CHAdeMO Charging the Model 3

Last night I received the 2019.24.4 software update for our Model 3. So this morning I tested Tesla’s CHAdeMO adapter to determine the rate of charge, and see how many miles I’d get and how long it would take to charge from a given SOC. Summary: 45 minutes gave me 139 miles of rated range and cost $8.69. Tesla’s CHAdeMO adapter is easy to use and provides more charging options for the Model 3.

A DC charger at a charging station in Sacramento.

This site where I charged has one DC charger with dual plugs to charge EVs with either CHAdeMO or CCS charging ports. It can charge one car at a time, delivers a maximum of 125 amps, and provides maximum power approaching 50 kW depending on factors such as state of charge, battery pack temperature, etc. I arrived at the station with 126 miles of rated range – 39% SOC – in our long range RWD Model 3.

I arrived at the station with 126 miles of range / 39% SOC.

If you haven’t used CHAdeMO chargers before the plugs are substantial, and by that I mean big. But using the adapter, while not dead simple like a Supercharger, was straightforward and easy: I removed the CHAdeMO plug from its holster on the charger, connected it to Tesla’s CHAdeMO adapter, and plugged the adapter into the Model 3’s charging port.

This station is operated by Greenlots. To start a charging session you either call their 1-800 number, use the Greenlots phone app, or a Greenlots RFID card. I have a Greenlots account and their RFID key fob so I held the key fob next to the labeled sensor on the charger and it verified my account. The charger provides you with easy to follows instructions. I pressed the button to select the CHAdeMO plug, and then pressed the button again to start the charging session.

I connected Tesla’s CHAdeMO adapter to the charger plug, plugged the adapter into my Model 3 charge port, and used an RFID card to start the charging session.

The charger delivered 22.8 kWh in the first 30 minutes, providing about 90 miles of rated range.

This DC charger sent 23 kWh to the Model 3 in 30 minutes, adding 90 miles of rated range to the pack.

The session started with the charger delivering 42 kW when the battery pack was at 39%. The power slowly increased, hitting 49 kW when the battery pack reached 80% SOC. I didn’t charge long enough to see where the taper would begin, but I’m guessing that would be in the range of 80-85% SOC.

It took a total of 45 minutes to go from 39% to 81% SOC. This included the time it took me to plug in and initiate the session. In 45 minutes the charger delivered 33.7 kWh (according to Greenlots), adding 139 miles of rated range to the pack.

The charging session started with the charger delivering 42 kW at 39% SOC, and the power slowly increased hitting 49 kW when the battery reached 80% SOC.

At this location Greenlots charges 25¢ per kWh, plus taxes and a 35¢ session fee. Total cost for this charge was $8.69, so just under 26¢ per kWh, which is comparable to the cost of using a Supercharger. The cost of using CHAdeMO chargers varies depending on the network that operates the station.

CHAdeMO charging stations are not Superchargers, yet. Some of the new stations coming online provide more than 125 amps, but I believe Tesla’s current CHAdeMO adapter will accept no more than 125 amps (please correct me if I’m wrong). CHAdeMO chargers don’t span the entire country, and generally don’t have as many charging stalls per site compared to most Supercharger locations. But some regions of the country have a good number of CHAdeMO charging locations that support EV drivers. So while 139 miles in 45 minutes is slower than a Supercharger, it’s better than L2 charging. Most importantly this gives us more charging options for road trips and regional travel.

I’ve used this station before to charge our 2012 Toyota Rav4 EV, thanks to Tony Williams’ CHAdeMO charging port, JdeMO. Adding the CHAdeMO charging port to our Rav4 EV expanded the horizons of that car, and I expect the CHAdeMO adapter to come in handy for our Model 3. I don’t expect to use it for local charging, but plan to use the adapter on longer trips we have planned.

Quick charging my 2012 Rav4 EV at this station several years ago.

If you are new to EVs and want to know how to find CHAdeMO charging stations, Plugshare is a very good resource. Go to that website (or download the phone app), click on the filter tab, and select CHAdeMO (or any other type of charger) to find charging locations near you.

