[AntronX]

Got this in the mail this morning:

Thank you for being an EVgo customer. EVgo is always working to serve our community of EV drivers with safety and reliability as our first priorities. With that in mind and a goal of being as open and transparent with our users as possible, we are notifying our customers of a change to our Terms of Service related to charging services and adapters permitted at EVgo stations as well as other minor updates to the Terms of Service.

Our updated Terms of Service will go into effect on Monday, February 22, 2021.

In an effort to easily convey the changes from the former version of our Terms of Service here are the highlights:

Authorized Charging Adapters

For your safety, EVgo only permits the use of automaker-manufactured charging adapters on EVgo charging stations or with EVgo’s charging network (“Authorized Adapters”). EVgo prohibits the use of all other adapters (“Unauthorized Adapters”) on EVgo’s network and charging stations.

Prohibition of Home-Built Electric Vehicles, Modified Vehicles, and Modified Chargers

Similarly, EVgo prohibits the use of all home-built electric vehicles, home-built onboard chargers, and vehicles that contain personally-modified chargers (“Unauthorized Vehicles and Chargers”).


Ok great, but how will they find out ?

 

[brian_]

I assume that J1772 and CHAdeMO communications do not include any specific vehicle identifier, so the actual EVSE cannot tell what is attached.

Do you need to provide any vehicle information to EVgo, or does your account provide only financial information? Since the system supports charging using only a credit card for payment and identification, I don't see any way for them to know what the vehicle is, other than what you might answer to on-screen prompts. The FAQ does suggest that even with a credit card you need a subscription or single session authorization by phone, so they do identify the customer and presumably ask about the vehicle.

The whole thing may be a legal disclaimer intended to protect them from liability retroactively: a DIY EV goes up in flames, and they say "but the customer accepted a contract stating that they would not charge a DIY EV, so it's not our fault"... even though they do nothing to keep DIY EVs from being charged.

 

[john61ct]

Not saying they will try to enforce this, but with the 24x7 360° surveillance panopticon that is modern life these days

if they want to find out, they can.

Require a VIN to ign up, AI parsing the video feed, plate readers are old hat. . .

 

[AntronX]

They do have my car make and model on file but no tag or VIN. I don't remember if I provided that or they somehow detected my car's info via the charger. If there is some kind of vehicle type identifier in Chademo protocol, it should be easy to spoof to make your DIY conversion appear as Nissan Leaf. Don't know how things are with CCS.

 

[Isaac97]

That's unfortunate but not exactly unprecedented, 50Kw charging has a potential for severe hazards.

Chademo does not have vehicle identifiers. CCS supports them but IIRC they are not a required part of the spec.

I have been using EVGo to fast charge and never needed an account, just swiped the credit card.

 

[brian_]

I have been using EVGo to fast charge and never needed an account, just swiped the credit card.

Good to know. The EVGo website is inconsistent on that point, saying in one place that an unregistered user can just use their card, and in another place that they need to all for a one-time authorization... and that changes EVGo's opportunity to collect vehicle and owner information.

 

[brian_]

Not saying they will try to enforce this, but with the 24x7 360° surveillance panopticon that is modern life these days

if they want to find out, they can.

Require a VIN to ign up, AI parsing the video feed, plate readers are old hat. . .

Yes, the tech is all there. For any system not using information provided at registration, there are still hurdles: they can read the plate, but in some jurisdictions that doesn't get them vehicle registration information because it is not available to the public. Video images can be analysed, but machine vision is limited in effectiveness for tasks such as recognizing the make and model (and completely unable to detect internal modifications of the vehicle), and it is too expensive to be worthwhile.

Frankly, I doubt EVGo cares in the slightest what you are charging, as long as they can sell you a charge. This is all likely the result of a risk analysis finding that they could be liable for damage or injuries if something physically goes wrong... such as the battery of a "I don't need no stinkin' BMS" advocate going up in flames in their station.

I would be very surprised if anything at all were done except after-the-fact... and that can be as simple as manually looking at the video after a reported incident (fire or charging equipment damage) to say "hey that's not a Leaf" as fodder for the lawyers.

 

[john61ct]

they can read the plate, but in some jurisdictions that doesn't get them vehicle registration information because it is not available to the public. .

So naive!

Yes joe schmoe can't get it by asking DMV

but the data aggregators / brokers cross-reference and sell on

all kinds of data that is illegally acquired, including live location data off the cell towers.

There is no one in authority that cares, very little privacy protection, what little is there is not enforced.

HIPAA compliance is one possible exceptional area, but I'd bet not even that.

Video images can be analysed, but machine vision is limited in effectiveness for tasks such as recognizing the make and model (and completely unable to detect internal modifications of the vehicle), and it is too expensive to be worthwhile.

In this case all the need is the plate

or at most "not the vehicle registered in the system".

Also, using humans through Mechanical Turk is pennies per transaction.

I am not disagreeing with your "this is probably only legal CYA".

Just saying if they wanted to enforce it they could, cheaply and easily

 

[brian_]

I'm pretty sure their lawyers said something like "put in a clause to protect us when some idiot customer screws up", not "break the law to run an intelligence operation to prevent people from buying our product". In fact, running such a monitoring system and not stopping someone with an unauthorized vehicle could open them up to liability.

 

[john61ct]

I clearly stated I am not arguing against that theory, quite likely the case.

But the "intelligence" process is just a matter of paying a very small amount of money, the data is all out there.

And "illegal" really is defined by enforcement, and TPTB are definitely not so inclined