Electrify America general discussion

[cwerdna]

It is plainly obvious Electrify America doesn't care about CHAdeMO because its parent company (Volkswagen) doesn't use CHAdeMO, and neither do any of its partners (BMW, Ford, Hyundai, KIA, Lucid, Mercedes, Polestar, Volvo).

In fact, Electrify America has already stopped installing new chargers with CHAdeMO.

Your statement is mostly true for the US (Kia Soul EV gen 1 was CHAdeMO) but not true for VW, BMW and Mercedes for Japan. EA is VW of America owned. The "partners" are just other automakers that they've made deals with in terms of providing "free" charging for their EVs.

Japanese market e-Golf, BMW i3 and Mercedes EQC all have CHAdeMO inlets. I have physically seen and taken pics of the 1st and 3rd case at Tokyo Motor Show. Charge plug location consistency? has the pic I took of the EQC: CHAdeMO on rear fender and J1772 on rear bumper corner.

I've pointed out BMW i3 Gets CHAdeMO Charged In Japan and the BMW Japan press release mentioning CHAdeMO numerous times. You can see CHAdeMo featured at e-Golf | ハッチバック | フォルクスワーゲン公式. Scroll about 1/3 of the way down. Attached pic I took of that.

But yes, EA has done the bare minimum to "support" CHAdeMO and has basically sabotaged it in the US. Too bad VW was clever enough when negotiating their dieselgate penance that they weren't forced to be standards neutral and could instead help further VW AG's business interests and brands (e.g. VW, Audi and Porsche).

 

[e of pi]

....Electrify America isn't building support for the Japanese market? It's kind of in the name.

 

[Rocky_H]

It is plainly obvious Electrify America doesn't care about CHAdeMO because its parent company (Volkswagen) doesn't use CHAdeMO

It is not because of that.

and neither do any of its partners (BMW, Ford, Hyundai, KIA, Lucid, Mercedes, Polestar, Volvo).

It IS because of that.

You have really been on this false narrative that it has been VW trying to benefit only VW. But it is really because all of the EV market in The U.S. is going to CCS.

Your statement is mostly true for the US (Kia Soul EV gen 1 was CHAdeMO) but not true for VW, BMW and Mercedes for Japan.

So why should any North American charging company who is installing stations in North America be building CHAdeMO stations to support Japanese vehicles? There isn't exactly a bridge for Japanese people to drive their cars over to North America.

 

[Mockingbird]

Your statement is mostly true for the US (Kia Soul EV gen 1 was CHAdeMO) but not true for VW, BMW and Mercedes for Japan. EA is VW of America owned. The "partners" are just other automakers that they've made deals with in terms of providing "free" charging for their EVs.

Japanese market e-Golf, BMW i3 and Mercedes EQC all have CHAdeMO inlets. I have physically seen and taken pics of the 1st and 3rd case at Tokyo Motor Show. Charge plug location consistency? has the pic I took of the EQC: CHAdeMO on rear fender and J1772 on rear bumper corner.

I've pointed out BMW i3 Gets CHAdeMO Charged In Japan and the BMW Japan press release mentioning CHAdeMO numerous times. You can see CHAdeMo featured at e-Golf | ハッチバック | フォルクスワーゲン公式. Scroll about 1/3 of the way down. Attached pic I took of that.

But yes, EA has done the bare minimum to "support" CHAdeMO and has basically sabotaged it in the US. Too bad VW was clever enough when negotiating their dieselgate penance that they weren't forced to be standards neutral and could instead help further VW AG's business interests and brands (e.g. VW, Audi and Porsche).

Electrify America is not installing charging stations in Japan.

 

[cwerdna]

You have really been on this false narrative that it has been VW trying to benefit only VW. But it is really because all of the EV market in The U.S. is going to CCS.

It's not a false narrative. If VW cared about benefiting EV drivers as a whole in the US when they spent their/our $2 billion, they would've put on a more equal ratio of CHAdeMO vs CCS at each site and had equal power levels or worked just as hard to get CHAdeMO power levels as high as CCS. Nope. They chose to put on a crippled 50 kW CHAdeMO and a ton of 150+ kW CCS.

It was a middle finger to Nissan and what we said all along on MNL, CCS was a way to slow down Nissan. Someone else made this post in 2012 about VW at SAE Planning vote to formally deny CHAdeMO in US - Page 7 - My Nissan Leaf Forum. I like SAE Planning vote to formally deny CHAdeMO in US - Page 2 - My Nissan Leaf Forum was pretty annoyed back then.