Screen shot from the Plugshare.com website showing the location of CHAdeMO charging stations in the Atlanta area.

Final note: In the United States the two non-Tesla DC charging standards are CHAdeMO and CCS. The CHAdeMO charging standard was designed and promoted by Japanese power companies and auto manufacturers including Nissan and Mitsubishi. The Nissan Leaf, which came on the market in 2010, is the best selling EV with the CHAdeMO port. Other auto manufacturers use the CCS DC charging standard. Cars with the CCS port include the Chevy Bolt EV, BMW i3, VW e-Golf, and other European made EVs coming on the market. Ultimately cars with a CCS port will outnumber those with CHAdeMO. At some point Tesla may sell a CCS adapter for use in the United States, but there’s no indication of that yet.

This guest post from Steve Noctor originally appeared on his blog It’s Electric. 

 

[ivan801]

You're probably talking about the Maverik station at exit 15. There is a new Black Bear diner at the same exit. We love Black Bear. There's also an Electrify America (EA) CHAdeMO at the Flying J in Scipio. Supposedly EA chargers will now also accept a ChargePoint account for payment. I have yet to verify this.

Yes, that's the CHAdeMO station I am planning on using. Have a meal at Black Bear while I charge and continue on. Sure, there is a supercharger in St. George, but it is so inconvenient. And it usually takes me an hour to eat, so that's about 50 kWh, plenty to make it to Vegas.

 

[rdskill]

I bought the $450 Chademo just before a 2-week 5,800 mile road trip in my SR+ 3. The one time I needed it (Walmart parking lot) it wouldn't work for me. I even called the 800 # for Electrify America and we tried but it couldn't get it to work. Kept giving a processing error. I had to go to an RV Park.

The night after I got home, v2019.24.4 was pushed to my car. Nobody had told me when I bought it at Tesla that the support software hadn't been distributed yet. wtf!!!

So the next day I went to the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton to try it out. I had to sign up with EvGo. Followed the directions.... drum roll.... failed! The message was "Internal Charger Error". Not sure if it pertained to the EvGo charger or my on board charger.

Guess I'll have to try another on for a tie breaker.

 

[bwilson4web]

Sorry for your problems. My testing started after 2019.24.4 came out when I borrowed one from a pioneering Tesla owner.

I had one CHAdeMO charging session interrupted before I used a strap to carry the significant weight of the adapter and cable. In the past, I had one SuperCharger session abort when I had the cable stretch to reach the car.

My BMW i3-REx has suffered numerous CCS-1 charging failures at Electrify America stations, only 2 of 12 attempts worked even while talking with their support. Using "Plugshare.com" comments, I always check a station to see if Leaf owners had success.

Bob Wilson

 

[cwerdna]

Chademo needs to die out in the US. We have the Tesla standard, J1772, and CCS. That's enough.

You should tell that to the automakers that created the unneeded CCS standards (Combo1 in the US aka SAE Combo and Combo2, used in Europe).

This is what we thought of the CCS camp/losers when they came up with their standard: SAE Planning vote to formally deny CHAdeMO in US - Page 2 - My Nissan Leaf Forum. It took years for some of them to even ship any CCS cars (e.g. GM, VW AG, Ford, BMW, etc.) FCA, a "supporter" still doesn't, AFAIK. The Spark EV was first SAE Combo vehicle in the US but it was a very low volume CA compliance car. And, SAE Combo inlet wasn't available for the first few months. See Monthly Plug-In Report Card Archive. Look at December 2013 thru 2016 reports to see what I mean.
GM and Nissan trade punches over electric car fast charging | Torque News from 2012

GM's Shad Balch, Manager of Environment & Energy Policy, let loose the opening salvo when naming off a series of priorities GM has that will aid electric vehicle adoption.
...
Balch went on to describe the current situation as a "hodgepodge of fast charging standards" with Tesla having its own proprietary level 3 system, Nissan and Mitsubishi using CHADEMO. He noted that last week, at EVS26, an alliance of 8 automakers (including GM) announced support for a the "combo plug" designed by the SAE DC Fast Charging committee. He described this as "a new standard," one "that is going to come, probably before the end of this year," meaning the SAE committee is expected to approve the standard this summer, charging stations are expected to become available late in the year, and cars to become available in 2013.

