Tesla Chademo Adapter, and Tesla CCS1 adapter.

There’s appreciable exercise in trade proper now round adapters.

The normal IEC method has been to forbid use of adapters with CCS, this is because of a number of security considerations.

Nonetheless merely saying in a typical it’s not allowed, doesn’t forestall its existence.

Now we’ve got a number of automakers saying intent to supply and a minimum of one state proposed laws requiring NRTL approval of the adapter that comes with automobile.

So there’s now exercise for requirements our bodies to deal with adapters particularly to allow them to be evaluated correctly by third occasion NRTL.

EVgo staff are concerned in SAE and IEC exercise on this subject.

EVgo can also be concerned with the ChargeX consortium of nationwide labs that’s addressing this drawback with a particular group.  A draft of an FMEA was circulated final week by the group. (Failure Mode Impact Evaluation.)

Thanks for engaged on this subject. Though we’ve got a coverage that forbids use of unapproved adapters, we’ve got no solution to implement, and there’s not basic consciousness of the problems concerned.

Each firms cited that they’re involved with the potential security dangers related to clients utilizing non-automaker-supplied adapters and set up that if a buyer makes use of a non-approved adapter and the usage of such causes injury or damage, the community won’t be accountable. 

However the query turns into, is that this a legitimate concern, or are the networks being unnecessarily cautious? The reply might be slightly of each.

There are a variety of adapters available on the market now that enable Tesla house owners to cost from a J1772 AC charging supply in addition to from CCS1 DC chargers. Doing a fast search on Amazon, I discovered the least costly one to be $59.99 and the costliest one to value a whopping $5001.71. There’s a big hole in high quality in addition to how a lot energy the adapters can safely settle for. 

With no correct security certification and with out testing by the OEM that produces the automobile, it is unattainable to know which adapter is made to resist the facility that can be flowing by them at high-powered DC quick cost stations. 

Moreover, some adapters are designed with out correct security methods that forestall disconnecting the adapter from which energy is flowing by them, which is a very harmful factor if you’re charging at 400 volts to 800 volts and pumping 500 amps from the charger to the automobile. 

Rivian charging at EVgo station

Is that this coverage enforceable?

In one in all EVgo’s responses, the community admitted that there is no such thing as a solution to correctly implement the rule. It is not like they will ship the “adapter police” out to go to its hundreds of chargers and ban clients from utilizing the community.

Electrify America did not formally admit the shortage of capacity to implement the rule, however conversations that I’ve had with firm representatives indicated that additionally they notice it is a rule that will be very difficult to implement. 

Nonetheless, I consider EVgo and Electrify America are extra involved with assigning legal responsibility if a buyer does have an issue that was induced by utilizing an unapproved adapter. Now that the coverage is clearly said within the respective phrases of use, the client can be assuming legal responsibility ought to an issue happen. 

So, watch out on the market. Guarantee any EV charging tools you buy comes from a recognized supply with security certification and an extended guarantee. Usually, the longer the manufacturing facility guarantee, the extra confidence the producer has within the high quality of the product, and the much less probably you will encounter a difficulty.