Just wondering if anyone knows whether or not CHAdeMO charging will become more popular in the US? Is it worth buying the Tesla CHAdeMO adaptor?
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Just wondering if anyone knows whether or not CHAdeMO charging will become more popular in the US? Is it worth buying the Tesla CHAdeMO adaptor?
randompersonx said:No one can predict the future, but it's the high powered charger for the Nissan Leaf, so if that car proves to be successful (or at least, more popular than the Tesla), it may be a popular charging plug.
franknesss said:I just never really hear many people from the US needing or having much use for the CHAdeMO adaptor.
Remember charging at a Chademo station will cost you plenty, and superchargers are free. If I was in California, land of the superchargers, I wouldn't buy a Chademo adapter unless I needed it to go somewhere that I couldn't get to with superchargers and destination charging. It's not fast enough for charging while traveling and it's likely faster than you need at a destination, so there would have to be a unique case made for it by each individual.
I agree with some of the suggestions. Only buy one if you actually can find stations on plugshare nearby you know you will use. You also have to balance this with whether superchargers alone would satisfy your needs.
Don't bank on it "catching on" or not, as there might not be any stations that are useful to you specifically. The pace in the US has been relatively slow compared to Japan and Europe. Right now CHAdeMO is "de facto" in Japan, but CCS is actually growing much faster than CHAdeMO in Europe.
The question I was answering was from a Tesla owner in California asking if was worthwhile buying the Chademo adapter. So my answer was specific to Tesla. How Chademo benefits other EVs isn't relevant to whether the OP should buy a Chademo adapter.While this is true for Tesla cars, there are many more EVs out there. None of them has access to Superchargers, yet almost all of them can use CHADeMo chargers. The number of EVs that can use CHADeMo far outnumbers Tesla. In Los Angeles the number of CHADeMo vs Superchargers is 4 to 80. So the answer to the original questions is clearly 'yes'. Not only will it catch on, they outnumber Superchargers by far already and the demand for them is getting higher every day. The CHADeMo standard isn't limited to 50 kW. So far they haven't installed bigger ones because no car on the street can handle more than 50 kW.
Paying for a CHADeMo charger isn't that bad. During the day I pay an average of 28 ct for one kWh. Charging for one hour at 50 kW is the equivalent of $14 just in pure electricity. At eVGo's CHADeMo stations I pay $17 for one hour. That's really a fair price.