The bombshell then landed when Balch said "we need to make sure, especially because we're talking about taxpayer money, that ONLY those standards are installed going forward." Meaning that because the SAE DC Fast Charge standard is the only "standardized" fast charging system, this is the system to endorse. Balch was actually boooo'd at this point, but he went on to remind us of the past history, that we know its a bad move to have competing charging connector standards. Finally, he said "there is a very small group of cars that use a non-standardized level 3 charging connector," referring to the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV and the upcoming Tesla Model S.

Ford shipped the Focus Electric for years, with no CCS support until gen 2. It was extremely low volume in sales for both generations. It now looks like gen 2 FFE is dead. I didn't notice any sales for 2019 and Ford Focus Retires | Now What | Ford.com says

We appreciate your interest in the Focus.
Unfortunately, Ford will no longer be building Focus and there is limited inventory remaining. But you can still contact your local dealer about availability and check out our other vehicles that might be perfect for you and your family.

Audi shipped nothing w/CCS until just earlier this year.

GM, one of the CCS "supporters", doesn't seem to care about infrastructure:
GM Won't Fund CCS Fast-Charging Sites For 2017 Chevy Bolt EV
First on CNN Business: GM and Bechtel plan to build thousands of electric car charging stations across the US - CNN

Neither company plans to put money into this project, though. The two companies will create a separate corporation to build the charging network and other companies are being invited to invest in it. Neither GM nor Bechtel would name potential investors while discussions are still ongoing.

VW-controlled Electrify America (part of their penance for dieselgate) seems to be stacking the deck in favor of SAE Combo even though their CA/CARB compliance car e-Golf barely is sold in the US and is basically only available in CARB emissions states. I guess they're doing it more for their future vehicles besides e-tron SUV.

What I don't know is whether a Nissan dealer would allow a Tesla, their primary competition for the Leaf, to use their charger.

It's YMMV even w/Nissan dealers for Nissan Leafs, at least for free charging. We've learned that over the years at MNL. Some dealers only allow folks who bought/leased from them to use their free CHAdeMO DC FC. That can make its usefulness rather limited.

If it's a paid CHAdeMO charger, they probably don't care or care as much.

 

[bwilson4web]

This is what we thought of the CCS camp/losers when they came up with their standard: SAE Planning vote to formally deny CHAdeMO in US - Page 2 - My Nissan Leaf Forum.

It goes a long way to explaining why Tesla went proprietary:

• Tesla plug with 120-250 kW fast DC charging capability
• Tesla plug with up to 19.2 kW AC charging capability (Model S option)
• Tesla plug is smaller than the hobbled, J1772 (max 80A DC rating)
• Tesla Supercharging is ~1/3 to 1/4 the cost of CCS-1 and CHAdeMO

Tesla voted with their SuperChargers in the free market and has all but defeated the CCS-1 camp. SuperChargers overtook CHAdeMO by their 24/7 available, autopay SuperChargers. A powerful sales advantage, Model 3 sales have all but crushed the SAE compliant cars.

Tesla already sends a J1772-to-Tesla adapter with every Model 3. Given what we've seen in Europe, Tesla has already developed a CCS-2 (Menke) adapter in Europe. It is only a matter of time until Tesla makes a CCS-1 adapter so we can pay 3-4x as much per charge at a convenient EVgo/Electrify America/<tbd> network.

There will never be a SuperCharger to CCS-1 adapter unless the SAE friendly EV makers finally contribute to the SuperCharger network. In effect, Tesla voted with their money and won. The others have yet to realize they are defeated.

