CHAdeMO Make/Model Review — Using with a Tesla

[Cottonwood]

Tried out my CHAdeMO adapter for the first time today at Boulder Nissan in Boulder, CO. The salesman came out to talk to me and he used to work for Tesla. He had heard about the CHAdeMO adapter, but had not seen one, was very interested, and helped me plug in.

The CHAdeMO there is an ABB Terra 53 CJ - Multi-standard fast charger.

I was at 78% charge in my MS, so I knew that I would not be able to get the full 125 Amps, but I just wanted to test functionality. I was very surprised when all I got was 47 Amps at 386 Volts (18.1 kW). Then the salesman explained that they had turned the max charge rate down to save on demand charges. From COLORADO COMMERCIAL & INDUSTRIAL GAS & ELECTRIC RATE SCHEDULE SUMMARIES, it looks like the monthly demand charges are $4.84 per kW. This charger seems to be limited to 20 kW AC in/18 kW DC out, and the charger can probably draw about 55 kW max. Throttling this CHAdeMO to 18 kW out probably saves the dealership about (55-20)*4.84 or about $170 per month. That seems to be a poor economy to me when there are so many Leafs in Boulder and this could be a nice advertising perk. At this power level, it is only slightly faster than a home HPWC.

Rancho Cucamonga has 6 Supercharger Cabinets. If 12 Teslas all charged at once and maxed out all 6 Cabinets at 150 kW AC in/135 kW DC out, that would be 900 kW. Demand charges in Colorado for that would be $4,356 per month. I have heard that demand charges in California can approach $10 per kW. That would mean $9,000 per month in demand charges. That is worst case but doing the calcs is sobering...

The date code on the CHAdeMO is 47/2014, the 47th week of 2014, or November 2014, so this is a pretty new CHAdeMO.

 

[mgboyes]

I was at 78% charge in my MS, so I knew that I would not be able to get the full 125 Amps

Actually on a CHAdeMO charger the peak charge rate comes around 72% SOC. Were it not for the limiting on the charger you should have been able to get a pretty decent charge rate - around 40kW.

 

[Cottonwood]

Actually on a CHAdeMO charger the peak charge rate comes around 72% SOC. Were it not for the limiting on the charger you should have been able to get a pretty decent charge rate - around 40kW.

Exactly, that is why I was disappointed to only get 18 kW, similar to a Tesla Dual Charger rate.

 

[AB4EJ]

The photos of the CHadeMO stations are great - especially when paired with the close-up photos of the stickers showing the units' capacities. We should start an online directory, containing a catalog of all the CHadeMO stations we can find, so that a person can have an idea of what to expect when going to one... to avoid the oft-mentioned disappointments. It's all about expectations.

 

[ZBB]

The photos of the CHadeMO stations are great - especially when paired with the close-up photos of the stickers showing the units' capacities. We should start an online directory, containing a catalog of all the CHadeMO stations we can find, so that a person can have an idea of what to expect when going to one... to avoid the oft-mentioned disappointments. It's all about expectations.

Everyone should post these pics and comments to Plugshare -- that's the best online directory avail...

 

[scott2613]

It seems like the available power at the fast DC chargers can be highly variable. On the one I'm installing there is an internal adjustment that allows the owner to limit the output. It's possible that some of these units do not have a service capable of delivering their full kW rating. A good 50kW unit should be able to deliver 48-49kW continuous if 480V @ 62A is available. That's what the vendor that supplied ours claims. Here is a photo of what that kind of service looks like. It also explains why there won't be to many of these installed at private residences.

 

[islandbayy]

It seems like the available power at the fast DC chargers can be highly variable. On the one I'm installing there is an internal adjustment that allows the owner to limit the output. It's possible that some of these units do not have a service capable of delivering their full kW rating. A good 50kW unit should be able to deliver 48-49kW continuous if 480V @ 62A is available. That's what the vendor that supplied ours claims. Here is a photo of what that kind of service looks like. It also explains why there won't be to many of these installed at private residences.View attachment 75249

Awesome Photo! I will need to stop by during the construction! When do you think the power will be flipped on?

 

[RiverBrick]

Charging at the slim Nissan unit run by evgo at the Crossroad shopping center in Pleasant Hill, California has the infamous ~25 kW cap. Works fine with the adapter otherwise.

