8 Stall ChargePoint CHAdeMO + CCS site online in Mountain View

[SageBrush]

Until there are cars that can actually take more than what these chargers can take, what are the charging providers supposed to do? Right now, the only cars that can take even 80kW are the Hyundai/Kia cars - Soul EV and Ioniq EV. I think they can take up to 200 amps but the total number of these cars on the road is still extremely small. It still has not been determined to my satisfaction what the actual limit is on the Bolt EV. If someone has a reference for that, I'd like to see it. I would also like to see how much a 2018 Leaf can take from a DCFC.

They certainly have a chicken and egg problem.

How did they ever get past L2 ? (not that they have, much. IIRC Nissan still sells the base LEAF without a DCFC.)

 

[RDoc]

Until there are cars that can actually take more than what these chargers can take, what are the charging providers supposed to do? Right now, the only cars that can take even 80kW are the Hyundai/Kia cars - Soul EV and Ioniq EV. I think they can take up to 200 amps but the total number of these cars on the road is still extremely small. It still has not been determined to my satisfaction what the actual limit is on the Bolt EV. If someone has a reference for that, I'd like to see it. I would also like to see how much a 2018 Leaf can take from a DCFC.

Right, but as more of this wimpy infrastructure is built out, the probability of useful charging stations goes down. Bureaucrats always will point to existing stuff to justify not building useful things.

 

[Ulmo]

However, unlike the San Mateo Supercharger and its co-located Chargepoint fast chargers, there are no services (stores and restaurants) at this site.

The 7-Elevent at Mountain View SuperCharger is nothing to rave about either. I can get my usual ice in a cup plus coffee, or a water, but that's about it, and if at the moment I don't need those things, then Mountain View SuperCharger is really boring.

 

[Ulmo]

$15/hr isn't too bad I guess. I'm assuming there's no session fee. Pricing is on par with a ICE that gets ~27mpg on premium fuel for me. Chademo max I've seen is 44kw. 44kwh gets you ~130 rated miles (correct me if my estimates are off).

Yes, not too bad as an alternative to a full Mountain View SuperCharger: hopefully you're going south so you can use Gilroy SuperCharger, or east so you can get into Dublin, Manteca or Fremont SuperChargers, so you don't need the whole 130 rated miles. Alternatively, it could get you to a nearby destination charger or home in a pinch, often a better alternative than the other Chademo's out there which are further away from the highways (or pointlessly far from Mountain View SuperCharger to be of any help to you if your state of charge is already low). This could also be a quicker top-up to get to those places before rush hour crescendo's if Mountain View SC is full.

Finally, if you know you need a walkaround break to stay awake and keep the blood flowing, and only need a few dozen extra miles of range cushion, then you can just skip Mountain View SC during high use periods and go straight here, plug in, walk around, come back, and be on your way without a worry in the world; with no per-session fees and only $0.25/minute which for a ten minute walkaround would be about $2.50, it's cheaper than a coffee and in the afternoon or evening more healthy due to a more regular sleep schedule that night. Even 15 minutes at $3.75 isn't too bad.

However, unlike the San Mateo Supercharger and its co-located Chargepoint fast chargers, there are no services (stores and restaurants) at this site.

The 7-Elevent at Mountain View SuperCharger is nothing to rave about either. I can get my usual ice in a cup plus coffee, or a water, but that's about it, and if at the moment I don't need those things, then Mountain View SuperCharger is really boring. Considering what I said above about a walkaround charge, I'd love to skip that 7-Eleven and go straight to a NASA outfit.

Consider:

Homeless people & drug users at a 7-Eleven and maybe some movie goers, long wait, coffee

vs​

Future of human kind organization near some Sunnyvale neighborhoods, a golf course, and a huge legendary airport, a nice walk, and on your way. EDIT: Seems that it is closer to neighborhoods than I realized. Odd: Bing Maps doesn't find that address properly.​

 

[miimura]

Until there are cars that can actually take more than what these chargers can take, what are the charging providers supposed to do? Right now, the only cars that can take even 80kW are the Hyundai/Kia cars - Soul EV and Ioniq EV. I think they can take up to 200 amps but the total number of these cars on the road is still extremely small. It still has not been determined to my satisfaction what the actual limit is on the Bolt EV. If someone has a reference for that, I'd like to see it. I would also like to see how much a 2018 Leaf can take from a DCFC.