What do you think would've happened in the US if VW/EA deployed an equal # of stations and in the same manner but instead put on 5 to 7 (or the extreme of 27 at Westfield Valley Fair | PlugShare) 150+ kW CHAdeMO handles at each site and a single 50 kW CCS1? Do you think most/all automakers would shift to or choose CCS1 as the DC FC inlet standard?

The whole CHAdeMO being toast now and EA's deployment was a big reason why I shied away from wanting to buy a Leaf when I had my Bolt bought back (related to the battery recall) and was looking for a replacement BEV.

So why should any North American charging company who is installing stations in North America be building CHAdeMO stations to support Japanese vehicles? There isn't exactly a bridge for Japanese people to drive their cars over to North America.

Teslas can also use CHAdeMO w/their CHAdeMO adapter. EVgo has many DC FC sites with an integrated CHAdeMO to Tesla adapter bolted onto the side: Tesla Model 3, S, X & Y Charging with EVgo Fast Charging.

The "North American" charging company is of part of VW of A which is part of a huge German company. No other non-Tesla DC FC network in the US is as CHAdeMO hostile as EA.

 

[e of pi]

What do you think would've happened in the US if VW/EA deployed an equal # of stations and in the same manner but instead put on 5 to 7 (or the extreme of 27 at Westfield Valley Fair | PlugShare) 150+ kW CHAdeMO handles at each site and a single 50 kW CCS1? Do you think most/all automakers would shift to or choose CCS1 as the DC FC inlet standard?

I think so, given Chademo was limited to like 100 kW even in expanded specs and still needed a separate port with its own wiring for AC charging, which SAE DCFC doesn't?

 

[cwerdna]

I think so, given Chademo was limited to like 100 kW even in expanded specs and still needed a separate port with its own wiring for AC charging, which SAE DCFC doesn't?

CHAdeMO Standard Ups Power To 400 kW, Surpasses CCS

CHAdeMO Association just released its new 2.0 version of the fast charging standard that maintains backward compatibility and now offers up to 400 kW of power.

insideevs.com

SAE Combo can still require separate wiring, as well.

How to find out if a used Bolt has DC fast charger? is the difference under the hood for Bolts without vs. with DC FC inlet.

CCS1 is a step backwards from CHAdeMO in numerous respects. There have been numerous growing pains from a connector that has had less time to evolve/bake than CHAdeMO, hence stuff like EA makes a video on how to prop-up the cable. I see countless complaints on Plugshare, Bolt groups and chevybolt.org of people complaining of failures to start on EA. When asked if they propped up the cable until it locked, they didn't know about it! CHAdeMO doesn't have this issue.

CCS didn't even begin to support V2x until recently. CHAdeMO has had it working and in use for many years already.

 

[miimura]

Technically, both SAE Combo and CHAdeMO have separate wiring for AC and DC. Only the Tesla Proprietary Connector has combined wiring for AC and DC. The main difference is that CHAdeMO vehicles have to have completely separate ports for AC and DC charging while the SAE Combo "Frankenplug" just added the DC pins below the J1772 port and added additional digital signaling to the existing J1772 pins.

 

[bradtem]

CHAdeMO Standard Ups Power To 400 kW, Surpasses CCS

CHAdeMO Association just released its new 2.0 version of the fast charging standard that maintains backward compatibility and now offers up to 400 kW of power.

insideevs.com

SAE Combo can still require separate wiring, as well.

How to find out if a used Bolt has DC fast charger? is the difference under the hood for Bolts without vs. with DC FC inlet.

CCS1 is a step backwards from CHAdeMO in numerous respects. There have been numerous growing pains from a connector that has had less time to evolve/bake than CHAdeMO, hence stuff like EA makes a video on how to prop-up the cable. I see countless complaints on Plugshare, Bolt groups and chevybolt.org of people complaining of failures to start on EA. When asked if they propped up the cable until it locked, they didn't know about it! CHAdeMO doesn't have this issue.

CCS didn't even begin to support V2x until recently. CHAdeMO has had it working and in use for many years already.

Having something in a spec and it actually working are two different things. What fraction of CHAdeMO charges every day would you estimate are billed through Plug2Charge or similar? (Not that it's very large for CCS either.) Of course, all Tesla supercharging uses this.

