美国东部时间2024 年 1 月 18 日上午10:48

作者：埃里克·洛夫迪

特斯拉因寒冷天气而被困芝加哥而无法充电的故事只是一个更大故事的一小部分。

为了查明到底是什么问题，YouTube 上 Out of Spec Reviews 的凯尔·康纳 (Kyle Conner) 亲自飞往芝加哥，亲身体验到底发生了什么。

极冷的天气导致了充电问题，但问题还不止于此。

奇高最近的电动汽车充电灾难因拼车司机、充电器故障以及缺乏对电池组预处理以及车辆在极冷天气下如何充电的了解而雪上加霜。

充电站关闭——特斯拉超级充电站恢复上线，但 EA 和 EVgo 问题依然存在

他发现了一大堆使充电问题变得更加复杂的问题，而且这不仅限于特斯拉。事实上，像往常一样，特斯拉超级充电桩是其中最好的，更大的问题与 Electrify America 和 EVgo 充电站有关。

正如凯尔在视频中指出的那样，即使是承诺比旧设备更可靠的新型 Electrify America 快速充电器，在芝加哥寒冷的天气中也出现了很高的故障率。令人惊讶的是，一个旧的 EA 单元仍然可以正常工作。EVgo 站点也存在问题，多个充电器停止服务。

与此同时，特斯拉超级充电站（其中许多在几天前还无法使用）在他抵达芝加哥时几乎全部恢复正常。感谢特斯拉在经历了零度以下的严寒之后，努力让其快速充电器恢复运行。EVgo 通过远程重启成功使几个充电器重新上线，但当凯尔在芝加哥时，并非所有充电器都能正常工作。Electrify America 网站在几天内基本上处于离线状态，当凯尔在那里时，许多网站仍然无法运行。

Uber 和 Lyft 司机如何加剧问题

不过，让我们讨论一下芝加哥更大的问题，那就是庞大的电动汽车共享车队。当凯尔参观芝加哥的超级充电站时，几乎每辆特斯拉都有一辆 Uber 或 Lyft 租赁汽车。还有 Uber/Lyft Chevy Bolts 和其他电动汽车。

这些共享电动汽车堵塞了充电站，而且由于大多数汽车在已经很冷的状态下出租，并且经常在非常短的行程中缓慢行驶，因此这些汽车永远不会充分预热。再加上大多数 Uber/Lyft 司机可能对电动汽车和预处理几乎一无所知，您就可以开始明白为什么他们对芝加哥的充电问题做出了重大贡献。

此外，大多数司机并不知道，在极冷的天气下，插入电源后可能需要 45 分钟到一个小时才能开始充电。在此期间，汽车会消耗少量电量来加热电池，以便可以接受充电。如果您在此过程中拔掉插头，那么当您移至另一个充电器时，它会重新开始。因此，如果您发现充电器消耗少量电量，请保持车辆接通电源，直到电量增加。这可能需要比预期更多的时间。

凯尔补充说，不同的电动汽车以不同的速率进行预调节，并指出，当温度远低于冰点时，一些配备 LFP 的电动汽车将难以充分预调节。例如，特斯拉的磷酸铁锂电池车只有后轮驱动，并且可以产生一半的热量来加热电池，因为特斯拉使用电机来加热电池组。如果您居住在极冷的地区，则需要考虑这一点。在购买 LFP 驱动的电动汽车之前也许要三思而后行。

一日Bolt租赁变成三天地狱的故事

最后，视频中介绍了一个有趣的雪佛兰 Bolt 拼车故事。一名拼车司机租了一辆 Bolt 并开始接送。他租了 Bolt 一天。一天结束时，他将 Bolt 拿到充电器处充电，电量仅剩 1 英里。

充电站都满了，所以他把 Bolt 留在那里，希望稍后能回来插上电源。他不能在开着暖气的情况下留在 Bolt 里，因为那样会完全耗尽电池。三天来，他多次返回，试图找到一个空摊位。他希望只有 10 英里的续航里程，以便将 Bolt 送回租赁地点。直到第三天，一个摊位终于开放了，他可以得到急需的费用。

然而，在那三天里，博尔特司机不得不租另一辆车进行拼车（现代IONIQ混合动力车），以便他可以继续他的赚钱工作。因此，自从 Bolt 在充电器上静止不动后，他租了两辆车。他确实试图将车拖到租赁机构，但当时该地区的两家卡车公司已经不堪重负，所以不值得等待。

凯尔最后指出，乘车共享公司必须安装自己的充电站。他认为这是前进的唯一解决办法，我们倾向于同意这一点。

原文阅读

How Uber, Lyft, Electrify America, EVgo, Tesla And Lack Of Knowledge Led To Chicago's EV Disaster

Extremely cold weather is the cause, but a lot of the issues could have been avoided or rectified ahead of time.