Bob Wilson

 

[timk225]

We, the informed, educated, and in most cases at least somewhat able to understand technology Tesla owners, can easily handle the variety of charging stations and plugs out there.

Now the average car driver on the road, who has never done anything but pump 87 octane at their local gas station, is not and / or will not be capable of understanding the nuances of all these different charge plugs and why isn't there just one, like how they can go to any gas station and the pump nozzle fits their car.

This will interfere with widespread EV adoption, your average idiot just wants to drive their car and not have to think about where and how to charge it up again, so we must pick the best 3 charge options (Tesla, CCS, and J1772) and cut it off right there. Any EV automaker who isn't making their car with one of these 3 plugs for American sales needs to switch their plug and retrofit their older cars.

 

[Rocky_H]

Now the average car driver on the road, who has never done anything but pump 87 octane at their local gas station, is not and / or will not be capable of understanding the nuances of all these different charge plugs and why isn't there just one, like how they can go to any gas station and the pump nozzle fits their car.

...except when it doesn't fit their car. They grab a pump handle at the gas station, and it's too big and it won't fit into their gas tank opening, and they are frustrated, wondering why they can't use it, and it won't work with their car.

Oh, that's right. At some point, they had to learn or be told that gas stations have two incompatible types of fuel, with two incompatible types of pump handles. They are for different types of vehicles, and rather than just a handle incompatibility, using the opposite type of fuel in the wrong car, will severely damage it.

See how interesting that is? Because you had already learned about that difference at some point, you have already forgotten that you knew it, so you take it for granted, because it was simple to learn and remember. Seems like learning about a car refilling difference once isn't that big a deal is it?

*Edit* (And I didn't even get into red diesel there.)

 

[Wennfred]

I bought the $450 Chademo just before a 2-week 5,800 mile road trip in my SR+ 3. The one time I needed it (Walmart parking lot) it wouldn't work for me. I even called the 800 # for Electrify America and we tried but it couldn't get it to work. Kept giving a processing error. I had to go to an RV Park.

The night after I got home, v2019.24.4 was pushed to my car. Nobody had told me when I bought it at Tesla that the support software hadn't been distributed yet. wtf!!!

So the next day I went to the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton to try it out. I had to sign up with EvGo. Followed the directions.... drum roll.... failed! The message was "Internal Charger Error". Not sure if it pertained to the EvGo charger or my on board charger.

Guess I'll have to try another on for a tie breaker.

Mine failed also on EVGo, but I got it to shake hands before shutting down after 2 seconds, what I learned from a Model S owner here, you need to shut down the Tesla (off) then the EVSE will talk to the car but still won’t charge. Also another Tip is that the adapter is heavy so you might get a better response by lifting it. Some people are using a strap to keep it from kinking over.

Anyway long story short, I submitted a Service Ticket. A mobile service person will be coming over on August 12th. My adapter seems to be fried inside, it gives a Pop and you can smell some type of burnt odor.

I also emailed the Tesla Parts place where I purchased it and gave them the Order # and a brief description of the problem. That was Friday August 26th... still no response.

An EVGo engineer did contact me after reading my post on another thread.

Fred

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

We, the informed, educated, and in most cases at least somewhat able to understand technology Tesla owners, can easily handle the variety of charging stations and plugs out there.

Now the average car driver on the road, who has never done anything but pump 87 octane at their local gas station, is not and / or will not be capable of understanding the nuances of all these different charge plugs and why isn't there just one, like how they can go to any gas station and the pump nozzle fits their car.

This will interfere with widespread EV adoption, your average idiot just wants to drive their car and not have to think about where and how to charge it up again, so we must pick the best 3 charge options (Tesla, CCS, and J1772) and cut it off right there. Any EV automaker who isn't making their car with one of these 3 plugs for American sales needs to switch their plug and retrofit their older cars.

The problem is only people who have purchased BEVs without being told "you need to use <x> chargers for fast charging, other ones won't work. Let me show you how to search in the car/on Plugshare".