 

[Cottonwood]

It seems like the available power at the fast DC chargers can be highly variable. On the one I'm installing there is an internal adjustment that allows the owner to limit the output. It's possible that some of these units do not have a service capable of delivering their full kW rating. A good 50kW unit should be able to deliver 48-49kW continuous if 480V @ 62A is available. That's what the vendor that supplied ours claims. Here is a photo of what that kind of service looks like. It also explains why there won't be to many of these installed at private residences.

Even a little more power for many. Getting 49 kW out with 62 Amps of 480 Volts in means a 95% efficient CHAdeMO. Most are more like 90% efficient. 50 kW at 90% efficiency needs 67 Amps at 480 Volts. With conventional breakers, that puts you at 90 Amp service.

Whatever the exact calcs, this is a lot of electricity, even for a 50 kW CHAdeMO!

 

[hiroshiy]

In the UK the car is also limited to pulling only 25kW from DBT (Nissan) units, which is a shame since they're by far the most common DC charger unit here.

Apparently hardware upgrades are being made at which point the limit will be lifted.

My guess (and it's a total guess - no evidence to support it really) is that the car is imposing the current limit based on location (i.e. Tesla have created a database of DBT/Nissan CHAdeMO chargers in the UK, and in Japan I guess, and added them to the system) since there are a handful of DBT/Nissan units in the UK where the 25kW isn't being applied and people are getting 40kW+. I don't believe there's anything in the CHAdeMO signaling protocol that tells the car what make the charger is, and certainly not whether or not the charger has been "upgraded" so otherwise it's not clear how the car knows to limit the current it draws.

I heard from Tesla that the car's firmware listens the CHAdeMO charger make and version, and determines that if it's Nissan slim, it tries to cap the power to 25kW.

Also in CHAdeMO world, 50kW means 125A, 44kW means 110A, etc. The spec says the max power at 400V. So at 360V, 44kW charger only delivers 360 x 110 = 39.4kW.
Note that 25kW-capped Nissan slim charger seems to have 69A at 360V, and 62A at 400V, so the 25kW calculation is in Tesla way. Still, 30kW non Nissan charger is much better.

 

[scott2613]

Even a little more power for many. Getting 49 kW out with 62 Amps of 480 Volts in means a 95% efficient CHAdeMO. Most are more like 90% efficient. 50 kW at 90% efficiency needs 67 Amps at 480 Volts. With conventional breakers, that puts you at 90 Amp service.

Whatever the exact calcs, this is a lot of electricity, even for a 50 kW CHAdeMO!

It's actually 70A at 480V and yes, it's claimed to be over 95% efficient. It's 400A service with 125A breakers. Charger came today and it's really well made. Weighs 500# and looks like an ATM.

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Awesome Photo! I will need to stop by during the construction! When do you think the power will be flipped on?

By the 30th. Weather dependent. Stop by, call first though to make sure I"m there.

 

[AB4EJ]

I believe that some Nissan dealers will only allow cars that they have actually sold to use their chargers, not even all Leaves (nope, Leafs is better).

Every Nissan dealer seems to have their own policy here. The dealer people in my area said they charged Teslas a few times and very much enjoyed seeing the car and talking to the owner about it.

 

[trils0n]

Just a reminder for Blink Charging -- lots of times the touch screens are broke, or get hung up at a failure screen. Often this can be reset by calling customer support, but if you don't want to wait for that, or tech support can't help, you can often plug in, and use the Blink App to start the session remotely, even with a broken screen. For the dual unit CHAdeMO, look for the charger on the map section of the app, click it, and select the correct charger from the list. Left and right are labeled as you are facing the charger. I also seem to need to set my car's charging limit 10% above what I want the Blink to charge to, for example, I need to set limit to 90% on my car to get the charger to charge to 80% or set my car to 100% to get 90% charge.

Blink went bankrupt a while back, and all their engineers are gone, so Tesla has had to reverse engineer Blink CHAdeMO chargers to get them to work. Other brands of chargers they have worked with the respective company's engineers.

 

[scaesare]

grabbed an hour worth of CHAdeMO charge in NJ tonight to save some abuse of my relative's electricity

View attachment 75063

Hmm, that's interesting. Not sure I've ever seen the charge scheduling/current-limiting controls enabled during a DC charge session before...

