Rivian owner Anson Wong says that his Rivian R1T was plugged into an Electrify America charger for about one minute before he heard a loud boom from the charging stall. Two errors popped up on his vehicle and he says the charger fried his battery and battery management system. It’s at least the third instance of an EV pulling up to an Electrify America charging station before having to be towed away.
To be very clear, there’s no telling at this stage whether or not the charging stations, the vehicles, or something else is to blame. In fact, the reason behind each incident could be entirely different. Nevertheless, a Rivian R1T, a Ford F-150 Lightning, and a Chevrolet Bolt all suffered similar fates at Electrify America charging stations.
Wong tells Carscoops that “after Rivian and EA inspected my car and had it towed and all that, no word from EA. But Rivian is very good with me, they had a whole engineering team show up and look at my car at the service center and telling me [sic] at minimum I will get a new battery pack and charge port.
More: Ford F-150 Lighting Evidently Bricked While Charging At Electrify America Station
He needs a new charge port because, in his words, it ended up welded to the charging cable. He sent us the photo above and it certainly seems to show some discoloration around the port. Of the three incidents related to EA chargers, this is the only one with a stuck or “welded” charging cable.
In the other truck-related incident, Eric Roe says that an EA charging station “fried” his truck. In that situation, the F-150 Lightning ended up getting fixed by Ford but neither the automaker nor the charging company admitted any fault.
A third instance, this time with a Chevrolet Bolt took place in Chipley Florida where the owner says that an Electrify America charger “sent so much power through [sic] car that it fried ever wire in my Chevrolet bolt battery and rendering over $20,000 in damages.” In fact, they go on to say that they’re seeking legal counsel to go after the charging company.
Again, there’s no way to say with any certainty who’s exactly at fault right now but it’s worth noting that the consistent link here is the Electrify America charging network.
We’ll keep our eyes peeled for more instances and we’ve reached out to Rivian and Electrify America regarding the situation. We’ll update this post if we hear back.