Pace of build-out of US DCQC network, some frustration

Hi all:

- Nissan has been taking action to help deploy charge stations, with the rationale that it wasn't a business they necessarily wanted to be in, but that it would help support their EVs. Nissan's approach has not been the same as Tesla's, but has in some ways helped create a more drive-able ecosystem for some Leaf drivers.

- It always impressed me about Tesla that their own build-out of higher power charge stations targeted in many case some inter-city locations that were seemingly obscure.

- I don't know if Nissan has supported that approach as strongly. I have seen them focus on putting in DCQC at dealers and have discussed this a bit with a few folks. A good side of this is that it arguably expedites charge station deployment, leveraging the already-deployed dealership network. Negatives would seem to include that sometimes the charge stations aren't available to Leaf drivers when and where they're really needed: some Leaf drivers don't drive by needing energy during dealership hours, and some don't drive routes where the dealership location is that helpful as a re-energizing point.

- Even with Tesla and Nissan getting behind charge stations in general and some DCQC, I guess I'm frustrated with the pace of deployment, and I guess a decent amount of this frustration relates back to my own Leaf driving experience. I can't justify that large companies or fellow drivers should care that much about one driver's experience, especially if it is outside the mainstream geographically.

- Still it has got me to wondering:
A) I wonder if Tesla might be willing to help sponsor deployment of more CHAdeMO and SAE throughout the US? (Or maybe they do?).
B) Any updates on the Tesla CHAdeMO adapter? Is there an SAE adapter? (Either of these I suppose might help Tesla have a more direct incentive to help their own drivers leverage the DCQC network outside of the supercharger stations.

PS/edit/addendum: I tried to figure out where discussion of charge station networks should go, as it is not the same thing as EVSE. At a few minutes' search, to see where it might be located, I didn't see that much network discussion on MNL, though I'm sure I must have missed something.

tesla to CHaDemo is available now.

now we need a ChaDemo to Supercharger so a leaf can charge at a tesla super charger!!!

vwDavid said:

tesla to CHaDemo is available now.

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Yep. It's been shipping for a little while (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/42176-CHAdeMO-Make-Model-Review-%C2%97-Using-with-a-Tesla" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false.

It seems like customers in Japan have had theirs since late last year (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/16401-CHAdeMO-adapter-wait-frustration/page44?p=752151#post752151" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. You can see that guy's test charging reports and pics in that thread. From http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/16401-CHAdeMO-adapter-wait-frustration/page50?p=770813&viewfull=1#post770813" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, it looks like he let out the "magic smoke" (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/M/magic-smoke.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false of one of them.

I'd also heard of some select group of people having the adapter and possibly some beta users (e.g. http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/16401-CHAdeMO-adapter-wait-frustration/page52?p=779165&viewfull=1#post779165" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/16401-CHAdeMO-adapter-wait-frustration/page61?p=834054&viewfull=1#post834054" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. Just Google around for stuff like site:teslamotorsclub.com chademo beta.

Nissan is in a tough spot.
Tesla can build their own supercharger network. They are independent.
Nissan is a traditional car manufacturer, so it "made sense" to use their dealerships.

Except that didn't actually make sense. Every dealer is different and access to the Nissan chargers has been problematic (great at some, terrible at others..).

I think they would have had much better luck had they partnered with someone like 7-11 or one of the other mini marts...

Not that having the DCQCs at the dealerships is bad. It's better than nothing. I applaud them for the effort. But they could have done it better...

Either way, now it really depends on where you live...
I have 1 DCQC in the city I live in (Chademo) and 5 in the city I work in... (2 dual format) (And one Chademo on the way to/from work)

But other areas have nothing or very little.
To be fair tho, there isn't a Tesla Supercharger nearer enough to me to make that worth while for frequent use anyway. Although the Chademo adapter (and a spare $70,000 to afford the car) would make a Tesla more tempting. ;-)

desiv

The differences between the superiority of the Tesla Supercharger network, and everyone else, will become extremely apparent when Gen 2 EVs roll around.

