My wife was charging yesterday at EA (notorious for being inoperative) and received an error message in the car just after 3 minutes of charging. The EA charger also displayed that an error had occurred. She was unable to unplug the charger (after pressing the unlatch button). She called EA and they suggested using the remote unlock button 3 times, which was unsuccessful. The next suggestion was to press the unlatch button near the charger flap 3 times, which finally released the charger. After pulling out the charger my wife noticed damage to the charge port (burned/singed). The EA representative suggested that my wife plug in the charger again, which my wife refused. Fortunately, MB was just around the corner where she left the car overnight. They had not seen this type of damage before. My wife opened a case with EA as well. We still don't know how long it will take for the repair or who will cover the cost. Has anyone else experienced this?

The continued poor experience with EA charging has left a bad taste with my wife and she is nervous of driving the EQE again, to the point of potentially returning/selling the car.



Singed charge port

 

Very sorry to hear this happened to your wife. It looks like an arc fault at the charge port, likely some catastrophic defect or failure of the charger cable connector. Arc faults, though extremely rare with EV charging infrastructure, can be very damaging to a number of components. I'd say it is pretty rare, and though it's super unsettling, I think it would be pretty unlikely to happen again. EA has gone from quite unreliable to almost perfect where we are. Regardless, there are more providers coming, and fast. Things will be getting better overall soon, especially as NEVI money starts to bear out. My best wishes for the car's repair. Please keep us posted. If you or your wife would like any additional feedback from us, including technical perspectives, we're happy to help.

 

Also, were any warning indicators coming up on the instrument cluster? Was she able to drive it to the dealership? If no remnant warnings, and it was able to drive, then the car behaved exactly as it should have and you might have avoided damage. CCS connector will need replacement, but car may well be in perfect shape.

 

I can't even find an undamaged air hose around here... some butthole probably fooked with the connector.

I know they want us to use apps and unattended stations but until I can walk into a store and pay a human with cash for my charge, an EV just won't be a viable option for anything more than an hour or two away. And having someone actually monitoring cameras who can call the cops when vandalism occurs would help too.

I love not having to buy gas though.

 

There was a recent article out of Australia. A woman who regularly travels between Melbourne and Sydney decided to buy an EV. This trip takes something like 9 hours in a gas car one way. She does it with her little kid in the car. The trip with the EV took her several hours longer first of all, but secondly and that's gonna be an issue for women in general, she had to recharge around midnight at some questionable location in the middle of nowhere along the route. A car with 4 rowdy men drove past her while she was charging. Fortunately, they had no interest in her and carried on, but she learned a few lessons on that trip. This is gonna be scary for women being sitting ducks at unattended charging stations in the middle of the night on a trip. I don't think anybody has thought this through.

 

Charging at home during off-peak-rate hours works great for me. I really don't miss spending $50 a week at the gas station. Unfortunately my insurance company seems to be the primary beneficiary of that savings as they all seem to be jacking up prices for EVs.

 

My insurance seems to be all over the place on this. When I switched from W213 gas to EQE sedan, insurance went up. When we traded wife's GLE 300d for EQE SUV, insurance went down?? Not sure why.

 

Yup, premium charging stations can't get here fast enough. I know that MB and others are working on it though, hopefully in the coming 2 years that landscape shifts dramatically. Finding good electrical infrastructure isn't hard in many urban locations. But the initial cash outlay is really needed to take the chance and get better experiences off the ground. As far as I know, the new NEVI stations here in KY are supposed to have some sort of lighting and public safety requirements. I'll have to check the docs again to be sure.

 

No indications on the car and she was able to drive the car normally. When the MB technician went to visit the EA charger the next day, it was relayed to me that there other patrons that commented on their uneasiness from past experience of using the specific charger that caused the damage. I was actually surprised that I haven't read anything on this forum about similar experiences and arcing must be rare.

Just curious, is arcing in this scenario always one way, where the charger thinks the car is ready accept the charge when it actually isn't? Or can the car cause the arcing, where the charging station is not providing any power, and the car itself (say from the battery) causes the arc at charging port?

 

Benzes don't do vehicle-to-load (output juice through the connector) and even then it'd be AC not DC... most likely the station's fault but I suppose there could have been a manufacturing defect on MB's part too, like a bad crimp.

 

Glad to hear there is no internal damage. The arc is from the charger to the car, most likely a physical defect in the EA connector that shifted during charge. If the car isn't ready for charge, the contactors are open and there'd be nothing to arc to, no potential difference. Once the contactors are closed, the battery is exposed, so if it happened during charge, it almost certainly was a faulty physical connector. Once MB replaces your CCS port, you should be good to go.

 

Wanted to provide an update. Mercedes replaced the charge port ($1124) and I was able to successfully charge at EA (different location). A rep from Electrify America called my wife regarding her case and will reimburse us for the repairs.

 

That's great news! And confirms that it was isolated to just the charge port, which we had hoped. Looks like most of the systems worked to prevent damage, also good news. Let's hope your future charging experiences are much better!