Neither CCS or CdM were well designed compared to Tesla. I think everybody here knows this. CCS is some sort of "standard" as though that makes it magically better, and so it's what we're going to get, at least for the next little while. I actually think there are enough flaws in CCS that we'll develop a future new plug to replace it in time, which is compact and simple like Teslas, but is designed for easy robotic insertion where the plug just sits there (or has very basic actuation) and the car does the work of plugging itself in. Self-driving cars are great, but the far simpler idea of the self-charging car is also valuable and could happen today with Teslas if the plug were designed to handle it. Otherwise you need to have a much more expensive robot at each charging station to plug in something like the Tesla connector, which Tesla built but has not deployed.

I mean you could make a robot to plug in CCS, so maybe that will stick around. It's harder to see a car being able to be the robot and back itself into a CCS plug, but maybe it's possible.

 

[miimura]

That CHAdeMO article is from mid-2018. We still don't have any cars that can take more than 100kW (200A @ 500V) on a CHAdeMO connector and no stations that can exceed those specs either. At least EA has activated 200A CHAdeMO charging on many of their stations, even though they are still labeled "50kW".

 

[Rocky_H]

It's not a false narrative. If VW cared about benefiting EV drivers as a whole in the US when they spent their/our $2 billion, they would've put on a more equal ratio of CHAdeMO vs CCS at each site and had equal power levels or worked just as hard to get CHAdeMO power levels as high as CCS. Nope. They chose to put on a crippled 50 kW CHAdeMO and a ton of 150+ kW CCS.

It IS a false narrative.
Your statement of "a crippled 50 kW CHAdeMO and a ton of 150+ kW CCS" basically describes the actual landscape of EV vehicles in North America. Nissan had already switched away from CHAdeMO and no one else uses it. This is just what makes sense to do for the EV marketplace.

What do you think would've happened in the US if VW/EA deployed an equal # of stations and in the same manner but instead put on 5 to 7 (or the extreme of 27 at Westfield Valley Fair | PlugShare) 150+ kW CHAdeMO handles at each site and a single 50 kW CCS1? Do you think most/all automakers would shift to or choose CCS1 as the DC FC inlet standard?

That's rhetorical, right? You're not seriously asking that question? That was already DONE. All of the automakers were already done with CHAdeMO and definitely were not going to use it by the time EA came along, and what they did had no impact on whether any automakers were going to choose CHAdeMO--they weren't anyway.

The whole CHAdeMO being toast now and EA's deployment was a big reason why I shied away from wanting to buy a Leaf when I had my Bolt bought back (related to the battery recall) and was looking for a replacement BEV.

That's a wise choice anyway, because of CHAdeMO being a dying standard.

No other non-Tesla DC FC network in the US is as CHAdeMO hostile as EA.

Some companies have more interest in keeping support going for old discontinued out of date legacy products, because there is still some money to be made there for a while, but not all companies are interested in that as a significant part of their business.

 

[cwerdna]

Your statement of "a crippled 50 kW CHAdeMO and a ton of 150+ kW CCS" basically describes the actual landscape of EV vehicles in North America. Nissan had already switched away from CHAdeMO and no one else uses it. This is just what makes sense to do for the EV marketplace.

Nissan in the US still ships only an EV with CHAdeMO and nothing with CCS. Yes, I know Ariya will be CCS in the US but it's not available yet.

Mitsubishi Motors uses it (Outlander PHEV) but they are under Nissan umbrella now but when they shipped it, they weren't. At Tokyo Motor Show 2019 (I was there), they were promoting DENDO DRIVE HOUSE | 2019 Tokyo Motor Show | MITSUBISHI MOTORS JAPAN. I physically saw some of the devices at V2G | CHAdeMO.

Teslas STILL can use CHAdeMO via either user-supplied adapter or EVgo's bolted to the side of chargers.

That's rhetorical, right? You're not seriously asking that question? That was already DONE. All of the automakers were already done with CHAdeMO and definitely were not going to use it by the time EA came along, and what they did had no impact on whether any automakers were going to choose CHAdeMO--they weren't anyway.

Who is "all of the automakers" being done with CHAdeMO? Some of them never even started (e.g. shipping a BEV in the US at all or shipping a DC FC-capable BEV) by the time we saw EA pulling their shenanigans. FCA still hasn't shipped any DC FC-capable BEV in the US. Mercedes only just got started less than a year ago. Their previous attempts (Tesla-powered Mercedes B-Class ED and Smart ForTwos couldn't even be DC FCed).

