Lectron CEO Explains The Vortex Plug NACS To CCS1 Issue And Its Resolution

the Tesla Supercharger network has begun to open to non Tesla vehicles but in order to be able to use the superchargers the non- Tesla electric vehicles need to use an adapter now there's many of them have already came out on the market and I've begun to review them one of the ones I reviewed was the electron Vortex adapter shortly after I did my review the adapter was recalled for a safety issue and I did a followup video explaining exactly what happened and what you should do if you have one of the affected adapters I then reached out to Leon's CEO Chris mewald and asked if he would be willing to come on state of charge and explain what happened and what the company is doing to make things right he agreed to do so and that's what we're going to do here today okay so I'm here today with Chris marwal the CEO of electron now if you don't know who electron is you probably don't know an electric vehicle because electron's one of the biggest suppliers of electric vehicle charging equipment and um what I mean by that is they don't just uh make char Chargers like most companies just will make evsc charging equipment electron is taken like a holistic approach and they want to supply with everything that you need to charge your electric vehicle including EX extension cables connector holsters with cable management and adapters they sell a ton of adapters pretty much every type of adapter that you could need for an electric vehicle electron sells it and that's really what brings us here today we're going to talk about the electron Vortex adapter that's the new adapter that allows authorized non-tesla vehicles to charge on Tesla superchargers Chris thanks for coming on stateof charge again I appreciate it thanks for having me Tom okay so Chris we're here to talk really about the electron Vortex adapter and as I said that's the one that uh will allow authorized Vehicles the vehicle has to be authorized to use Tesla superchargers non non- Tesla vehicles and for those of you that um don't follow this channel I've already had Chris on before about I think it was back in February we were talking about this cuz this is a big adapter this was big news for the automobile industry that finally non- Tesla vehicles were going to be able to access Tesla superchargers and you would need an adapter to do so now Tesla was going to make their own adapter but we knew third-party companies were going to uh come out with these adapters and uh I have a good history using electron products so electron was one of the companies that I decided to deal with and get an adapter and make a review of it which I did and Chris came on stateof charge in February to talk about this new adapter that was just about ready to come out and and then he sent me one I did a review of it it actually fared very well in my review but then a couple of weeks later when he started shipping them to customers um some customers noticed that there was a flaw in the adapter and what happened was the uh KNX connector would could pull out of the adapter while it was charging with and that's not supposed to happen the the adapter supposed to lock the both connectors the the the KNX connector and also the the adapter itself to the vehicle and only when you pressed one of the tabs could it be released so there was a potential for the adapter to be pulled apart while power was flowing through it which is something you never want to have so um we reached out to Chris talked to Chris set up this followup interview the adapter was subsequently recalled and uh now they have re-engineered it I think they have re-engineered we're going to talk to Chris about that now talk about exact ly what the company did to correct this problem and uh start shipping out the adapters that won't do that okay so Chris first off I want to get something out of the way that was kind of like a basic question I noticed when I read the recall notied that um it mentioned a company called drop cases limited and I don't know who they are so I I'd like you to maybe explain who is drop case limited why were they involved in this recoil why wasn't it just electron sure yeah so um drop cases limited is the parent company uh that owns multiple product lines and lectron happens to be one of the product lines so electron in itself is not the legal entity the legal entity that does stand behind it is uh name drop cases limited and you can also see this on the packaging so every packaging from electron says a trademark of that company okay great so I I figured that was a case but I want to hear that for you to know for sure was this a electron mistake like a design flaw or was this uh contract manufacturing didn't build it to electrons specifications and also regardless of how that happened was how did this get past quality control and uh could you please explain what steps you're taking to make sure it doesn't happen again yeah um everything is electron mistake right every product that leaves the factory with electron name is ultimately electron mistake and at our responsibility um in terms of root cause analysis um the issue came from uh the supplier that manufactures the or supplies the nacs latge they're a very very thin tolerances um for this particular badge some products were outside of the tolerances and uh because we only did batch uh testing for the adapter and didn't test 100 % of the product some products slip through in terms of um corrective action we've been working with the ledge supplier to narrow the tolerances to add 100% End of Line testing on the vendite and we also added 100% uh inline testing for uh electron products for this specific issue so we've taken corrective action we assumed responsibility we're going to make sure that this does never happen again stateof charge is powered by CIT after I've helped you decide which electric vehicle charging equipment you're going to buy Follow the link in the description of my videos and let the EV charging installation professionals at CIT install it okay and um you know I I know I got one you sent me a new one I have it here it seems to work just fine but um number one have you started shipping these out to all the your customers and um if so have um have all the customers that received the faulty ones received their replacement units already yeah so the issue was fixed uh already we've shipped uh adapters with a with a renewed ledge you should have received one have you had a chance to look at the new adapter yet I have yeah I have it right here actually and I mean physically it's hard to tell a difference the the the the um tab that unlocks the KN side the spring is much stronger than previous I mean it really got to squeeze this thing to pull it and when you release it it pushes out really hard the other one kind of it did feel