50 KW charger on 200 mile range vehicles will be a joke. Nobody is going to wait around for an hour to charge what Tesla Superchargers can do in 20 minutes, and the Tesla Superchargers are 100% guaranteed to be free, have a much higher reliability factor (you hit the spot, the dealership is either into EVs and has a great station setup, or isn't and the station reflects it).

Plus waiting at a dealer is generally a lot less fun than being near shopping, food, malls, etc. where the superchargers are all located near.

Thanks for the various responses. It's exciting that Tesla has finally started to ship their adapters. I'm thinking that in some geographic areas, particularly for drivers of the 60 kWh Tesla variant, being able to use a few CHAdeMO charge stations might be really significant to helping improve the usefulness and value of the vehicle.

Given that Mr. Musk has at times indicated a desire and willingness to help the overall EV industry build out (including, in theory, making Tesla patents available) I'm wondering if Tesla might consider:

- Helping the build-out of CHAdeMO and CCS stations. I think that in general we drivers can use all the help we can get to see the charge infrastructure there that we need. Sure, some drivers have all they need, but some do not. To put this all another way, we're up against a refueling industry that has been entrenched in the US over more than 100 years and which has dozens of thousands of stations. When you get into a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle in the US, for the most part it is not necessary to give much consideration to the possibility of finding oneself in an area where there will be no readily available fuel. In an EV, in many parts of the country, there is still this consideration (ignoring for a moment the various caveats such as plugging in to L1, NEMA adapters, etc.).

- perhaps working with Nissan and others to see about possibly making some SuperCharger stations usable by, and available to, non-Tesla EVs (though I'm not sure, this might be asking too much) and might I suppose reduce the value that Tesla drivers have paid for (if they have to wait in line for fast charging?).

^^^
You should ask Tesla that. Not sure what the best channel is, but I don't think your post here on MNL will (by itself) tell them your want.

I don't think they'd care about helping build out of CCS. They don't even have any cars that can use that. As for CHAdeMO.... maybe, but only in areas where there's little or no Supercharger coverage.

It's not like they're swimming in profits. I haven't tracked their financials, but long ago, they'd accumulated at least $1 billion in losses since they IPOed.

jlsoaz said:

Thanks for the various responses. It's exciting that Tesla has finally started to ship their adapters. I'm thinking that in some geographic areas, particularly for drivers of the 60 kWh Tesla variant, being able to use a few CHAdeMO charge stations might be really significant to helping improve the usefulness and value of the vehicle.

Given that Mr. Musk has at times indicated a desire and willingness to help the overall EV industry build out (including, in theory, making Tesla patents available) I'm wondering if Tesla might consider:

- Helping the build-out of CHAdeMO and CCS stations. ...

- perhaps working with Nissan and others to see about possibly making some SuperCharger stations usable by, and available to, non-Tesla EVs ...

Click to expand...

For your first question, no. I see no path that would lead Tesla to doing that.
Tesla is spending all its time, money and effort in expanding their own charging, service and sales network.
In addition, why waste time building a less robust network?

For your second question, the offer is already on the table.
Musk has offered to set any other car company's cars use the superchargers.
There are two requirements.
One, that the company that adds cars to the supercharger enabled fleet also contribute to building out the supercharger network.
Two, that the end user not be required to pay at the supercharger.

Tesla's network and the CHAdeMO network have two different purposes.
With the range a Tesla has, tesla drivers very rarely need a charge during the day, so the emphasis is on interstate travel between cities.
For the shorter range cars, DC fast charging is much more common in daily travel within the same metro area. So more DC charging is needed within populated areas.

In addition, for a 300 mile trip, the shorter range cars need two or three charges along the way. A Tesla requires only one.
Or, to put it another way, Tesla has put 80-90% of the U.S. population within range of a supercharger with 180 stations (with multiple chargers at each).
Chademo chargers have about 1000(?) chargers nationwide without a single cross country route available.

