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Twin Chargers: Why?

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Or, more to the point, simply have a single 3-phase charger in the place where the two 1-phase chargers fit. The problem lies not with the charger, I believe, but rather with the pin design of the charging port, which clearly cannot handle 3-phase power.
Why not have an additional socket inside the car? Then we can have a "Mennekes Type 2 socket" which is inside the car and more protected against vandalisms.
 
It would be much less limited utility if they would allow the second charger to be powered from a separate source. Imagine a second charge port on the other side of the car. You could get 19.2kW from dual 14-50 outlets! Us europeans could get 7.4kW from dual 16A 230V outlets or 14.7kW from a three-phase 32A outlet with a breakout cable. That would make me definately order the second charger.

Which charge port powers what is easy to control. First port connected gets the first charger *and* the second if the pilot exceeds 42A or so. Second charge port gets the second charger if it's still available.

Bonus is you now have a charge port on either side of the car for convenience.

i agree completely.
 
70 or 80A public chargers seem to be extremely rare. One case to make is that they are much cheaper to install than a super charger or DC fast charger. If you're able to talk a business or hotel into installing one, you'd have a much easier time with a $1,200 investment and maybe another 1-2 thousand for installation than a much more expensive charger. Not a common scenario I realize, but we were able to get a hotel in Texas to install a J1772 80A charger recently.
 
I've mentioned this a couple times and it seems to get completely ignored...but one place I believe will widely provide higher amperage charging points where having dual chargers would be advantageous is car dealerships. GM now sells the Volt and I recall them saying they plan to have charging available at dealerships, likewise Nissan with the Leaf, and with other car makers with EV plans (Mitsubishi, Ford, etc...) I suspect all or at least most car dealerships will be offering high voltage chargers and I suspect they would allow non-brand cars to charge there as well (probably for a fee).

Northern California Nissan Dealers offering Electric Vehicle Charging

Southern California Nissan EV Chargers


Certainly these are not widespread now, but as they manufacturers try to build their market share and convince folks that range anxiety need not be a concern and such, I think that availability of these level 2 chargers and probably fast chargers will be pretty darn common over the next several years.

Also, people keep saying things like "obviously we won't need this when at home". Well, that's not so obvious to me. I plan to have an HPC on a high amp circuit. It is not at all uncommon, as a busy father of 3 to have a lot of running around to do in a rather rural area of the country. It's not uncommon for me to drive 60-80 miles in a day just running errands. After such a day I may be planning on a highway drive to visit family or to travel to St.Louis or Tulsa or Kansas City (~200 miles or so) to start a trip (major airports there). As such, the ability to top up my battery would allow me to make the trip via the Model S. It I have to wait 3-4 hours to top up the charge then I would have to consider an alternate vehicle.

I'm not everyone, but I think that even if used infrequently it's one of those things I'd much rather have available and not need than not have and have opportunities to use without having to compromise time or change to an alternate vehicle.
 
GM now sells the Volt and I recall them saying they plan to have charging available at dealerships, likewise Nissan with the Leaf, and with other car makers with EV plans (Mitsubishi, Ford, etc...) I suspect all or at least most car dealerships will be offering high voltage chargers and I suspect they would allow non-brand cars to charge there as well (probably for a fee).
They are all 6.6 kW chargers. Why would they install high power chargers when the cars only support 3.3 kW now (and unlikely more than 6.6 in the next gen). Since Nissan has come up with a $10k CHAdeMO charger - that is what the dealers will install in the future. Compare that with $6K for a pedestal Coulomb L2 6.6 kW charger.

The basic problem Ecotality is having trying to install CHAdeMO is not the charger expense (it is free under EV Project) - but the high power requirement. The high power requirement pushes up the demand charges - which can be very expensive on a monthly basis. No business wants to deal with that. For eg., just to get 3P 480V connection here is $40K. Apart from that they will have to pay demand charges if they the power / consumption exceed their limits.

It may be easier to get businesses to install 20kW chargers - the business won't have to deal with 3p or demand charges. But they would have to be installed just for Tesla owners (i.e. the upgrade would be only for Tesla owners).
 
...I suspect all or at least most car dealerships will be offering high voltage chargers and I suspect they would allow non-brand cars to charge there as well (probably for a fee)...

That would be nice, but I wouldn't count on it.
None of the California (USA?) Nissan dealers have CHAdeMO (yet), only J1772.
Also, there are many stories of people being denied access to the EVSEs even if they come in a Nissan LEAF.
Some dealers have said "customers only". I think Nissan corporate encouraged them to be more magnanimous but that may apply only to LEAFs bought from other dealerships, not so much other brands of cars. Also, for dealers that allow non-customer charging, I frequently find all of their EVSEs are already in use. They may have test drive/demo cars left on charge, and customer cars being charged/prepped in anticipation of delivery. Also, cars brought in for service. So, I wouldn't call the Nissan dealers "public charging locations", but more like "quasi-public", "frequently unavailable", "hit-or-miss" possible charging locations.

Also, I haven't heard of any charging for access. They don't seem to have a plan to do that.
 