a little weak but I mean if it work it worked it would be fine but I have a feeling that spring was part of it is I'm I'm assuming because it's that's the only thing I could tell that's different the tab inside doesn't appear to be different but I'd have to take it apart but the tolerances are so tiny um that it's it's hard to to see with a with a blind eye uh just with a with with the with with with the eyes um so we started shipping uh new adapters with a fixed ledge and um customers that are affected will be contacted through the channels advised by Nitsa and we're in the process of making this right okay so you have some but not all basically some of them have been shipped out but not all of them yes but a lot of in terms of back orders or replacements for the for the for the rec the The Replacements the back orders is another story you have to tell me when do you think you'll get your back orders filled because so many of my followers after watching my video my review of it went out and ordered it and now I'm getting emails and messages saying hey Tom some of them weren't even aware of the problem they're like you know what's going on with this I ordered it 2 months ago and I'm still haven't had it yet um so uh you know how if you can maybe you can maybe you can't Can you estimate how long it's going to take for all the people to get their replacement you're going to send those out first I assume and then to fulfill your back orders so I can maybe tell people about how long they they're going to be waiting to get their their adapter yeah in terms of Replacements uh NSA compliant notifications are being sent out right now and customers will receive a first class uh letter with a return label and uh they can return the adapt and will be sent a replacement immediately okay so they have to return first before they get the replacement get in touch with us that's the normal process but obviously we're here to Delight customers yeah okay um in terms of the back orders we've been ramping up production and um we shipped out a fair amount of units in the last couple of weeks I hope by the second week of June we will be able to work through all of the back orders and have an adapter in customer hands okay just in time for launch on our other retail channels Amazon Best Buy Home Depot Lowe's and others okay very good right now it's only available through your website that's right yeah okay speaking of the website is there information on the website that people can go to let's say they got one of these and and uh you know they want to return it because they're concerned you know it was in the r they they don't know if it was in the recall it wasn't is there like a a place on your website where people can get information about this yeah um so it we know exactly which customers have been affected because we have um serial numbering for each of the product so traceability is is really good so we have we know exactly which batches have been affected and we're able to match the batch numbers with the order numbers from the website so every customer that could potentially be affected will receive a letter in the mail and we'll know okay go yeah and that's the default way of of of contacting customers um as is also required by nitan okay so uh Chris there was a section in the recall that stated customers that paid for a pre-notification remedy will be eligible for a reimbursement in accordance with drop case limited's forthcoming reimbursement plan can you explain what this means because I I took that as almost saying you could go buy an adapter from another brand and that's my remedy I need an adapter so I'm going to buy one from someone else and now you have to reimburse me um could you explain exactly what that section meant so if you purchase a Vortex plaque and it's impacted by the recall will'll give you a free return label and replace the item right uh another scenario is if you bought a new vort text plug because of the recall issue without waiting for the recall notice without waiting for the uh return label and so on so forth we will also reimburse you for the new item that you've bought okay so to be clear you can't buy a competitor's adapter and get reimburse I wouldn't imagine you could but that case the legal you know uh it it made it appear like well if whatever your remedy is we'll reimburse you for it so but I I I figured that wasn't going to be the case but I thought I'd ask MH okay so next what about UL 2252 certification the last time you and I had this conversation back in February you said that you were about to submit it or you already submitted the adopter because I mean this is this actually unfortunately for you and I think for the whole industry came at such a bad time because people are talking about not using third party adapter we can't trust them they're unsafe and you know electron has a long history of making good quality Equipment of the reasons why I I I selected this one out of the multiple ones out there to to to to review and um uh you know and then this happens it makes it look like you know you you if you don't buy a safety certified adapter you know if you don't use one you're in trouble but meanwhile there is no C certification yet 2L UL 2252 is going to be the certification however it's not ready yet um but you had said the last time that you were submitting it for uh certification what's going on with that yeah so we've submitted it uh around February time the testing is now 80% completed and after the testing is completed we will receive a UL 2252 test report right um currently Ur 2252 is in draft stage and products can only become bu listed after the new standard is fully published we expect the full to be published by the end of 2024 and in the meantime we can just do as good as a job we can working with UL with the pre uh published testing um it's also worth pointing out that because the standard isn't published nobody can be UL listed for this particular standard so uh things are still changing and uh but we're working as closely with URS as possible was this a pre uh recoil adapter that you submitted to them did you you have to swap it with a new one or did that specific one you sent not have the problem that specific one didn't have that issue uh because it became from the same batch that you received for your review yeah my my initial one yeah okay great yeah that didn't have didn't have the problem okay so now I received my replacement adapter the one I said that works fine that I have here which is great and along with that a member of your team sent me a video which I'm going to display on this interview also that is meant to show people the proper way of using the adapter and according to this video what you're supposed to do is plug the adapter into the ccs1 port first then attach the KNX connector to the other side not