Cross country networks will be much easier to create and maintain when the 200 mile, second gen cars arrive.

jlsoaz said:

- Still it has got me to wondering:
A) I wonder if Tesla might be willing to help sponsor deployment of more CHAdeMO and SAE throughout the US? (Or maybe they do?).
B) Any updates on the Tesla CHAdeMO adapter? Is there an SAE adapter? (Either of these I suppose might help Tesla have a more direct incentive to help their own drivers leverage the DCQC network outside of the supercharger stations.

Click to expand...

You can derive your answers very quickly on your own if you consider each company to be in competition and desiring to make a profit.

1) No - why would they help their competition? There is insufficient benefit to them to do this, if they sponsor a station it will be for their vehicles, not others.

2) Tesla has an incentive to allow their vehicles to charge at other stations, but there is no incentive for them to allow other manufacturers to benefit by charging at their stations. This is especially true given that Tesla is paying for the maintenance and power at the stations.

The entire design of Tesla's stations layout etc is to enable their vehicles to replace ICE vehicles. While I do believe that Elon desires for EVs to 'win' in general and welcomes the competition, I don't see him being willing to subsidize it by giving away free power to competitors customers.

I agree with the comment above that Nissan would have been better to have kept their network "corporate" by sponsoring locations other than dealers. A convenience store has much more incentive to use the DCQC as a draw to get folks to be 'stuck' there for 15-45 minutes than the dealers do. However they made their business decision based on the factors they considered important - likely the ability to demonstrate to customers (and dealer staff) how to use the stations. Personally I think if they had a convenience store near the dealer where they took the test drive to would have made more impact, but whatever.

To the general frustration of pace of building out these stations - the issue again comes down to money. Who should be paying for this? It has been discussed here quite a bit that these are simply not financially viable as a business model given the lack of volume and expectation that 'need' will decrease as longer range EVs are released (other than rest stop locations). So, some company or our taxes have to pay for it. If Nissan or Tesla or whoever wants to pay for it I"m all for it - Frankly I'm not in favor of my tax dollars paying for DCQC stations that will very likely become obsolete in a couple years.

If a business (like a convenience store chain) sees value in providing them that seems the most likely way they could proliferate - basically something to help draw business, but don't expect to see that until EV drivers make up a much higher portion of customers. By that time range anxiety will likely be a thing of the past eh?

jlsoaz said:

PS/edit/addendum: I tried to figure out where discussion of charge station networks should go, as it is not the same thing as EVSE. At a few minutes' search, to see where it might be located, I didn't see that much network discussion on MNL, though I'm sure I must have missed something.

Click to expand...

Good point - I wonder if renaming the "EVSE - Charging Equipment" forum to "Charging Equipment and Infrastructure" might make more sense. Thoughts?

As far as the topic on hand - the frustrating part of the existing charging network continues to be reliability and availability.

Tesla has done a great job on building infrastructure that is both reliable and available with most Supercharger locations having 8 stalls with the stalls most often located away from prime parking spots and with signage clearly indicating that the spots primary use is for charging minimizing ICEing in most locations.

On the other hand, other public charging tends to be in random locations with the stations located in prime parking spots and QC infrastructure is often broken - and when there is only one QC per location, this is disastrous.

As an example, I would like to take the LEAF out to east San Diego county this weekend, but I can't because a critical QC station has gone completely off-line. Other nearby QC stations that have been installed a while have similar reliability. Last few comments on a couple stations on or near the route:

Don's Market - "Dons knows nothing about chargers. Called Blink, they knew nothing about chargers. Walked over to electrical panel at the street and it was flagged red, electrical shut off." "could not charge at all, non of them work. Blink is worthless!"
Del Lago Park and Ride - "QC stuck in "can't connect to yor vehicle" message. No way to reset unit."
Best Western - This one has been down for 5 months. At least there's a fairly reliable eVgo location a couple miles away.

These all happen to be Blink stations. eVgo at least seems to make decent effort at keeping their stations online, and at least now they are installing 2 QCs per location. But eVgo's a-la-carte pricing is crazy expensive - I much prefer Blink's $0.59/kWh QC pricing which allows me to take what I need and move on.

