Electric Evolution Podcast with Liz Allan - chatting all things EV charging maintenance

Well this was a bit of a milestone moment for me!

Liz's Electric Evolution podcast has hosted pretty much a who's who of leading voices across the EV landscape for some time now, so I happily accepted the chance to join as episode 141 of this illustrious show.

It's the one headshot I'm happy with so I'll use it as often as I can!

You can read on Full Circle CI's website here.

Watch on YouTube here.

Or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music here:

It's always great to get the opportunity to speak about the challenges we're helping tackle with Safer Charging but when the conversation flows with someone who gets the bigger picture it can take things in a more interesting direction. At least I hope that's what came across in the episode!

One of the examples we speak through is that of a charging inspection we carried out where we spotted a damaged cable caused by the cable management system retracting onto a metal casing over time (you can see a bit more detail elsewhere in this blog). This is a prime example of the theory:

"Time erodes user attention as well as hardware."

If that charger were to have had the same fault appear immediately after installation, I would wager a fair bit of money on that fault being detected by someone using the charger. During those initial interactions, we pay much closer attention to whatever we're dealing with; taking time to look over the unit, read instructional signage, perhaps even check over the pins on the tethered cable.

Can you say with honesty that you always check pins for signs of damage before plugging a cable into your car?

I doubt many readers can answer 'yes' to that, and that's just a simple glance over something connecting with your vehicle. Now consider all elements of an installation upsteam of that charging connector and you can see where the point of this message is heading.

We're not expecting (or in any way encouraging!) individuals to go looking in distribution cabinets but that's where we come in. It is important these checks are regularly performed on all elements of the charging infrastructure by competent individuals.

EV Charging Maintenance - Cadence

Getting the frequency of visits right can be a tricky thing. Having established a general need, tailoring that to your business can mean addressing several factors such as quantity of charge cycles, public/private network, operational disruption caused etc.

Luckily, we happen to know a thing or two about getting the correct schedule to suit each client. As EV charging maintenance is all we do, we're not distracted with other priorities so we can take the time to build something that works for each client.

We know safe EV charging has four key risk compenents: electrical, fire, site environment and useability. Not every site is going to have the same exposure level to each of these for instance, a private fleet depot will likely have only regular users who have defined operating practices for using those chargers. This removes much of the 'random chance' of spurious user interactions.

However, we can't be complacent about any of these four categories; things change over time, and we know time erodes user attention as well as hardware. Therefore, we will tend to recommend a maximum of 1-year between full testing cycles in most scenarios. This would include our EVCICR, which covers all four of the risk criteria mentioned above.

Increases in suggested cadence may be due to public network usage, high utilisation fleet requirements, chargers located in coastal regions etc. We'll always strive to strike a blanace of cost-effectiveness and risk mitigation but often there's a strong business case for increased inspection activity in these scenarios as the cost of inaction can often be much greater than the cost of action.

Chris Cheetham

Founder, CEO & Chief Binman