CHAdeMO suddenly not communicating with public EV chargers -- HUH?!!

[RayK]

A couple of years ago, the EV charging stations at the water district were free. They have two ChargePoint DCFC stations and I believe six L2 chargers. Both cost the same (19¢) and both have idle fees (DCFC: $4/hr after 1hr; L2: $2/hr after 4hr). Lately I've been getting about 25-30kW charge rates but have seen slightly less than the max of 50 in the past. I attribute it to the lower temperatures, the lack of significant pre-heating of the battery pack and/or the state of charge of my pack when I start (typically around 50-55%). Anyway, one hour of CHAdeMO charging usually gets me about 100 miles of range so that's good enough for me. I think of it as L2.5 charging: faster than the usual L2/UMC rate but not as fast as a Supercharger.

When I purchased the CHAdeMO adapter, I didn't think it would end up being my most used method of charging. At the time where I worked, we had a couple of DCFC stands and around 30 L2 ChargePoint stations in the parking garage. Employees had free charging; 75 minutes for DCFC and 4 hours for L2 per day. It was enough that I didn't have to have any at-home charging. I wanted my own adapter since I didn't want to rely upon the ones which were chained to the stations. When I was retired a few years back, I started using the CHAdeMO more since the water district stations are only about a mile from home and at a convenient location along my route to the freeways. I do still occasionally use a Supercharger when time is of the essence or the CHAdeMO stations are being used (or are down).

Recently, I drove up to Brookings, OR to visit my daughter. The area does not have any Supercharger (closest one is Crescent City, CA; 26 miles) but it does have free EV charging at the large department store (Fred Meyer). Both CCS and CHAdeMO are available. Got free miles the four days I was there.

 

[hill]

Found this information on the CHAdeMO adapter in the owners manual . . . . .
Because continuous improvement is an ongoing goal at Tesla, and is necessary to ensure compatibility with as many models of CHAdeMO stations as possible, both present and future, Tesla reserves the right to make product modifications at any time. As a result, your CHAdeMO adapter may require an occasional firmware update. Firmware updates are performed by Tesla Service.

It also says that the adapter may not work at all stations.

Couple years ago we took our adapter into 2 different SoCal SC's to flash an update. They told us in so many words that they weren't aware the adapters could be flashed. After looking into it, the 2nd SC did the deed, which allowed us to use CHAdeMO's that had stopped working. Wondering if CCS stations will also become an ongoing thing as the CCS adapters become more prevalent.
.

 

[GtiMart]

The CCS adapter that Tesla should be releasing eventually is passive, all the logic and circuitry is included in the charge port controller in the car. That means they can update it as they need through the vehicle's software updates. There will be no need to go to a SC and update an adapter.

 

[RayK]

So I'm on a trip to Oregon and found what looks like the only CCS1/CHAdeMO station in Ashland. It's a WCEH (West Coast Electric Highway) station next to the Shell gas adjacent to I-5. They both are 50kW max so it didn't really matter if I performed the CCS charge port update prior to my trip (I didn't). The stand was branded as Tritium but looked similar to the ChargePoint stations I used to use at work.

The one major difference with this station, as far as I'm concerned, was that I had to plug in the CHAdeMO adapter into the car's charge port, then plug the CHAdeMO handle into the adapter, before the station would recognize the connection. My usual procedure when using any CHAdeMO station is to plug the adapter into the handle, then plug the adapter into the car, then start the charge.

Took me a couple of tries of connecting things up, along with using the EVCS app to identify the station using the QR code, to get the session to start. Over an hour after finishing, I still don't know if I got (monetarily) charged as the session does not appear in the EVCS app's History section, nor have I seen the credit card charge on the card I have registered with the app. It was supposed to be $0.49/kWh and by my calculations I sucked up at least 35kWh (didn't note the actual number).

In any event, 43 minutes of connection yielded 135 miles of range; went from 135 (~45%) to 270 (90%) miles. Should be good enough for trips around town in the next two days and then hit a Supercharger on the trip back home.

 

[RayK]

I'm back at the WCEH CHAdeMO station tonight and it is a free charge. Plug the CHAdeMO adapter into the car, plug the CHAdeMO handle into the adapter and then push the Start button. Easy as that. Didn't have to use the EVCS app at all. Put 108 miles into the battery; 27kWh.