Until QC charging networks can be made as reliable as gas stations, electric cars will continue to be a tough sell to anyone but commuters who don't need public charging.

drees said:

Until QC charging networks can be made as reliable as gas stations, electric cars will continue to be a tough sell to anyone but commuters who don't need public charging.

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The more I mull this situation over, the more I'm drawn to thinking that electric vehicle public charging stations should simply be high-current (probably three-phase) AC power delivery EVSEs, working into improved and multipurpose power control modules in the cars. There shouldn't be anything to them except a circuit breaker, the ability to inform the vehicle as to what current is available, and enough smarts to run whatever customer authentication/billing arrangements are necessary. Then public charging stations would be an order of magnitude cheaper to manufacture. And each one wouldn't need a team of technicians working four hours a week just to keep them in repair. Stations to facilitate long-distance travel could afford to have multiple stalls.

The power-conversion module in any EV that can regeneratively brake is already capable of converting multiphase AC power into DC battery-charging current, so there should be very little extra cost added to each vehicle to simply allow that to be the normal recharging means. With a little more care (and again, not too much extra cost), the other capability that already needs to be provided anyway by an EV's power-control module - the ability to convert DC power drawn from the battery pack into AC - could be used to give every EV the "vehicle to grid" capability that power utilities lust after. Vehicle owners could, at their option (and assuming the utilities ever get around to this 'smart grid' thing we hear of) hire out a portion of their vehicle's battery as a grid storage service, making the car that much more affordable. Or use their cars as emergency home or camping power sources.

drees said:

jlsoaz said:

PS/edit/addendum: I tried to figure out where discussion of charge station networks should go, as it is not the same thing as EVSE. At a few minutes' search, to see where it might be located, I didn't see that much network discussion on MNL, though I'm sure I must have missed something.

Click to expand...

Good point - I wonder if renaming the "EVSE - Charging Equipment" forum to "Charging Equipment and Infrastructure" might make more sense. Thoughts?[...]

Click to expand...

I think public charge stations, networks and related, particularly higher-speed charging, are an important topic. I don't follow mnl as closely as some, but yes I'd suggest (fwiw) either make explicitly clear that discussion of these things is welcome in the existing EVSE group, or set up a new area where it's clear that these topics are welcome.

drees said:

[...]As far as the topic on hand - the frustrating part of the existing charging network continues to be reliability and availability.
[...]
Until QC charging networks can be made as reliable as gas stations, electric cars will continue to be a tough sell to anyone but commuters who don't need public charging.

Click to expand...

I didn't realize that reliability was quite so awful in other areas. It's been very bad with a couple near Tucson. There are only two DCQC stations between Tucson and Phoenix, one Blink and one GoE3 (this one on the Chargepoint network, using Eaton hardware) and neither is working anymore.

GoE3 did set up a new DCQC recently in Tucson at Speedway and I-10 with new hardware that seemed to be (at first glance) a big improvement in some ways both in hardware and software. If it proves durable, perhaps worth passing along, although I can't offhand seem to find the name of the manufacturer:

http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/55265" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

jlsoaz said:

drees said:

[...]As far as the topic on hand - the frustrating part of the existing charging network continues to be reliability and availability.
[...]
Until QC charging networks can be made as reliable as gas stations, electric cars will continue to be a tough sell to anyone but commuters who don't need public charging.

Click to expand...

I didn't realize that reliability was quite so awful in other areas.

Click to expand...

Try going to http://www.plugshare.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, putting in San Jose, CA then filtering by CHAdeMO only. Then try going up the Peninsula (west side of the Bay) until you reach San Francisco. You'll find numerous ones with bad scores (usually means it's been reported broken repeatedly), esp. if they're on the Blink network.

Here are some quick examples:
http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/14914" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/61453" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/11875" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/45217" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/37780" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (no longer free, so I no longer use it since I don't want to pay $0.59/kWh)

Oh yes, besides Blink, you probably noticed NRG eVgo. Their pricing stinks too: http://www.nrgevgo.com/san-francisco-bay-area/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I'm NOT willing to pay their monthly fee nor do want to pay $4.95/session + 20¢/min to DC FC. Even if I only achieve 40 mpg in my Prius and gas were $4/gal, $4.95 in gas is enough to move my Prius 49.5 miles, w/no refueling adventures.

