Will CHAdeMO chargers catch on in the US?

[rcc]

Yep - buying a Chademo adapter makes sense if you have a specific need and Chademo will work for you.

I wouldn't buy it otherwise except in Japan where Nissan has tried hard to blanket the country. Sheer numbers of chargers installed don't tell the story. The problem with Chademo is given that it's used primarily by EVs with <70 miles of real-world range, you have to space them 50 miles apart instead of 150 miles if you're going to cover the same straight line distance as an SC. Say along I-5 between SF and LA. 3x more chargers. The number is a square of that (9x) if you need to cover a circular area instead of a straight line.

And it gets worse when you consider that with long-range cars like the S, you charge at home, drive all day and only need Supercharging if you're going on a road trip or a long day-trip. And given the choice between using a Chademo or SC for a road-trip charge, SC's are better because they're faster.

So most Model S owners don't need any charging that's not at home.

The upshot is that Tesla needs to build far far fewer Superchargers to get effective coverage of the entire country or just the major cities and highways than is needed for Chademo. Chademo will never ever get there. Not even in the major cities.

And once you can buy a 400 mile EV for $30K, Chademo will just fade away.

 

[wws]

With 10s of thousands of Leafs already in the wild, not to mention the Kia coming on line, I think CHAdeMO will be here for some time. I would think almost any new DC charger install, outside of a dealer service center, would want to be a combo CCS/CHAdeMO charger. Just too expensive to install such a station not to cater to the needs of both sets of motorists.

Seems to me that when traveling in/around an area where there are a lot of CHAdeMOs, it would be real convenient to have the flexibility of using CHAdeMO vs having to go out of ones way to find the nearest supercharger. For example, look at Oregon and Washington on plugshare. There are well over 100 CHAdemo sites vs only 7 Tesla sites.

 

[techmaven]

40-60kW chargers of any sort make zero sense at the prices that are currently being charged. CHAdeMO, CCS, whatever. Every single CHAdeMO and CCS EVSE installed in the U.S. is obsolete and a waste of money.

 

[jerry33]

Seems to me that when traveling in/around an area where there are a lot of CHAdeMOs, it would be real convenient to have the flexibility of using CHAdeMO vs having to go out of ones way to find the nearest supercharger. For example, look at Oregon and Washington on plugshare. There are well over 100 CHAdemo sites vs only 7 Tesla sites.

Anything that charges faster than a NEMA 14-50 is an advantage on a trip. The big problem with ChaDeMo is that there are different implementations and some can fry the car's electronics if the adapter design didn't allow for that particular variety. As far as the 100 vs 7 goes, that's about the right ratio for 50-mile-on-a-bad-day EVs.

 

[dhrivnak]

With well north of 600 CHAdeMO in the USA I would say yes as they outnumber Superchargers 5 to 1. In Tennessee CHAdeMO out numbers superchargers 14 to 1.

 

[scaesare]

With well north of 600 CHAdeMO in the USA I would say yes as they outnumber Superchargers 5 to 1. In Tennessee CHAdeMO out numbers superchargers 14 to 1.

Is that CHAdeMO chargers or locations?

Because Tesla has 749 Superchargers in N.A.[1] in 127 locations... which means that they actually outnumber CHAdeMO by about 25%.

Many CHAdeMO locations have a single charger bay, it seems...


[1] A few of those are in Canada, but it wasn't worth the trouble to sift those numbers out of the list... but the point remains that there's not a 5 to 1 disadvantage in the U.S.

 

[Incredulocious]

40-60kW chargers of any sort make zero sense at the prices that are currently being charged. CHAdeMO, CCS, whatever. Every single CHAdeMO and CCS EVSE installed in the U.S. is obsolete and a waste of money.

Apparently a waste to you, but not to all those who can't use Tesla's Superchargers: gaining 100 miles range in a half hour sure beats the 4-6 hours at a J1772 station or 14-50 plug if you want to extend a day's drive.