Volvo/Polestar had NO BEVs in the US at all at EA's inception. Ford's gen 1 FFE had no DC FCing at all. Gen 2 sold in tiny numbers before it was killed, leaving them no BEVs for years. Audi and Porsche (both part of VW) had no BEVs in the US for years. HyunKia's US efforts were until recently limited to CA + CARB compliance BEVs.

Again, if EA in the US installed 5 to 7 150+ kW CHAdeMO and 1 50 kW CCS and deployed hundreds or thousands of sites like this, what do you think BEV makers would for the US market? If they'd pick 50 kW CCS, why?

 

[Rocky_H]

Who is "all of the automakers" being done with CHAdeMO? Some of them never even started (e.g. shipping a BEV in the US at all or shipping a DC FC-capable BEV) by the time we saw EA pulling their shenanigans. FCA still hasn't shipped any DC FC-capable BEV in the US. Mercedes only just got started less than a year ago. Their previous attempts (Tesla-powered Mercedes B-Class ED and Smart ForTwos couldn't even be DC FCed).

Volvo/Polestar had NO BEVs in the US at all at EA's inception. Ford's gen 1 FFE had no DC FCing at all. Gen 2 sold in tiny numbers before it was killed, leaving them no BEVs for years. Audi and Porsche (both part of VW) had no BEVs in the US for years. HyunKia's US efforts were until recently limited to CA + CARB compliance BEVs.

Exactly!! I'm so glad you get it now, and are emphasizing my point! They all saw that it was a dead standard early on and never went down that dead-end path.

Again, if EA in the US installed 5 to 7 150+ kW CHAdeMO and 1 50 kW CCS and deployed hundreds or thousands of sites like this, what do you think BEV makers would for the US market? If they'd pick 50 kW CCS, why?

"Again"?? Huh? I already answered this. They had already made these decisions before EA did anything. They weren't going to use CHAdeMO, and the couple that used to were already dropping it. That's fact.

 

[Mockingbird]

It's not a false narrative. If VW cared about benefiting EV drivers as a whole in the US when they spent their/our $2 billion, they would've put on a more equal ratio of CHAdeMO vs CCS at each site and had equal power levels or worked just as hard to get CHAdeMO power levels as high as CCS. Nope. They chose to put on a crippled 50 kW CHAdeMO and a ton of 150+ kW CCS.

It was a middle finger to Nissan and what we said all along on MNL, CCS was a way to slow down Nissan. Someone else made this post in 2012 about VW at SAE Planning vote to formally deny CHAdeMO in US - Page 7 - My Nissan Leaf Forum. I like SAE Planning vote to formally deny CHAdeMO in US - Page 2 - My Nissan Leaf Forum was pretty annoyed back then.

What do you think would've happened in the US if VW/EA deployed an equal # of stations and in the same manner but instead put on 5 to 7 (or the extreme of 27 at Westfield Valley Fair | PlugShare) 150+ kW CHAdeMO handles at each site and a single 50 kW CCS1? Do you think most/all automakers would shift to or choose CCS1 as the DC FC inlet standard?

The whole CHAdeMO being toast now and EA's deployment was a big reason why I shied away from wanting to buy a Leaf when I had my Bolt bought back (related to the battery recall) and was looking for a replacement BEV.

Teslas can also use CHAdeMO w/their CHAdeMO adapter. EVgo has many DC FC sites with an integrated CHAdeMO to Tesla adapter bolted onto the side: Tesla Model 3, S, X & Y Charging with EVgo Fast Charging.

The "North American" charging company is of part of VW of A which is part of a huge German company. No other non-Tesla DC FC network in the US is as CHAdeMO hostile as EA.

Electrify America's "partners" (Ford, Mercedes, Volvo, etc.) don't use CHAdeMO.

Nissan's partner is EVgo, who Nissan paid to install CHAdeMO.

If Nissan (or another automaker) was paying Electrify America to install CHAdeMO, Electrify America would.

 

[bradtem]

Electrify America's "partners" (Ford, Mercedes, Volvo, etc.) don't use CHAdeMO.

Nissan's partner is EVgo, who Nissan paid to install CHAdeMO.

