Anything you'd say to the designers of the physical blink?

I have a meeting with the designers of the Blink charger hardware soon. Anybody have anything they'd like me to share?

Please ask why the cord isn't long enough to reach the second bay of a side by side garage without a banjo string. And why is the thing so effing big...

Make it smaller and make the cord 25' as either standard or an option.

driveleaf said:

I have a meeting with the designers of the Blink charger hardware soon. Anybody have anything they'd like me to share?

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touch screen is very non-sensitive and balky.

worse still -- mine has simply stopped recording data or transmitting it. seems to be a possible hardware issue as it doesnt record charge calculations, just start and end time.
I do like the look but could do with something more compact.

someone posted on another thread a little light on the "nozzle" - I'd like that

I agree It's much larger than it needs to be. If I move, my next EVSE will probably have no screen and I may just go with the EVSEupgrade as it's portable and highly adaptable with nearly universal plug adaption. The blink folks should consider offering such a highly adaptable, slimmed down, portable EVSE if they want to stay competitive, oh and at a much lower price. I'd like to easily be able to unclip such a unit from it's base and throw it in a bag and take it with me on trips. As soon as we are out of the stat analysis phase of early adaption, few people will be so concerned with having a screen and lots of data, IMHO.
g

Start over.

I would agree that it's bigger than it needs to be and more complicated than the average Leaf owner needs (i.e. timers in the EVSE are not needed since the car has them built in). All this added complexity adds is cost to the buyer. No real value added for the consumer in the current Blink EVSE.

But mostly, I'd point out that they are behind the curve on public chargers. Eaton & AV seem to be getting more out there quickly. If they intend to be competitive in this market, they will need to differentiate their product. Here's a couple of ways I can see that they could do this:

1. Redesign the public charge to be vandal proof. A 12 year old with a baseball bat could make a blink into a pile of plastic bits in the matter of seconds. Or a desperate drug user with bolt cutters will remove the cable and salvage the copper in it faster than any security system would catch them. They will only laugh at the printing on the cable to "not recycle" as they razor-blade it off to strip out the copper cables. The price of copper isn't going down in any significant amounts, so copper theft will be a bigger problem in the future.

2. Build a public charge system that makes it easy for the owners to charge both on an hourly basis as well as the amount of electricity used. The hourly rate will be needed to make sure people don't just park their car in the spot for the day (and not shop there) and the KW used to charge the vehicle will need to be calculated into the price as cars with different charging rates come on the market. It makes no sense to me that a 2011-12 Leaf owner would pay the same flat rate for charging as a vehicle with a 6.6kwh charger that uses twice the amount of electricity.

Dave

The WiFi hardware seems of poor quality. I've had to install a WiFi range extender because the Blink was apparently having range anxiety. :shock: Other devices of mine (including my cell phone) seemed to be able to communicate over my WiFi switch from the same location, so clearly the Blink isn't performing as well.

They need to reduce the standby current draw down to a watt or two at most.

Volusiano said:

They need to reduce the standby current draw down to a watt or two at most.

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Unlikely with all the hardware in there. They are quite proud of their design, the people that designed the look thought it was really great. I wonder if they asked users or talked to the EV community first. It certainly does not seem that way. I think the design is quite poor, could have been one pice and certainly terrible from a hardware and software perspective. My limited edition cardboard is still working great though!

1) Put the charging cord on a spring-loaded reel with lock (like a roll-up shade), so I don't have to handle the cord after it's been draped across my garage floor, stepped on, etc.

2) The thing is way too big. Simplify and reduce.

3) Cut standby power consumption. A 10W standby idle consumption 24/7 costs me the same as 25-30 miles of driving per month.

Mine measures at 5 watts with the latest software... I have no problem with that.

DeaneG said:

1) 3) Cut standby power consumption. A 10W standby idle consumption 24/7 costs me the same as 25-30 miles of driving per month.

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Why do I have to recalibrate the touch screen every time it powers on?
I have found it in a "hung" state numerous times, so I turn the breaker off/on to restart it.
Then I have to go through the "touch here", "touch there", "confirm your choice" target practice game each time.
Can't that be done once at the factory? Or maybe once during initial setup and stored in NVRAM/flash?
It seems silly and time wasteful to have to do that every time.

