Chevrolet Blazer EV Left Me Stranded in Rural Virginia

Chevrolet Blazer EV Left Me Stranded in Rural Virginia(insideevs.com)

30 points by dakna 2 years ago | 42 comments

amluto 2 years ago |

I’m still amazed that companies build EVs that will fail in a way that requires service if they don’t like a charger. A friend’s early Audi e-Tron would fail and require extensive service if connected to a J1772 charger that advertised more current capacity than the car could handle. (That is really pathetic BTW. It seemed like the car’s onboard charger would draw excessive current and dry itself if given permission to do so.)

Or maybe the Blazer wasn’t breaking so much as charging in a highly degraded mode because it didn’t like the charger’s output?

malfist 2 years ago | |

The crazy thing is current is pulled, not pushed.

Give something 1,000 Amps and if it needs only 5mA, it'll only pull 5mA unless something is bad wrong in its power handling

rational_indian 2 years ago | | |

Current can be "pushed" if you increase the voltage.

ZeroGravitas 2 years ago |

https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/2024-chevy-blazer-ev-long-t...

Edmunds seem to have had a similarly catastrophic time with their long term review purchase.

rnk 2 years ago | |

There are multiple reports of similar problems on related vehicles like lyriq, also see reddit for some. There's nothing good there. Behind it there's the mysterious lack of details about underlying anemic ultium production in general.

pornel 2 years ago |

Like nearly all legacy auto makers, they're institutionally incapable of writing decent software.

joshribakoff 2 years ago | |

Whats an example of a “non legacy” manufacturer that has perfect software?

Im currently in the process of selling my Tesla (“non legacy manufacturer”) back under lemon law because of constant hardware and software issues like windows intermittently refusing to roll up (despite 6+ service center visits), windshield wipers not working, random alerts about “faults” they allegedly can’t locate in their logs, getting alerts on my phone that windows are left open when they’re not, lane departure warnings when the setting is turned off and i am not departing a lane, loud popping noises on speakers followed by infotainment “crashes”, etc.

rnk 2 years ago | | |

That's a lemon. That's unacceptable of course. We do know from millions of teslas sold that they work fine over the mass of cars. They are made by people, they'll have problems, they will break. But the sum of experiences is good outcome. The opposite seems to be the case with the ultium cars.

justinsaccount 2 years ago | | |

A lot of that almost sounds like something is shorted in the wiring in the car, and the software doesn't understand that something is physically wrong.

ryandrake 2 years ago | |

Lots of hardware companies (not just auto makers) don't understand software. They treat it like just another line item on the BOM, like a bolt, a windshield wiper blade or a door panel. The purchasing guy finds some 'software' that barely meets the minimum written requirements at the cheapest price, they scoop it onto the product somewhere on the assembly line, and then never think about it again. This is how we get things like our TV's (pre-Google/Apple) on-screen menus and our printer's setup UI.

wannacboatmovie 2 years ago | | |

> The purchasing guy finds some 'software' that barely meets the minimum written requirements at the cheapest price, they scoop it onto the product somewhere on the assembly line, and then never think about it again.

Are you implying that car manufacturers are window shopping for off-the-shelf software to run the core embedded logic of their complicated and highly specialized electric motor vehicles? And there is such a plethora of OTS offerings they can go with the lowest bidder?

hulitu 2 years ago | | |

> The purchasing guy finds some 'software' that barely meets the minimum written requirements at the cheapest price

You're talking about Microsoft Office 365, right ?

Software for your car (except Tesla early models) is written by SW engineers (not coders), under strict quality requirements, with very big time pressure. And it is tested. And it is an item on the BOM because, if it does not work, it is not released.

sonicanatidae 2 years ago | | |

Calling printer setup interfaces a "UI" is being kind, imo.

polski-g 2 years ago | | |

The fact that DDWRT is still better than the shit Netgear puts out blows my mind. You're a billion dollar company, just copy their UI.

TheLoafOfBread 2 years ago | |

So Rivian is now legacy automaker, bricking it's infotainment via update - https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/14/a-software-update-bricked-...

rnk 2 years ago | | |

That was an epic screw up. Hopefully the only one that ever happens to them. New auto (tesla, rivian, ?) have generally avoided them.

Some of the details that got out about what happened at Rivian:

Problem cause #1: to push an update, you had to cut and paste various version numbers together onto a command line. Someone messed that up, oops, meant to say this instead of that.

Problem cause #2: bad test strategy. The dev tested it before he pushed it, so no worries? Except the dev test vehicle was a "special test car" that had extra security tokens on it. So the install worked and test passed. But regular cars didn't have those certs.

So lots of obvious things to fix there. No command line mucking about to push a real production release! And test the final thing on a regular fucking car with no special dev stuff.

Tesla has multiple hardware versions, and their main panel of the original S has a v1 and v2 main console hardware. They pushed a release once that broke things in the map for the original version that caused it to use an excessive amount of cpu. I got this one, seems like it just made everything really really slow and some things failed. It took them like a 6 weeks or more because they got around to undoing the fix. I think part of that was all of them had the updated cpu so they didn't see it. It was still driveable, just degraded infotainment ui.

VW has had software updates that they would not push over the air because they took so long the 12v battery could run out before it finished, risking bricking the car (main battery couldn't charge the 12v during os update). Solution, bring your car to the dealer to do the update. Apparently also considered giving everyone a better 12v battery.

RalfWausE 2 years ago |

It has a reason why i drive an old Audi 80 B2 without any software on board...

confd 2 years ago |

This sounds like a rough experience. Tangentially, I’m curious about what the future of cities will look like as EVs become more common and charging infrastructure expands. In what ways will cities change the areas surrounding these charging stations to make the duration of the vehicle’s charge more pleasant?

whycome 2 years ago | |

Canada just announced that it want no gas cars (hybrid fine i think?) by 2035 with yearly percentage requirements for manufacturers (eg, 40% of vehicles to be EV, etc).

That seems like a pretty insane timeline if they're not actually driving the work for the charging infrastructure. There are way too many homes/places that would have to be retrofitted.

callalex 2 years ago | | |

I assume you mean no NEW cars in 2035. Meaning used cars will be around for another 20+ years.

hedora 2 years ago | |

Many charging stations are located inside parks or near nice sit down restaurants.

I think this makes long term sense. You mays well enjoy the 30-60 minutes it will take the car to charge.

seanmcdirmid 2 years ago | | |

It isn’t really 30-60 minutes though. I’ve never had a charging session go over 20 minutes, which is too long to sit in the car and too short to grab more than something at the convenience store or maybe to go from a fast food restaurant. But I always charge to 80-85%.

Maybe an L2 charger at a park or mall is better for a longer term stop, since unlike an L3 charger, it takes an hour or two to make any decent progress.