It's really not complicated.

There are gas stations that have diesel and gasoline. Some only gasoline. Some only regular gasoline. I've even (accidentally) stopped at a diesel-only place in Nova Scotia. Oh, and there's E85, CNG and LPG in some places as well. Nobody complains about the confusion and says that we should all use the same fuel.

What matters way more than the plug/protocol is that the manufacturer(s) using the plug commits to volume, and, if necessary, the network itself. Ultimately, it will be volume that determines whether the network will have sufficient coverage and density, and will be viable. Maybe the US rollout of the Criminal* Charging System will be a special case.

* Over $2B of investment is because of two fines, rather than the BEV market.

 

[bwilson4web]

Just say, "Charging your EV is an IQ test. Only the dummies can't figure it out." <smirk>

EVs are for smart people.

Bob Wilson

 

[richtrav]

Yep, those exact kinds of products do exist and could have some small niche of usefulness. Here is an example.
EVTV Motor Verks Store: 20 kW CHAdeMO Portable Fast Charger, Battery Chargers, 20kwchademo

It takes an input of 240V AC at 80A (100A circuit). So it's about 20kW power.
And the output is CHAdeMO. It is $7,495.

I wonder if Tesla has ever considered their own 24 kW DC fast charger instead of relying on CHAdeMO? Something like the one above or this:

EV2000 Series | Bosch EV

It would be a sort of Super Destination Charger, allowing about 75-100 miles/hour of charging without requiring a 480V power source. There are plenty of out of the way places in the US where they'd come in handy and could really help in other countries like Mexico or Australia where Teslas are sold but the SC infrastructure is not fully developed yet. They could also relieve SC congestion in places like CA and there would probably be plenty of private Tesla owners who would snap them up if they were priced around the $10k mark.

To me these sorts of chargers, whether Tesla or CCS or CHAdeMO, fall in a sweet spot between cost and speed that can be put in almost anywhere. Basically a Level 2.5 Charger. I think they could fill a much larger niche than many realize.

 

[cwerdna]

To Bob's point earlier, I don't disagree at all the Tesla's North American plug and their Supercharger standard are far superior to CHAdeMO and SAE Combo.

I wonder if Tesla has ever considered their own 24 kW DC fast charger instead of relying on CHAdeMO? Something like the one above or this:

EV2000 Series | Bosch EV

It would be a sort of Super Destination Charger, allowing about 75-100 miles/hour of charging without requiring a 480V power source. There are plenty of out of the way places in the US where they'd come in handy and could really help in other countries like Mexico or Australia where Teslas are sold but the SC infrastructure is not fully developed yet. They could also relieve SC congestion in places like CA and there would probably be plenty of private Tesla owners who would snap them up if they were priced around the $10k mark.

To me these sorts of chargers, whether Tesla or CCS or CHAdeMO, fall in a sweet spot between cost and speed that can be put in almost anywhere. Basically a Level 2.5 Charger. I think they could fill a much larger niche than many realize.

The above Bosch unit is actually a rebadged Delta unit: Products - DC Charger - DC Wallbox - Delta Group.

The devil's in the details on those. I'm not clear if the "25 kW" is rated at some voltage that's higher than typical pack voltage and what its max amperage is.

I've used one of these lame "24 kW" DC chargers: ChargePoint Express 100 | ChargePoint. As I posted at Chevrolet Bolt - 60 kWh, 238 mi, < 7s 0-60 - Page 212 - My Nissan Leaf Forum, even though I wasn't even at point (37% starting SOC) where the car should taper, I only started out at 19 kW and it slowly rose to 21 kW (at 79% SoC) as my battery got fuller (probably due to the rise in pack voltage). The thing only has 55 amp max output.

Side note: Tesla wall connectors support up to 80 amp max out at 240 volts. 80 amps * 240 volts = 19,200 watts = 19.2 kW. Alas, Tesla stopped selling vehicles w/80 amps of on-board charger (or the 2nd OBC for 80 amps total) as a choice years ago. The max became 72 amps but even that's gone now. (We have some Tesla non-Model 3's at work with 72 and 80 amps of OBC.) Model 3 has never been available (yet?) with more than 48 amp OBC.

