Hey all, leased two of my cars from a broker on leasehackr and thought i would post this story here to warn fellow EV owners. Wife’s MB EQS450+ was having trouble charging at Electrify America (EA)last week, the charger simply won’t plug into the car charging port. Took it to the dealer yesterday and they said the charging port was damaged, most likely by a previous EA charger leaving stuff welded to the charging port. They also said they had few cars with similar problem. One of them was so badly welded together the charging cable had to be cut off in order to tow / drive the car. Cost of repair is $4000+. Talked with insurance and they said this is not covered with our comprehensive coverage. Dealer said we could go file a claim against EA. I have reached out to MB, EA and insurance (to get everything on paper). A search on Google and you can see these kinds of stories. Make sure you check the charger before plugging in but even if you do you can’t really be sure the contact is good. This may very well be my last EV for now. Not worth the risk.
Sounds like yet another reason to avoid EA rather than to abandon EVs
It is a great car and all but for someone with my luck i will stay away for a while…
Unfortunately, when I search about this I just get your posts (under klineastwood and klin6). Any chance you have links to similar occurrences?
Personally, I have never charged an EV other than home. I feel like they’re great appliances to get around town and for daily commuting. But EV’s don’t seem ready (IMO) for longer trips where edge and corner cases can wreak serious havoc. And unfortunately, if there’s an issue, the companies and other EV fans will just blame the operator and not blame the infrastructure. This results in a really sour taste in anyone’s mouth when they realize EV’s are only great when they work, but total piss when stuff doesn’t go as expected.
These are some links i found yesterday while doing some research. Yes, this is rare so all i can say is my wife has extremely bad luck when it comes to cars and my local mechanics agrees. She doesn’t seems bothered since i pay the bills. 
https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1600od6/electrify_america_station_kills_2_id4s/
Got it, thanks for sharing these links.
Yeah it looks like the high-speed portion of the CCS port is the issue in these links. An EV literally cannot charge at home if you plug in a J1772 Level 2 charger with a CCS adaptor on it. It’s basically impossible for you to damage those pins except for at a DC fast charging station.
But at the same time, it also looks like similar occurrences are very isolated. Which results in the worst possible experience for you, the customer, since every company/automaker/EV-Fan will initially blame you 100% for this.
Companies will fight tooth and nail to shift responsibility, since that’s what they’re trained to do. I think based on the dollars involved, your only recourse is to pay to have the car fixed, then submit in small claims court against EA. They’ll likely protest, but it’s possibly a claim you can win a positive judgement if you don’t retain counsel. You may have some photo evidence at the scene, and may have the receipt for the botched charging session. And you have documentation both your insurance and EA initially rejected your attempt at having them support your cause. It’s more legwork for you, but it could be resolved in your favor.
Whether you hop back on the EV bandwagon is up to you.
If you’re expecting empathy online, forget about it. For some reason EV fans will think you’re overreacting for having encountered an edge case. Like just hop back on the horse, it won’t happen again! Right. I’ve encountered my fair share of edge cases with EVs and aside from a few empathetic souls like @z0lt3c , by and large most EV fans will just think you suck for complaining.
I would claim vandalism with the insurance company. It could have just as easily been a criminal act while the car was unattended. It’s not of benefit for you to actual determine what really happened. It should be covered as a comprehensive claim. My other goto is to just say an animal did it (hit a deer, mouse chewed on it).
If you can’t get it covered, find a new agent. They have 1 job.
Also… 2024 Mercedes EQS 450 580 ELECTRICAL WIRING HARNESS CHARGING PORT 2965403930 OEM | eBay – Don’t fix this at the dealer if you must pay out of pocket.
Thank you for the insights. Yes, small claims court is definitely on my list of action. The dealer stated that MB is actually filing a lawsuit against EA so they know about these incidents.
Thanks for the link. I am afraid to touch this car or even let anyone other than the dealer to touch this car. If anything goes wrong i am on the hook. The vandalism argument actually crossed my mind this morning. All i know is the DC pins were damaged, i should not have to determine what caused the damage. But i am sure they have a play book just for this.
IMO that $4,000 quote from the dealer is probably $800 parts and 8 hours of labor or something nuts. Don’t try to do this repair on your own haha.
I would change it myself or let a local mechanic do it if this is not an expensive EV on lease. Another lesson learned.
Just want to update everybody and give credit where credit is due. MBUSA has contacted me and stated that they will repair this for free. Thank you everyone for helping me out! I really appreciate all the helps i got. I will avoid using any public chargers from now on, if possible.