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I suspect all or at least most car dealerships will be offering high voltage chargers and I suspect they would allow non-brand cars to charge there as well (probably for a fee).

Hi Evan,

As TEG points out it remains to be seen how accommodating the car dealers will be.

Regardless, the real utility of high amperage source (just like superchargers) is to locate them along strategic highway routes where you can get a relatively fast charge on long road trips. For the most part someone traveling along a major highway would have to make a time-consuming detour to get to a car dealership, thus defeating the utility of a faster charge.

Larry
 
...For the most part someone traveling along a major highway would have to make a time-consuming detour to get to a car dealership, thus defeating the utility of a faster charge.
...

Perhaps not entirely. Car dealer franchises tend to cover a region, so, for instance, having a CHAdeMO at every Nissan dealer provides good regional spacing and coverage.
Also, car dealers like to get good drive-by visibility, so they ARE frequently located in prominent areas near to major highways.
The problem is they are in business to sell & service their cars, not offer charging services to other types of vehicles.
Another thing going for auto dealerships is they tend to have industrial power (for shop tools and such) as well as lots of parking.

But, there usually isn't much to do there other than shop for cars. So may be better at a restaurant, movie theater, shopping mall, etc.
 
That would be nice, but I wouldn't count on it.
None of the California Nissan dealers have CHAdeMO (yet), only J1772.
Also, there are many stories of people being denied access to the EVSEs even if they come in a Nissan LEAF.
Some dealers have said "customers only".

I have charged at 3 TN Nissan dealers and all three were VERY accommodating and very happy to let me charge. All three location have public access 24x7 with no fees. So in my humble opinion Nissan has been great, at least in TN. The only downside is their plug-ins (like ALL other J-1772 plubs I have found) are limited to 30 amp and 208V or 6.2kw. In more than 6,000 miles of driving Ihave only found one Level 3 charger, 2 miles off the interstate, and no level 2's greater than 30 amps.
 
Hi Evan,

As TEG points out it remains to be seen how accommodating the car dealers will be.

Regardless, the real utility of high amperage source (just like superchargers) is to locate them along strategic highway routes where you can get a relatively fast charge on long road trips. For the most part someone traveling along a major highway would have to make a time-consuming detour to get to a car dealership, thus defeating the utility of a faster charge.

Larry
First, gentlemen, I'm not "counting on it", but rather optimistically thinking there will be some availability. Second, I don't know what highways you drive upon, but there are few I've been on across the US that are not within 10 minutes of a car dealership at many many stages of the route. Frankly, most car dealerships are likely to be much closer to reasonable places to get a bite to eat, relax, shop, etc. It's fine if they're located at a rest area I guess, but give me a location with 10 different restaurants nearby with lots of choices while my car charges for an hour and I'll make that 10 minute detour. IMO, the potential utility of this particular option is worth the modest additional cost vs the inconvenience of not having it if I need it and have the option of using it.
 
Any car dealer that sells electric cars ought to allow any electric car to charge at the dealership in order to encourage that car owner (who is already sold on electric car ownership) to become a customer. Tesla ought to let every Leaf and Volt owner charge at their stores so they can aspire to a Tesla.
 
OK, so this is an old thread and I haven't reread the whole thing and may very well repeat what's already been said, but... as I happened to ask this question at Santana Row yesterday and got a very concise and sensible answer, I thought I would relay it.

The twin chargers are useful only for high-powered quick-charging, such as "real" charging stations

They are not useful to the "dryer" outlets (since they don't go above 40-50 amps) and obviously not for the regular 110 outlet. Also not needed for Tesla's network of super-chargers, since they bypass the onboard chargers entirely.

His advice was to rather get the twin chargers than spend money on a home charging station, FWIW. Presumably since most of the home charging will happen at night when time is not much of an issue.
 
Here is another scenario in which I think the double charger might help... at least it is why I was considering it.

My business offers shuttle service to customers. Although individual trips will not exceed the 300 ideal mile range, it may come up that the vehicle might have to travel more than 300 ideal miles in one day. (Note I am careful to state "ideal miles" because the minimum safe highway speed in texas is 75 mph). So at home base (my business) I was thinking of setting up whichever charging set up that would allow use of the double charger...

Can someone point me in the direction of a commercial EVSE. I wouldn't mind making my Charger available to the public - I am located right next to a gas station ;)
 
Can someone point me in the direction of a commercial EVSE. I wouldn't mind making my Charger available to the public - I am located right next to a gas station ;)
The ClipperCreek CS 100 (they made the original Tesla HPC) is supposed to be good. They make a 80A J1772 charger which is the one the Austin Hilton should be installing soon. You can also install an access control and billing function too I think. There may be better ones out there since I haven't looked at all the available ones. If the Tesla HPC 2.0 is rated for outside, could always install one of those I guess.
 
Too lazy to start a new thread...

My understanding is that the general guidance is (1) plug in every night and (2) beware of supercharging too often.

For the $1,200 charger, does (2) apply or should we just stick with (1)?