My initial #1 annoyance was backlight on 24x7. At least they fixed that with a firmware update.

You don't have to. You can ignore it and it will then use the last calibration.

TEG said:

Why do I have to recalibrate the touch screen every time it powers on?

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Thanks, I'll do my best to share while I'm in their office.

1) Bigger. Needs to be bigger. If the EVSE is the size of a beer fridge, nobody will question the complexity and necessity of advanced infrastructure to support these modern marvels.

2) Shorter cord. What's one to do with all this superfluous cable? After all, it can't reach the far end of the car if parked the wrong way, and can't reach a second car in the garage.

3) MORE LIGHT. The screen is almost, but not quite enough to serve as garage illumination. Crank it up a bit and add some side lights.

4) Too reliable. My blink is up most of the time, and resets just two or three times per charge. If it would continuously cycle, it's possible the car would adapt or get a gentler charge.

5) WiFi -- it's overrated. If a LEAF driver can't be motivated to drill a few holes for Ethernet, they're really not a club member.

6) Wider. Taller. More flare at the base. Bigger spool. I'm seeing quite a bit of unused garage wall space here, and ECOtality needs to step it up.


And, while he's there, congratulate him on the tremendous productivity in manufacturing. I'm seeing public charging stations pop up all over San Diego, at a rate of one every five months or so. They must be rocking three shifts over there in manufacturing.

Out.

GroundLoop said:

And, while he's there, congratulate him on the tremendous productivity in manufacturing. I'm seeing public charging stations pop up all over San Diego, at a rate of one every five months or so. They must be rocking three shifts over there in manufacturing.

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In fairness to Blink, they suddenly seem to have had a fire lit under them, at least here in Seattle; after having had NO stations to speak of anywhere, period, and having basically ceded the eastside to ChargePoint, they've suddenly put in something like 30 charging stations in the past 6-7 weeks. (Obnoxiously, most of them aren't yet on the maps.) Whole Foods has charging stations now, the big Sears downtown, the big parking lot by the stadiums and train station, etc.

I suspect AeroVironment winning the I-5 'electric highway' contract in Washington and Oregon might have something to do with the fact that blink is suddenly actually installing stations. Whether or not they will /keep/ putting in stations is anyone's guess.

GroundLoop said:

1) Bigger. Needs to be bigger. If the EVSE is the size of a beer fridge, nobody will question the complexity and necessity of advanced infrastructure to support these modern marvels.

2) Shorter cord. What's one to do with all this superfluous cable? After all, it can't reach the far end of the car if parked the wrong way, and can't reach a second car in the garage.

3) MORE LIGHT. The screen is almost, but not quite enough to serve as garage illumination. Crank it up a bit and add some side lights.

4) Too reliable. My blink is up most of the time, and resets just two or three times per charge. If it would continuously cycle, it's possible the car would adapt or get a gentler charge.

5) WiFi -- it's overrated. If a LEAF driver can't be motivated to drill a few holes for Ethernet, they're really not a club member.

6) Wider. Taller. More flare at the base. Bigger spool. I'm seeing quite a bit of unused garage wall space here, and ECOtality needs to step it up.


And, while he's there, congratulate him on the tremendous productivity in manufacturing. I'm seeing public charging stations pop up all over San Diego, at a rate of one every five months or so. They must be rocking three shifts over there in manufacturing.

Out.

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Ground Loop - too funny ! LOL

The plastic reel underneath the unit is poorly designed. It's just the diameter of four tight loops of the cord, which gives an incentive to wrap the cord tightly and then try to force the nozzle into that narrow notch in the center, which is nearly impossible. After a few nights of wrestling with it I realized there is no need to do that. Even with just three loose loops, it is still hard to get the nozzle into that notch, so now I just do three loops with the nozzle hanging a foot or two over the side. They should just get rid of the notch altogether. As mentioned, it is hard to get the nozzle into the socket on the Leaf, too, but I'm not sure why. The EVSE that came with the Leaf is easy to plug in. A light on the nozzle would help, but I think it's more than that. I think it's hard to tell if you're off (e.g. rotated) by a couple of millimeters but with the Nissan EVSE the shape of the handle makes it easy to get exactly upright. Maybe the tolerances are just closer on the Blink.