the other way around and then once you're done charging you remove the KNX connector and then you remove the adapter from the vehicle I haven't seen any of the other companies specifically say this is how it has to be done in fact I think one of the other companies that makes it says to do it the other way um which you know uh uh you know put the adapter on the connector first then plug the whole thing into the vehicle um you know why is it that you are making it a point to even make a video and say this is how you use this yeah so in the uh current version of U 2252 that we're working off there is a section that says I'm quoting here always connect the adapter to the vehicle Inlet first and then connect the vehicle connector to the adapter when disconnecting the order should be reversed so this is the current language in the UL 2252 document that manufacturers are working on and uh that's how we're communicating this to our customers I have to ask you one thing uh because of this this the reason why I really looked into this and the video caught my eye was there's a video online of somebody that I think it's name is crazy Postman is his YouTube name and he showed that he couldn't remove the KNX connector from the adapter and the speculation was it was because it wasn't attached to the ccs1 port is that the case that it won't come out unless it's attached to the vehicle you have to do it in that order it will be much harder yes um so what we try I think it would be great if you could do a demonstration with a vehicle in the wake of this video uh where you show when you actually insert the adapter into the ccs and and then remove the next kpler uh when it's inserted it's actually easy um I think the video you're referring to is um not necessarily a situation that customers would encounter because uh they have actually have a stable car to connect the cup room okay and and don't worry I will I'll make a video of it for sure um you know I need to follow up on my previous video Even In addition to this video with now that I have the adapter and um you know re-review it and talk about what happened and the changes you made to make it uh improved so I'll I'll be on that really soon um uh don't worry about that so listen I think I got mostly what I what what I want here um uh but last question what I'd like to it's not even really a question as much as an opportunity uh this obviously uh Chris has um been a black gue for electron uh it's probably a limited black eyy because I I don't know how many people know about this it's not some really wi this is kind of like the EV nerds that as soon as the adapters were ready they went out and ordered them from yours and A to Z and they're waiting on the ones from from for for Ford and rivan so I don't think it's a it's it's it's like you know millions of people know about this there's a there's a small pool of people but those people that know about it I think now might be looking at electron In a Different Light they might be saying gez you know I always kind of I I I felt good about electron but after seeing this I'm a little concerned about quality control um I know you talked a little bit about it in the beginning but you know what what can you do to help restore faith that electron makes high quality safe charging equipment yeah look I I would have obviously preferred a scenario where um nobody would have ever made a mistake um but we did make a mistake uh we took corrective action and made really meaningful changes and I think setbacks like this are the opportunity for really deep organizational learning uh the majority of feedback that we received regarding this voluntary recall so we we took it out in the open we worked with regulators and uh we were open kimono about this um the majority of feedback we received from customers and as well under comments under your videos has been relatively positive uh saying that we we acted swiftly we've uh done this out in out in the open and uh We've complied with all laws and regulations um so we've made meaningful improvements um and we're certain that something like this will not happen again okay well um listen we'll be we'll be here watching and I I get all of your equipment your chargers your adapters I review them all so if uh if there's another problem um I'll be sure to uh make sure I I call you on that but the you to mention Absolut keep us honest and our feet to the fire to this point uh you know mostly everything that I've uh reviewed from you guys has been pretty solid I recommend uh a bunch of your products on on my other videos so you know and like I said that's one of the reasons why I wanted to deal with you I know you know within months there's going to be dozens of companies selling these uh these adapters and most of them uh from my experience with the other adapters some of these companies have have made they're very low quality and unsafe and that's why to me I even was I had it I was taken aback a little by this problem because I'd been somebody that had said yet electron makes good stuff you know if electron puts it out sell it and then you know we get a little bit of an issue right out of the gate and uh you know I I I think um uh I I took a little hit as well as you guys did but I'm I'm appreciative that you came out here uh CEO of the company and uh you know you know was willing to talk to me about this you didn't hide from it uh it sounds like you made the right um moves and uh you said that you're going to be uh you know now line testing 100% of the products that's that's unusual uh you know I know the industry you know that there's some companies test more than others but um you know it's it's super important if if if another issue like this would to follow up back to back it would be it would be tough for you guys and uh hopefully that doesn't happen people make mistakes uh you know products get made incorrectly but it's how the company uh deals with it that I think wins or loses customers and so far you know I think you guys are dealing with this headon and uh hopefully you put this behind you now and uh you could start shipping them out to the uh the dozens and dozens of uh my followers that have been waiting for these since uh January or February and they put their order in and they're they're asking me when are they when are they going to get it but um thanks for coming on Chris uh you know hopefully this isn't the last time we'll we'll we'll we'll chat about some other products in the future I appreciate you coming on and good luck getting this behind you and uh bringing us high quality electric vehicle charging equipment wonderful thanks for the encouraging words Tom [Music] he

Channel: State Of Charge

Views: 9,572

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Id: pSnmkQwkbSY

Length: 22min 33sec (1353 seconds)

Published: Sun May 26 2024