ChargePoint Express 250
About this project:
The CPE 250 is a DC fast charging station that is capable of 62.5kw charging capacity on it's own, or up to 500kW when paired with a Power Block. The CPE 250 was designed to be easily serviceable, durable, and easy to use.
Contribution:
I started on this project as an engineer focused on mechanical analysis of the system and eventually grew into a technical program manager with a team of 10+ engineers responsible for the majority of mechanical systems in the entire device.
Requirements
To begin, we started by defining a detailed list of requirements. This product needed to be:
500kW capable
Serviceable in under 30 minutes
Refined Industrial Design
Type 3R, IP54
UL Certified
IK10
.... and many many more
Analysis
ChargePoint came to me with a long list of failure modes and use cases that we needed to analyze and design for. To ensure design success for all use cases I developed an extensive suite of analysis using hand calculations and Ansys FEA to check each scenario. Analyses included part abuse loading, vehicular crashes, high force winds, vandalism, part tolerance, and thermal expansion. This work would later be validated with testing.
Development
To develop systems for the internal module connection mechanism, light bars, external covers and more we would start with brainstorming and rapid prototyping. Eventually the learnings from all these prototypes would be refined into designs ready for manufacturing
Testing
To validate our designs and analysis we developed and conducted a complete list of tests including:
Water ingress
Cycle Testing
Thermal Cycle
impact
UV
Etc.
Manufacturing
My team helped ChargePoint bring up a manufacturing facility onsite in Campbell, CA. Starting from an empty warehouse we helped design assembly processes, quality control standards, and optimize manufacturing efficiency. By the end of the project we had a facility capable of producing several hundred units a year.
Program Management
This complex product had tight release timelines and many risks requiring mitigation. I helped ChargePoint with standards and processes to enable high-quality, efficient communication and cross-functional collaboration. I also led an integrated team through multiple overlapping product builds at their onsite manufacturing facility. This work helped us build trusting relationships and enabled ChargePoint to deliver high quality products on tight timelines.
Final Results
The final product now has thousands of installs across the US and EU and can be seen here:
