ABB E-mobility makes a wide range of EV charging stations and related products. With the announcement of its new A400 All-in-One charger, the company acknowledges the industry’s stubborn reliability problems, and introduces some features designed to deliver a more user-friendly charging experience.

“The A400 has been developed with a consumer-centric design approach focused on achieving the highest charging success rates possible,” says ABB. “With its intuitive user interface displayed on a large 32-inch screen, the A400 is as easy and familiar to use as your smartphone. It guides the user step by step and confirms the charging status and completion of the charging process with the ambition of a 99% charging success rate.”

The A400 “is more than just a hardware product. It comes with 24/7 service-level agreements (SLAs) that target 99% charging success rates, as well as 97% uptime and fast service response times.”

ABB notes that many fleets and owner/operators seem to focus on installing the highest-power chargers, and neglect the quality of the charging experience. “We need to find a better balance between just installing more power on the one hand and more reliability and more power sharing on the other. That’s why ABB E-mobility designed the A400 with the aim of achieving a 10-year product lifetime, high reliability and, most importantly, enabling our customers to sell energy at the lowest cost.”

• Two charging ports provide 200 kW of continuous charging power to two vehicles, or up to 400 kW for a single vehicle.
• Silicon carbide power modules developed and produced in-house, arranged in modular 100 kW blocks, allow two vehicles to be charged simultaneously in 50 kW increments to ensure that only the required power is drawn.
• Two-phase cooling technology (liquid to vapor to liquid) is more reliable and efficient, and offers lower maintenance costs than traditional liquid-cooled cable solutions, according to ABB.
• Payment flow integrated into the charger’s user interface eliminates one of the main causes for low charging success rates: a lack of interoperability with third-party payment systems.

“The A400 has been designed from the ground up as a system for the reliable and cost-effective delivery of energy, enabling our customers to operate their network at the highest level, and achieving their desired economic outcome,” said Michael Halbherr, CEO of ABB E-mobility. “We have taken key lessons from our extensive experience and are obsessed with creating a charging experience that is reliable, scalable, managed and secure, while ensuring interoperability and performance.”

Source: ABB