If Nissan (or another automaker) was paying Electrify America to install CHAdeMO, Electrify America would.

Probably. Which demonstrates the problem with charging. Selling electricity to EV drivers is not a business. We drivers wish it was, but it isn't. Thus almost all the charging networks (including Teslas) are there to sell cars, not energy. Which changes the incentives. They are still somewhat customer centric (after all, we buy the cars only knowing we can charge them on our trips, so we expect to be served) but not the way say, gas stations are which do sell gasoline as a business (though the profit often comes from selling convenience store stuff.)

It's important to realize that the wholesale price of a kwh is only about 2 cents at the generator. Everything else is time of day demand, power transmission and paying for charging equipment and other stuff. You pay anywhere from zero to 55 cents/kwh -- the energy itself is insignificant in that game. Charging isn't a commodity product like gasoline, it's a service, but people don't realize that so we get strange things.

We know this, we pay much more for the same electricity at a fast charger on the road than at a L2 charger in a hotel or in our house. However, once we start driving, to us it is a pure commodity. Each kwh gives you 4 miles or so, no matter what you paid for it.

 

[strider]

Man, you all are killing me. Chademo is dead. Period. Everyone is going CCS. As I said before, Tesla is going to go CCS as well. It'll be a year or so but they will start installing CCS ports at SCs and open the SCs up to everyone. Will turn into a nice profit center for them. Then they will start installing CCS ports in US cars (already done in Europe - Idk what they do for Chinese cars). Eventually (over years) they will phase out the Tesla plug at SCs and legacy owners will buy the (already coming) CCS-Tesla adapter. J1772 is just as easy to use for L2 (I have both CCS and Tesla vehicles at home) and SCing is done so rarely the slightly less ergonomic CCS DC plug just isn't that big a deal.

 

[Crutonius]

I seriously doubt Tesla will install CCS ports on their US cars. They only reason they do it in Europe is because they're required to by law.

 

[Mockingbird]

Probably. Which demonstrates the problem with charging. Selling electricity to EV drivers is not a business. We drivers wish it was, but it isn't. Thus almost all the charging networks (including Teslas) are there to sell cars, not energy. Which changes the incentives. They are still somewhat customer centric (after all, we buy the cars only knowing we can charge them on our trips, so we expect to be served) but not the way say, gas stations are which do sell gasoline as a business (though the profit often comes from selling convenience store stuff.)

It's important to realize that the wholesale price of a kwh is only about 2 cents at the generator. Everything else is time of day demand, power transmission and paying for charging equipment and other stuff. You pay anywhere from zero to 55 cents/kwh -- the energy itself is insignificant in that game. Charging isn't a commodity product like gasoline, it's a service, but people don't realize that so we get strange things.

We know this, we pay much more for the same electricity at a fast charger on the road than at a L2 charger in a hotel or in our house. However, once we start driving, to us it is a pure commodity. Each kwh gives you 4 miles or so, no matter what you paid for it.

The CEO of Allego said in an interview that fast charging is already a profitable business in the Europe because, unlike in the US, gas is more expensive and demand cost is lower.

In the US, you are probably right.

 

[Mockingbird]

I seriously doubt Tesla will install CCS ports on their US cars. They only reason they do it in Europe is because they're required to by law.

With literally everyone else going with CCS, it's only a matter of time until Tesla switches.

 

[strider]

I seriously doubt Tesla will install CCS ports on their US cars. They only reason they do it in Europe is because they're required to by law.

But it makes perfect sense. Opening up the SC network increases adoption of EVs (one of Elon's stated missions) by solving the charging problem. Tesla is literally already testing open CCS superchargers in Europe. Assuming it is successful, it will open up a nice new revenue stream for Tesla and they will start rolling it out everywhere.

Read this: Non-Tesla Supercharger Pilot

More customers using the Supercharger network enables faster expansion. Our goal is to learn and iterate quickly, while continuing to aggressively expand the network, so we can eventually welcome both Tesla and Non-Tesla drivers at every Supercharger worldwide.

The only way they can do the above is by having the SCs support CCS. Also, it would further simplify their manufacturing (ie higher margins) by having a single charge port globally both on the cars and on the SCs. Yes, the SCs will migrate more slowly than the cars, but they are already releasing a CCS-Tesla adapter so those with legacy cars can buy an adapter.

I am confident this is happening. I knew it as soon as they announced the new charge ports on the S and X.