UK charging on type 2 & chademo

[Couscous19]

I recently got hit by the cold weather in a long journey and didn’t quite have enough to make it to the supercharger. We used Ecotricity and CYC rapid charging points to grab the extra bit of juice but found the charging to be crazy slow using the type 2 tethered available.

At both sites we only got 12 kW and 16 amps. I thought I had dual chargers (2014 used model S85) and thus we’d get ~22kW. Am I missing something?

I have wondered if getting a chademo adapter is worthwhile but at 400 odd quid it seems hard to justify. Is there a way to buy one 2nd hand one for less? Is there any specific “version” of the adaptor I need?

 

[yuhong]

I believe that some had dual but with charging above 11kW software disabled.

 

[Rocky_H]

I believe that some had dual but with charging above 11kW software disabled.

Not with a 2014 car. They didn't do any software locked chargers back then. Either it had the second one or not.

 

[miimura]

Not with a 2014 car. They didn't do any software locked chargers back then. Either it had the second one or not.

Remember this is UK and 3-phase on-board chargers. There was some controversy about the single phase charging on those cars because 230V 16A is REALLY slow. The Mobile Connector would distribute the same phase to all three phases of the on-board charger so that it could charge at 7.4kW, but public charge points that followed the Type-2 standard would not and the car would therefore only charge at 3.6kW. There were rumors that later, but still early UK cars were all equipped with dual chargers so that they could physically charge at 32A single phase, but were software limited to 11kW 3-phase unless you paid for the dual charger upgrade. This issue went away with the facelift and the new on-board chargers that came with it.

 

[Rocky_H]

Remember this is UK and 3-phase on-board chargers. There was some controversy about the single phase charging on those cars because 230V 16A is REALLY slow. The Mobile Connector would distribute the same phase to all three phases of the on-board charger so that it could charge at 7.4kW, but public charge points that followed the Type-2 standard would not and the car would therefore only charge at 3.6kW. There were rumors that later, but still early UK cars were all equipped with dual chargers so that they could physically charge at 32A single phase, but were software limited to 11kW 3-phase unless you paid for the dual charger upgrade. This issue went away with the facelift and the new on-board chargers that came with it.

That is sounding a little familiar. I remember about the European chargers being very amp limited on single phase because of that. I didn't think they ever did anything about it.