Automotive Engineering - May 2024 - 16

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EV Accelerators
EV Accelerator Interview with Nathan Yang of FLO
Range anxiety once was the biggest barrier to electric vehicle acceptance. Lately, it's " where-to-charge " anxiety. Canada's largest
charger manufacturer and station provider, FLO, is expanding its U.S. network and is working to ease charge anxiety. SAE's EV
Accelerator, sponsored by Keysight, speaks with Nathan Yang, FLO's Chief Product Officer. Yang leads product innovation activities
for the company, including hardware and software.
EV Accelerator: How did FLO become
Canada's largest charging
network?
Yang: Our founder decided in 2004
it was time to do something concrete
about climate change. Electric
vehicles are the way to go, so in
2019 he founded FLO to drive EV
adoption by delivering the best
charging experience, which means
our chargers must be functional
and reliable. A CBC survey rated us
ahead of our competitors for uptime
and reliability. Such results will
help FLO gain market share because
our products just work.
EV Accelerator: What are FLO's key
technical attributes?
Yang: Our chargers have the right
firmware, a cloud to manage sensors,
and a mobile app to help EV
drivers find the chargers. We ensure
reliability from the 10-foot, the
two-foot, the one-foot experience. Our app helps you find an
EV charger in the parking lot and then makes it easy to pay
for. We use quality components made with quality materials
and aim for a mean time before failure (MTBF) of eight to 10
years-plus versus three to four years MTBF for most of our
competitors. We test connectors at 10,000 cycles. Our FLO
Ultra chargers have probably over 250 sensors. By storing
sensors in the cloud, we can organize and predict failures, and
learn from those failures in the field.
Nathan Yang
EV Accelerator: Describe differences between how FLO tests
its various charging systems for different applications.
Yang: With a residential charger or charging off-site overnight,
you plug into an electrical panel. Either requires medium-speed
charging, eight hours to fill up your car. Driving
between cities, you probably use high-speed charging on
the road, taking maybe 30 minutes for a fill-up, and testing
is quite different. DC fast charging converts high power to
your vehicle, and dissipating that power's heat and ensuring
safety requires a lot of testing. We must make sure there is a
lot of conversation between the charger and the EV, that the
car and the charger speak the same language and hear each
other well. Some signals are too low, some are too high. We
test all internal components and make sure it's safe. The
safety devices must trip when they're supposed to trip. We
also take pride in how we test residential chargers. When a
16 May 2024
family buys a FLO home charger,
they're connecting their two most
expensive assets. They don't want
thermal events to happen to either
one of them.
EV Accelerator: How will the bipartisan
infrastructure bill help FLO's
U.S. expansion?
Yang: You need a lot of EVs on the
road to justify a big charging network.
But you can't build a big
charging network without a lot of
EVs on the road. Green tech needs
government to come in and jumpstart
the effort, which can generate
local employment, like our
manufacturing facility in Auburn
Hills, Michigan.
EV Accelerator: What else do you
need to assure reliability in a
coast-to-coast charging system?
Yang: We use the cloud to detect
issues, manage and monitor the system. My domain is hardware
and software, and my counterpart in network operations
makes sure this works at charging units across the country.
We have an operating center with people watching the
screens. When there is an alarm, we try to fix it remotely and
reboot the charger. If that doesn't work, we send in a field
technician. In some instances, we repair our chargers on our
own dime to make sure EV drivers aren't left stranded.
EV Accelerator: Is FLO adopting the Tesla J3400 connecting
standard?
Yang: Our network's most popular model is Tesla's Model 3.
We have already provisioned a lot of our hardware for the
FLO Ultra charger to be able to support it. SAE adapted that
Tesla connector for all vehicles that may be higher current AC
and higher power DC. Our new products will support it natively.
We will also continue to support CHAdeMO.
EV Accelerator: Where can we go to learn more about FLO?
Yang: FLO.com. There's also a FLO mobile app. We also have
roaming agreements with big networks, so you won't have to
pay a roaming charge for using those networks.
Watch the full interview with Nathan.
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING

http://www.FLO.com

Automotive Engineering - May 2024

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