 

[techmaven]

Apparently a waste to you, but not to all those who can't use Tesla's Superchargers: gaining 100 miles range in a half hour sure beats the 4-6 hours at a J1772 station or 14-50 plug if you want to extend a day's drive.

The problem is Nissan and Mitsubishi's push for impractical CHAdeMO in the U.S. If they had instead installed 80A J1772 (20kW), our L2 charging infrastructure and ongoing planning would be very different. In a BEV future, there is no place for 40-60kW charging. Overnight, a 80A J1772 will fill a 120 kWh pack. When Nissan/others ship 40-60kWh battery pack cars, they will need 100 kW DCFC to fill in a reasonable period. The cadence makes no sense at all if you were planning a reasonable L2 and L3 BEV charging infrastructure. You would never do 40-60kW DCFC and certainly not at the extreme costs - $20,000 at a subsidized minimum for a single plug. Usually, $40k-60k in install costs and requires 480v 3 phase electricity which means it cannot be installed in many locations. In a BEV future, we need *lots* of plugs and $2k-4k for a L2 plug at 10-20kW makes far more sense than $25-60k for a single 45k-55k plug. The costs are roughly 10:1. Even with a 120kWh pack, it doesn't make sense to pay lots of money to charge overnight in say, 3 or 4 hours (50kW charging). Are you going to get up from your hotel room to move your car to free up the single CHAdeMO plug in the middle of the night? Or does it make more sense for a hotel to have 10x 20kW L2 chargers for the same price? To need more than 20kW for overnight charging, when do you think we'd hit 120+kWh battery packs outside of Tesla? Not soon. So L2 doesn't need to exceed 20kW, which is 100A @ 240v which is a reasonable install cost. L3, on the hand, is to support long distance driving and 50kW doesn't cut it with bigger packs.

Imagine if Nissan/Mitsubishi instead had 10kW charging with the option of 20kW AC J1772 charging. Our L2 infrastructure would be unlikely have so many 24A and 30A L2 charging. The difference in charging a Leaf at 20kW versus 44kW is not as high due to tapering - fill to 80% in 40 minutes. The 25kW CHAdeMO and CCS options are even more nonsensical. The 3kW and then 6kW AC L2 charging that they are shipping now has crippled and continues to cripple our BEV future. And then they waste their funds and more importantly, government funds to install more 40-60kW wastes? These will look stupid by 2018, and a complete boondoggle by 2020.

 

[dhrivnak]

Is that CHAdeMO chargers or locations?

Because Tesla has 749 Superchargers in N.A.[1] in 127 locations... which means that they actually outnumber CHAdeMO by about 25%.

Many CHAdeMO locations have a single charger bay, it seems...


[1] A few of those are in Canada, but it wasn't worth the trouble to sift those numbers out of the list... but the point remains that there's not a 5 to 1 disadvantage in the U.S.

That is locations. And when you are traveling the locations matter. In Tennessee every other Cracker Barrel has a Chademo. Far better than a 24 amp J1772 or a non-existent Super Charger.

Now granted Super Chargers are better but never let good get in the way of best especially when best is not an option.

 

[scaesare]

That is locations. And when you are traveling the locations matter. In Tennessee every other Cracker Barrel has a Chademo. Far better than a 24 amp J1772 or a non-existent Super Charger.

Now granted Super Chargers are better but never let good get in the way of best especially when best is not an option.

Certainly locations matter... but it also matters that there's sufficient capacity. A location that has one charge stall and therefore unavailable, and worse yet might have a queue waiting for it, does you no good. That's especially true when the charge rate is 2-4X less power than a supercharger.... and therefore they have the potential to bee tied up longer.

Given the Model S range advantage over the leaf, as long as "sufficient" locations are available, I think that overall "density" in terms of of charge stalls is perhaps more important.

Not to say that CHAdeMO stations may not at times be useful... but I don't think the "5:1" number of locations really tells the whole story of the utility provided...