Here in Austin Tx, there's not much of a DCQC network; a couple of Nissan Dealers is all. I don't think one could drive to Dallas or Houston or San Antonio, except maybe by using L2 chargers; even that seems difficult or impossible. I think local Leaf owners just use their cars to drive in town...

BernieTx said:

Here in Austin Tx, there's not much of a DCQC network; a couple of Nissan Dealers is all. I don't think one could drive to Dallas or Houston or San Antonio, except maybe by using L2 chargers; even that seems difficult or impossible. I think local Leaf owners just use their cars to drive in town...

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Austin almost seems like EVGo's back yard with their activity in other parts of Texas. It seems slightly surprising they haven't done more there.

Levenkay said:

drees said:

Until QC charging networks can be made as reliable as gas stations, electric cars will continue to be a tough sell to anyone but commuters who don't need public charging.

Click to expand...

The more I mull this situation over, the more I'm drawn to thinking that electric vehicle public charging stations should simply be high-current (probably three-phase) AC power delivery EVSEs, working into improved and multipurpose power control modules in the cars.
[...]

Click to expand...

Don't some of the vehicles in Europe come equipped with the ability to accept a much higher kW AC charge? Renault? Given the high expense of installing DCQC, and apparently expensive upkeep issues as well, higher-kW AC charging would seem logical, but that requires the vehicle to be able to accept the higher-kW AC charge, and there doesn't seem to be much of that so far here in the US, AFAIK.

jlsoaz said:

Don't some of the vehicles in Europe come equipped with the ability to accept a much higher kW AC charge? Renault?

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Yes and no.. ;-)
The Zoe for instance HAD 43kW charging.. But dropped it to 22kW, and realistically most of their users used between 3kW and 11kW.
https://transportevolved.com/2014/12/16/renault-zoe-lose-43-kw-rapid-charging-preference-improved-home-charging/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The infrastructure needed for home HIGH AC kW charging just isn't that standard.
And if your're going to go to the trouble of putting in a 3 phase AC powersource for your charging solution (I'm talking business, not home now), then DCQC has the added advantage of fast and more standard (available to other EVs and available to use existing) fast charging.

desiv

desiv said:

jlsoaz said:

Don't some of the vehicles in Europe come equipped with the ability to accept a much higher kW AC charge? Renault?

Click to expand...

Yes and no.. ;-)
The Zoe for instance HAD 43kW charging.. But dropped it to 22kW, and realistically most of their users used between 3kW and 11kW.
https://transportevolved.com/2014/12/16/renault-zoe-lose-43-kw-rapid-charging-preference-improved-home-charging/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The infrastructure needed for home HIGH AC kW charging just isn't that standard.
And if your're going to go to the trouble of putting in a 3 phase AC powersource for your charging solution (I'm talking business, not home now), then DCQC has the added advantage of fast and more standard (available to other EVs and available to use existing) fast charging.

desiv

Click to expand...

Doesn't the size/weight of the charger come into play here too? I am under the impression that the weight of a charger capable of 43kW would be considerably greater than a 6.6kW model. Thus it comes at the cost of efficiency loss due to carrying more weight around in the vehicle....

Slow1 said:

Doesn't the size/weight of the charger come into play here too? I am under the impression that the weight of a charger capable of 43kW would be considerably greater than a 6.6kW model. Thus it comes at the cost of efficiency loss due to carrying more weight around in the vehicle....

Click to expand...

I'm no EE so someone who is/knowledgable on this should step in. From what I hear, the Zoe with its Chameleon charger uses the motor's windings as part of the charging process, which is why it's so flexible. See some of the chatter at http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/11081-AC-vs-DC-fast-charge" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

I thought'd we'd talked about the details here on MNL but couldn't locate the posts. Maybe search for chameleon here?