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I disagree that CHAdeMO is useful as a long-distance charger. It's not fast enough except for the EV enthusiast who will tolerate it. I'll use it when there is a gap in a supercharger route (I-10 from Texas to Florida in a 60 until Slidell supercharger gets built, for example) but I'm not going to like it. Charging an hour to drive 2 hours or even less is not sustainable. They're fine for quick charging short range EVs in the city, but to try to turn them into a long-distance charging solution would be a mistake. Tesla is much better served by a combination of superchargers and destination HPWCs. CHAdeMO is too slow for travel and usually overkill for destination charging. It doesn't serve either role well.
I would tend to agree with you on the spirit of your message, although I wouldn't declare it to be completely unfit as a long-distance charger. Rather, I'd say it's "more useful" as a long-distance charger than a 20 kW HPWC.
I find that a 44 kW station works for long-distance travel if you're stopping at meal time, where you know you'll spend an hour or more in the restaurant (especially with my 4 boys). I agree that if every station were limited to 44-50 kW it would be untenable, but it's possible to leverage them in certain situations.
Great points.
And let's remember too that my suggestion that started this thread would not be to redirect resources from any other program. It would simply be Tesla throwing a few dollars in the direction of CHAdeMO chargers that already exist, to make it more likely that Tesla owners who have no reason to own their own CHAdeMO adapters would be able to use them.
GlmnAlyAirCar
Active Member
My point is that a CHAdeMO can fill in the gap between superchargers much better than destination chargers can. I needed an extra 50 miles or so to comfortably make the trip between Plymouth, NC and Salisbury, MD. A quick stop in Norfolk at a CHAdeMO did the trick. And, yes, I can't wait for the Norfolk/Virginia Beach SC to come on line.
deonb
Active Member
Wouldn't say it's not useful. There have been quite a few cases I've been in where the Superchargers are too fast, where I would have preferred being able to stop for longer and have a real lunch.
But because the Superchargers are so fast you can't actually sit down for 90 minutes in good conscious and leave your car plugged in. So we generally opt for faster establishments, which gets old. The Supercharger speed is actually in that very inconvenient gap - too slow to not do anything with your time, but too fast to do anything useful.
If all Superchargers had a Chademo next to them, I'd probably purposefully use the Chademo around 25% of the time.
Note that this can also be solved with those shared 4-port chargers that Elon promised back in 2013. Whatever happened to those? Would be nice if each Supercharger also had one set of 4-port charger ports with a sign "Ok to stop for up to 2 hours".
deonb
Active Member
Well, more accurately the complaint is that you're expected to move away from the Supercharger spot as soon as its done charging.
This makes it closer to a pump-gas-and-leave experience than a parking experience. But it is uncommon to park anywhere for 25 to 35 minutes - just watch your behavior in other places. Lunch is more, coffee is less.
The only thing that squarely fall in that range is fast food, but like I said - that gets old. Actually, having a beer is also in that range, but very few of the Superchargers are next to bars - I only know about Mt. Shasta.
Maybe it's different in your part of the country. I'm happy to just see another Tesla when I'm supercharging and have never seen more than half the spaces occupied. I don't think there would be a problem leaving it there for an hour while you eat unless the site is busy such as on a weekend, and then you could just peek at it after 30 or 40 min to make sure no one is waiting.
This is a really good idea. I wonder if Tesla has approached the various CHAdeMO charger manufacturers to include this with their product offerings? The marginal cost would be small - just the guts of the existing adapter plus a relatively cheap cable. I'd bet it would cost less than the marginal cost of adding CCS.
Well, we're getting way off base from the original message of Tesla providing free CHAdeMO adaptors, however, there are a few tiny problems with this concept:
1) You can't just take a UL or otherwise listed / approved product like a DC charger and just willy nilly add components. Whatever was added would have to be resubmitted to UL, and that means for every model of charger where this concept would be applied. Who would pay for this (it could easily be tens of thousands of dollars per charger)?
2) With two cables hanging off the charger, there would need to be a set of relays between the cables to disable DC power to the other cable, and a logic circuit to ensure there's no "welded" relay. In other words, it's not just slapping on a cable.
3) The existing 80 amp cable from the HPWC could likely be used, with a corresponding limitation to the Tesla CHAdeMO adaptor. That would make a 80a * 300v = 24kW up to about 80a * 380v = 30.4kW before the amps start tapering down.
4) Ideally, the cable would be optimized for the 125 amps of CHAdeMO, but that doesn't physically exist with a Tesla plug on it. The Supercharger cable capable of 370 amps is gross overkill.
Great idea, I think, overall.
Of course this would need to be done. But many have already have done it with dual standard CHAdeMO/CCS chargers.
Again, many have already done this for the dual standard chargers. In Europe, apparently there are already 3-way chargers (high power AC, CCS, and CHAdeMO.)
Better to use something that would support the max rate of the charger. If it only supports 30kw, so be it. But if it supports 50kw, or better yet, 100kw, an appropriate sized cable would be needed. Interestingly, the connector at the end of the new liquid cooled supercharger cable is the same as that used for the HPWC. (Per one of the design engineers who was on hand at the MV supercharger after the Tesla shareholders meeting.)
Easy problem to solve.
Nobody has put an additional cable on an existing charger. They offer tested / approved chargers with multiple cables.
Big difference.
If the Superchargers were NOT free to use, there likely would already be such a charger. Quite obviously, there is virtually zero financial incentive to do this.
Back to reality, with either donated or Tesla supplied adaptors.
I'm going even simpler than that. Mount the adapter so that when you want the Tesla cord, you plug the charger's CHAdeMO head into the adapter, already mounted on the charger. That "relay" is a human one.
OK, so now you need 20 feet of 125 amp cable and two splices.
SW2Fiddler
We Are Cognitive Dissidents
Hey y'all, Good News! I have my first referred Order logged ("credit pending") meaning the Rouses Market "Destination CHAdeMO" open-source Tesla Adapter is one step closer to being a reality.
I'll update here as things proceed. My plan is to drive there in person and present it to Jeremy. Charge Pearlie May, Post it on PlugShare. Then meet up with NOLA_Mike for beignets!
LOL I can't believe I just now had to add "beignets" to the SpellChecker dictionary. Whose computer IS this anyway?
Rick (aka "rick3466")
Do you know if it's working? The most recent Plugshare entry says "Couldn't get broken handle to lock."Hey y'all, Good News! I have my first referred Order logged ("credit pending") meaning the Rouses Market "Destination CHAdeMO" open-source Tesla Adapter is one step closer to being a reality.
I'll update here as things proceed. My plan is to drive there in person and present it to Jeremy. Charge Pearlie May, Post it on PlugShare. Then meet up with NOLA_Mike for beignets!
LOL I can't believe I just now had to add "beignets" to the SpellChecker dictionary. Whose computer IS this anyway?
Rick (aka "rick3466")
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