Apparently, in Japan, DC chargers below 40 kW are usually referred to as "intermediate chargers": CHAdeMO Make/Model Review — Using with a Tesla.

 

[cwerdna]

so we must pick the best 3 charge options (Tesla, CCS, and J1772) and cut it off right there. Any EV automaker who isn't making their car with one of these 3 plugs for American sales needs to switch their plug and retrofit their older cars.

You're blaming the wrong people. Blame the Frankenplug (CCS) folks for another unneeded standard and two unneeded plugs: Combo1 and Combo2. CHAdeMO is a world standard.

If you want to kill CHAdeMO so badly in the US, that means fewer users of that infrastructure (chicken and egg problem + low demand) and fewer stations that Tesla S, X and 3 w/adapter can charge at. http://www.chademo.com/ says there are 3,200 CHAdeMO stations in North America.

 

[bwilson4web]

Hi,

. http://www.chademo.com/ says there are 3,200 CHAdeMO stations in North America.

I noticed PlugShare shows a smaller number, almost 10 times fewer. Also, I remain skeptical about Nissan dealers who often are only available during business hours and rumors that some dealers only allow charging by their customers or other Nissans. Not trying to be difficult but sharing what little I've learned in my CHAdeMO testing. Certainly having CHAdeMO is better than not.

Bob Wilson

 

[flalvarado@gmail]

I just got the upgrade on our Tesla Model 3 so it can now use the ChaDeMo adapter that I purchased for our Model S. Both cars are on the Big Island of Hawaii, we live in Kona and sometimes drive to Hilo and back the same day. The ChaDeMo adapter worked just fine, it gave me a rate of charge of 43 KW, not quite at the supercharger level, but OK. Given that there are a few ChaDeMo chargers around the island in convenient places, this is a game changer for the Model 3. I understand the problems and limitations with ChaDeMo, but you know, it works now, not at some future date. Since 99% of the time I charge with solar at home, I no longer have a need for a supercharger on the island. I can make it anywhere on the island and back home and then some, and the ChaDeMo as a just in case backup charger. Thanks Tesla.

 

[Rocky_H]

I wonder if Tesla has ever considered their own 24 kW DC fast charger instead of relying on CHAdeMO? Something like the one above or this:

EV2000 Series | Bosch EV

It would be a sort of Super Destination Charger, allowing about 75-100 miles/hour of charging without requiring a 480V power source.

That is the niche for it, but it's a really rare use case. And I think the thing going against it is cost. Just the hardware, without any installation, is the difference between $8,000 or $500 for a 20kW station. So for each chunk of $8,000, do you install one plug or 16 plugs? The deployment per cost seems to favor the AC stations.

They could also relieve SC congestion in places like CA and there would probably be plenty of private Tesla owners who would snap them up if they were priced around the $10k mark.

Tesla used to offer this 20kW onboard charger capability (which is about the same AC to DC conversion hardware) for about $2,000, and some people took it and some people didn't, so I really don't see why "plenty" of Tesla owners would be dying for the opportunity to pay 5 times as much. That seems ludicrous (pun intended).

To me these sorts of chargers, whether Tesla or CCS or CHAdeMO, fall in a sweet spot between cost and speed that can be put in almost anywhere. Basically a Level 2.5 Charger. I think they could fill a much larger niche than many realize.

To me, these seem to fall into a black hole that is in the middle of two sweet spots and has very little usefulness. For "charge and go" over longer distances, it needs to be at least in the range of 50 to 100kW minimum to be tolerable for the time you have to take at a stop. So less than that is too slow and not effective for the "charge and go" paradigm, where you need to continue on, and you don't want to wait hours. At the 20kW level, a Model S gains about 60 miles per hour. It would take over 3 hours to recover 200 miles for the next leg of your trip--not acceptable.