Could you actually do anything with them?

 

[RiverBrick]

The slim Nissan CHAdeMO at Nissan of Bakersfield worked well with adapter, but once again there was a limit of about 24.5kW. The bottom most filter of the unit did look like it could use some cleaning.

 

[islandbayy]

I killed another station yesterday. Overheated and thermal error'd yesterday. only took 10 minutes this time. I guess when it's not Zero Degrees out, they don't even last 20 minutes..... Filter was clean. Another Nissan Slim station. Charge rate was ~30-~32kW

 

[efusco]

I killed another station yesterday. Overheated and thermal error'd yesterday. only took 10 minutes this time. I guess when it's not Zero Degrees out, they don't even last 20 minutes..... Filter was clean. Another Nissan Slim station. Charge rate was ~30-~32kW

Not good, how many times has this happened? Are all CHAdeMO unreliable? Would hate to be relying on a charge and have this happen on a long trip.

 

[islandbayy]

Not good, how many times has this happened? Are all CHAdeMO unreliable? Would hate to be relying on a charge and have this happen on a long trip.

I've killed every Slim Nissan station I used so I believe 5 different ones between Wisconsin and Illinois. Unfortunately, the last one, was a emergency charge, and it was between that or a 30 amp 208v chargepoint. I thought (based on other stations) I'd get at least 20 minutes out of it, which would have been enough + buffer range. Made it about 10 minutes. I made it work though, got me to the next supercharger.
The Nissan Slims have been failures. Each and every one. The ABB stations, every single one has been rock solid. Even after charging a 85 pack for over a hour at max power, barely got the station warm. The Nissan Slims are smelling like "Magic Smoke" after only 20 minutes at 0-10*F outside and clean filters...... Just cannot handle the heat.

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I posted some CHAdeMO videos here Charge Speed, both 60 and 85 packs, HPWC, CHAdeMO and Supercharger Compaired
I also have a charge speed comparison, for both 60 and 85 packs on a 6 screen video mash-up showing charge speed on HPWC v.s. CHAdeMO v.s. Supercharger. It is worth a look to see what to expect in terms of charge times for a CHAdeMO station in comparison to Superchargers and HPWC's. Charge times were about the same for both 60 and 85 packs on CHAdeMO and Supercharger, but the HPWC, with it's more limited top end current, the 85pack took considerably longer to charge.

 

[efusco]

I've killed every Slim Nissan station I used so I believe 5 different ones between Wisconsin and Illinois. Unfortunately, the last one, was a emergency charge, and it was between that or a 30 amp 208v chargepoint. I thought (based on other stations) I'd get at least 20 minutes out of it, which would have been enough + buffer range. Made it about 10 minutes. I made it work though, got me to the next supercharger.
The Nissan Slims have been failures. Each and every one. The ABB stations, every single one has been rock solid. Even after charging a 85 pack for over a hour at max power, barely got the station warm. The Nissan Slims are smelling like "Magic Smoke" after only 20 minutes at 0-10*F outside and clean filters...... Just cannot handle the heat.

- - - Updated - - -

I posted some CHAdeMO videos here Charge Speed, both 60 and 85 packs, HPWC, CHAdeMO and Supercharger Compaired
I also have a charge speed comparison, for both 60 and 85 packs on a 6 screen video mash-up showing charge speed on HPWC v.s. CHAdeMO v.s. Supercharger. It is worth a look to see what to expect in terms of charge times for a CHAdeMO station in comparison to Superchargers and HPWC's. Charge times were about the same for both 60 and 85 packs on CHAdeMO and Supercharger, but the HPWC, with it's more limited top end current, the 85pack took considerably longer to charge.

Thanks for that. Is there any way to dial back the draw on a CHAdeMO? As in, you can dial down the amperage draw on Level I and Level II chargers. I haven't had the opportunity to try that on a direct DC charger.

 

[islandbayy]

Thanks for that. Is there any way to dial back the draw on a CHAdeMO? As in, you can dial down the amperage draw on Level I and Level II chargers. I haven't had the opportunity to try that on a direct DC charger.

No, the car sees it as if it's being supercharged.