Okay, I am satisfied with confirmed evidence that the Bolt EV can only take 150 amps DC. There is really no point to install faster chargers to serve that vehicle since the increase would only be from 125 amps to 150 amps DC. A single pedestal 62.5kW ChargePoint Express 250 (based on the Express Plus system and not deployed yet) is already 156 amps. The decrease in charging time would be at most 9 minutes since the Bolt starts tapering so early.

 

[Ulmo]

Okay, I am satisfied with confirmed evidence that the Bolt EV can only take 150 amps DC. There is really no point to install faster chargers to serve that vehicle since the increase would only be from 125 amps to 150 amps DC. A single pedestal 62.5kW ChargePoint Express 250 (based on the Express Plus system and not deployed yet) is already 156 amps. The decrease in charging time would be at most 9 minutes since the Bolt starts tapering so early.

It still is a lack of futureproofing for a growing number of capable cars at those speeds, as you listed. Also, if Tesla ever makes a 100kW CCS adapter, then this would only charge a Tesla at a paltry 35kW or so; it would be a meaningful lack of capability. As is, these stations are no substitute for a long distance journey SuperCharge; they are mostly a backup next-hop bump up with stretching your legs, in any car.

 

[SageBrush]

Also, if Tesla ever makes a 100kW CCS adapter, then this would only charge a Tesla at a paltry 35kW or so

How does that work ?

 

[miimura]

How does that work ?

I don't expect Tesla to do any CCS adapter and if they do, it will be after there are 350 amp chargers installed and proven in the wild. The paltry performance stated above is likely related to the limited capability of these chargers that are installed today, even if it is actually more like 43kW (350V * 125A). The 35kW figure is more typical of the smaller Model S packs and 100 amp chargers like the ones at the Gilroy Supercharger site and other retail EVgo sites. There is a pretty big variation in the performance of these chargers. For example, the ABB chargers are supposed to deliver 125 amps, but I have seen only 110 amps on several occasions. The best result I've seen in my limited first hand experience was with the Efacec charger at the VW ERL in Belmont, CA, which was pushing a solid 125 amps and peaked at 47.5kW before the car started tapering the charge current. That was on my RAV4 EV with JdeMO which has a slightly different pack voltage than the Model S/X packs.

 

[Cosmacelf]

No, these pedestals made by Tritium have a complete water cooled charger built in. There is just 3-phase AC power going into the pedestal.

I stand corrected. Thanks.

 

[SageBrush]

I don't expect Tesla to do any CCS adapter and if they do, it will be after there are 350 amp chargers installed and proven in the wild.

I see, you are pointing out the present charge rates of CCS stations.
I'm not sure why Tesla would wait for 350A chargers though to make an adapter, since the same arguments would seem to apply to Chademo. The difference of course is that the Tesla network is much more capable now than a few years ago, but then the argument centers around marginal utility.

 

[e-FTW]

It still is a lack of futureproofing for a growing number of capable cars at those speeds, as you listed. Also, if Tesla ever makes a 100kW CCS adapter, then this would only charge a Tesla at a paltry 35kW or so; it would be a meaningful lack of capability. As is, these stations are no substitute for a long distance journey SuperCharge; they are mostly a backup next-hop bump up with stretching your legs, in any car.

Exactly. Why wait until the cars support higher charge rates before building chargers that support those?
2 years from now, they'll have to trash them and start over again...

 

[miimura]

I see, you are pointing out the present charge rates of CCS stations.
I'm not sure why Tesla would wait for 350A chargers though to make an adapter, since the same arguments would seem to apply to Chademo. The difference of course is that the Tesla network is much more capable now than a few years ago, but then the argument centers around marginal utility.

Honestly, we only have the CHAdeMO adapter because of the Japan market. If it weren't for the dominance of CHAdeMO in Japan making any Tesla sales there non-viable without the adapter, they would not have bothered to make it. I see no compelling reason for them to make the effort to create a CCS adapter today. The only reason to do it would be to allow Supercharger 1.0 performance (350A) on other people's charger hardware. If ChargePoint were to get significant deployments for the Express Plus platform, it would make more sense for Tesla to cooperate with ChargePoint to put the North American Tesla connector as the third possible connection (CHAdeMO + CCS + TSL02) on their charger system. If ChargePoint can get Electrify America to buy their system, it could be significant on a national scale. However, I expect VW to be biased toward the European vendors like ABB and Efacec.