Or, the other paradigm is destination, where you are going to be somewhere for hours anyway. And then it mainly comes down to the sites per cost paradigm. Why should each site cost 10X as much if you're just talking about the minor increase from about 10-12kW up to 20-25kW? That doesn't make much sense and would hinder wider charging deployment infrastructure. I do think that when Tesla is not trying so hard to keep the screws tightened on production simplification, that they should again offer an optional onboard charger that is about 17-20kW to be able to take advantage of these 80A wall connectors that can be installed widely and cheaply. I mean, they already produce and sell the EVSE side of it, so why not the receiving hardware in the car? That seems very simple and cost effective.

 

[ChrisABQ]

On topic: we’re in the beta/VHS phase before DVD and downloadable content.
Should be as simple as two big pins and have the car figure it out. If you need a data connection to check compatibility/billing/handshake/safety use wireless Bluetooth or WiFi. Geeze.

Off topic:
It’s frustrating to no end that EVGO and others are so focused on their little walled subscriber gardens and not focusing on filling in routes (off the highways and coasts). The fined folks should have been sent to fill in the infrastructure gaps.

 

[Rocky_H]

You're blaming the wrong people. Blame the Frankenplug (CCS) folks for another unneeded standard and two unneeded plugs: Combo1 and Combo2. CHAdeMO is a world standard.

"Unneeded"? And you're comparing it to CHAdeMO? Ha ha!
You seem to be forgetting that the J1772 and Mennekes were already around for a while, and they were "needed". This was an extension, just adding two additional pins below it for the DC parts. The thing that makes CHAdeMO suck so badly is that not only is it huge and bulky, it's also only single purpose! Since CHAdeMO is DC only, cars using it also have to have a second charge port for AC.

So while Tesla did a good job with making their proprietary port smaller, it does have the same advantages that CCS has. The top half of the port is the inlet for AC charging, and then with the extra two pins on the bottom, it takes DC charging. So it is a pretty sensible way to have just one port in the car that handles both, like Tesla does--it just happens to be a little bigger than a Tesla handle.

 

[srs5694]

It’s frustrating to no end that EVGO and others are so focused on their little walled subscriber gardens and not focusing on filling in routes (off the highways and coasts). The fined folks should have been sent to fill in the infrastructure gaps.

If by "the fined folks" you mean VW/Electrify America (and Electrify Canada further north), then that's exactly what they've been doing: Building out infrastructure in locations designed, like Tesla's Supercharger network, to enable inter-city travel.

In fairness to the CCS and CHAdeMO network providers, until the Chevy Bolt was introduced (~2.5 years ago), no non-Tesla EV provided over 100 miles of range, and without a range that at least begins to approach 200 miles (and/or much faster charging speeds than were available then), long-distance travel in an EV is awkward at best. Thus, the CCS and CHAdeMO networks focused on cities, to enable a ~100-mile EV to be charged quickly when an owner does a lot of driving in a day and needs an extra 20 miles of range to get home. It's only in the last couple of years that non-Tesla EVs have been capable of doing serious road trips, and would therefore need DC fast chargers along highways 100 miles from the nearest big city. Even with the introduction of the Bolt, the number of EVs needing this type of location was small. That's changing now, though, with increasing numbers of Bolts on the road and with the availability of long-range EVs from Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Audi, and Jaguar, with other manufacturers about to jump in, too.

I haven't checked the plans that EVgo, ChargePoint, and others have with respect to new deployments. (I have checked Electrify America's maps, though.) If EA's competitors don't begin deploying stations to facilitate inter-city travel, then that's likely a bad business decision. Because CHAdeMO and CCS infrastructure is a competitive marketplace, those companies that build the best infrastructure are likely to win compared to those who don't.

 

[richtrav]

Rocky, your points are correct, though when Tesla offered a 20kW onboard charger they had but a fraction of today's customers. I'm assuming a car can't be retrofitted affordably. Offering a DC solution would allow any of their cars access to it.