Jan 18, 2024 at 10:48am ET

By: Eric Loveday

The tale of Teslas being stranded in Chicago and unable to charge due to the frigid weather is only a small part of a much bigger story.

In order to find out exactly what the problem was, Kyle Conner of Out of Spec Reviews on YouTube took it upon himself to fly into Chicago to experience what was going on firsthand.

Get Fully Charged

Extremely cold weather led to charging problems, but there's more to it than that.

Chicgao's recent EV charging disaster was compounded by rideshare drivers, faulty chargers and a lack of knowledge about preconditioning a battery pack and how vehicles charge in extremely cold weather.

Charging Stations Down—Tesla Superchargers Back Online, But EA And EVgo Issues Persist

What he found was a whole bunch of issues that compounded the charging problem and it wasn't limited to Teslas. In fact, Tesla Superchargers were the best of the bunch there, as usual, with the bigger problems being linked to Electrify America and EVgo charging stations.

As Kyle points out in the video, even the new Electrify America fast chargers, which were promised to be more reliable than the older units, were failing at a high rate in the frigid Chicago weather. Surprisingly, an older EA unit was functional though. The EVgo sites had issues too, with several of the chargers out of service.

Meanwhile, the Tesla Superchargers, many of which weren't functional a couple of days ago, were almost all back online by the time he arrived in Chicago. Kudos here to Tesla for working hard to get its fast chargers back up and running after a brutal sub-zero cold spell. EVgo managed to bring a couple of chargers back online by remotely rebooting them, but not all were functional when Kyle was in Chicago. The Electrify America sites largely remained offline for several days, with many still not functional when Kyle was there.

How Uber And Lyft Drivers Compounded The Problem

Let's discuss the bigger issue in Chicago though and that's the massive EV ridesharing fleet. When Kyle visited a Supercharging site in Chicago, nearly every Tesla there was either an Uber or Lyft rental car. There were Uber/Lyft Chevy Bolts and other EVs too.

These rideshare EVs clogged the charging stations and since most of these cars are rented out in an already-cold state and then often driven slowly and on very short trips, these cars never warm up sufficiently. Add in the fact that most Uber/Lyft drivers likely know next to nothing about EVs and preconditioning and you can begin to see why they contributed significantly to the charging issue in Chicago.

Additionally, most of these drivers don't know that in extremely cold weather, it can take 45 minutes to an hour after plugging in before charging starts. During this time, the car draws a small charge to heat the battery so that it can accept a charge. If you unplug during this process, then it starts over when you move to another charger. So, if you see that you are drawing a small amount of power from the charger, keep the vehicle plugged in until that rate increases. This may take much more time than anticipated.

Kyle adds that different EVs precondition at various rates and notes that some LFP-equipped EVs will struggle to sufficiently precondition when temps drop down well below freezing. For example, with Tesla, the LFP battery cars are only RWD and can make half the heat to warm the battery since Teslas use the motor to warm the pack. This is something to consider if you live in an area that sees extreme cold. Perhaps think twice before buying an LFP-powered EV.

The Tale Of The One-Day Bolt Rental That Turned Into 3 Days Of Hell

Lastly, there's an interesting Chevy Bolt rideshare story that's covered in the video. A rideshare driver rented a Bolt and proceeded to do his pick-ups and drop-offs. He had rented the Bolt for one day. At the end of the day, he took the Bolt to the charger with just 1 mile of charge remaining.

The stations were all full so he left the Bolt there in hopes of returning later to plug in. He couldn't stay in the Bolt with the heat on because that would have fully depleted the battery. Over three days, he returned various times to try to find an open stall. He was hoping to get just 10 miles of range so that the Bolt could be returned to the rental site. It wasn't until day three that a stall finally opened up and he could get his much-needed charge.

However, during those three days, the Bolt driver had to rent another car for ridesharing (a Hyundai IONIQ Hybrid) so that he could continue his money-making work. So, he had two cars on rent since the Bolt sat still at the charger. He did attempt to get it towed to the rental agency, but the two truck companies in the area were overwhelmed at the time, so it wasn't worth the wait.

Kyle concludes by stating that rideshare companies must install their own charging stations. He sees this as the only fix moving forward and we tend to agree here.