DC fast charging: J1772 CCS vs CHAdeMO vs Supercharger, etc.

[ReddyKilowatt]

I put in a service request with ChargePoint last night, this morning they're saying it is resolved. Want to verify?

Yes, I filed it yesterday (with pictures!) while I was sitting at the station so they could see the error message.

I am headed there tomorrow probably and will check it then.

 

[Alcalira]

Hi all, first post here. Been driving and loving a LEAF since 2012 but the lease ends soon so I'm going with a 2015 Spark EV this time. Have used my LEAF for many trips where I used DCFC one, two or three times in a day, all in Northern California (I'm in Davis and travel to SF Bay Area and Sierra foothills regularly). So now I'll be using the CCS combo units. Since my travel is basically along the I-80 corridor, my observation is that there are enough of both types to feel secure about taking longer trips. All the ones I've seen are NRG. Reliability of the units has been fine, and I subscribe to their plan. I've used their units in Santa Clara, Redwood City area, Emeryville, Berkeley, Vallejo, Vacaville, and Rocklin.

Going tomorrow to test drive and hopefully drive home in a Spark EV!

 

[Garrity]

Ask for the GM service bulletin PI1382 fix.

http://sparkev.blogspot.com/2015/09/solution-problem-with-dc-fast-charge.html

I wouldn't want to be stuck on a L2 when a DCFC is available but doesn't work on your Spark EV.

 

[Nashco]

Going tomorrow to test drive and hopefully drive home in a Spark EV!

Good luck, hopefully you find a suitable replacement for your Leaf! I know that coming from our previous Leaf, I was totally impressed the first time I used the fast charger on my Spark EV. Getting to 80% is several minutes faster, and getting to 100% is done in about half the time from empty...for the same driving range! Most might think that saving 10 or 20 minutes isn't that big of a deal, but if you do it regularly that time saved adds up fast. It's even more appreciated if you're going on a longer road trip and can cut the total trip time from 5 hours to 4 hours or similar.

The SAE Combo rollout has been slower than I had hoped, but it's finally starting to pick up (especially for CA). Stories are floating around that it won't be long before the I-5 corridor is finally populated with DC fast chargers well enough that I can do the Portland to SoCal road trip in my EV.

Bryce

 

[TonyWilliams]

Going tomorrow to test drive and hopefully drive home in a Spark EV!

Good luck, hopefully you find a suitable replacement for your Leaf! I know that coming from our previous Leaf, I was totally impressed the first time I used the fast charger on my Spark EV. Getting to 80% is several minutes faster, and getting to 100% is done in about half the time from empty...for the same driving range! Most might think that saving 10 or 20 minutes isn't that big of a deal...

Bryce

The Spark EV charges faster primarily because the battery is teeny tiny, and the car is very efficient (about 5 miles per kWh at 65mph).

If 120 amps are coming out of the charger, it doesn't matter what brand name or plug design is used.

For the person wanting to install CHAdeMO on their Spark EV, do a google search for "JdeMO".

 

[nikwax]

the minuscule 21kWh Spark battery vs the massive 24 kWh Leaf battery :?

 

[Alcalira]

Leased a white 2015 2LT on Friday at F.H. Dailey in San Leandro. Great people there, I was treated courteously, the transaction was simple and straightforward, and I'm very pleased with the deal!

Anyway, back to the topic: Before leaving the dealership, I consulted Plugshare to see where CCS chargers were in service along the 85 mile route from San Leandro to Davis, and found several both on the 880/80 route and the 24/680 route. The car was showing a predicted range of 73, max. As 880 was a parking lot, I went up to Hegenberger to 580, then out 24 through the tunnel to 680. (I don't expect anyone besides East Bay Area folks to understand that). I was confident of being able to reach the NRG DCFC at Vacaville Premium outlets, about 65 miles. As I drove, the max range increased for awhile (I think I saw 83 at one point) and then began to taper off in very linear fashion. I found that I could go considerably faster in the Spark than in the LEAF while still beating the LEAF's 4 mi/kwh. As I approached Vacaville my GPS was saying it was 20.1 miles to home, and the max range prediction was 20, with 3 yellow bars showing, so I pulled in to take on a few kilowatts.

I agree the DCFC seemed to be significantly quicker than with the LEAF. In 10 minutes the predicted range was 53 miles and the battery level was 3 bars from the top. I stopped the charge and headed out. Got home with 33 miles left, and 5.1 mi/kwh. Very impressive!

 

[Nashco]

The Spark EV charges faster primarily because the battery is teeny tiny, and the car is very efficient (about 5 miles per kWh at 65mph).

If 120 amps are coming out of the charger, it doesn't matter what brand name or plug design is used.

Yeah, that's the thing, the Leaf slows the charge rate (kW) much sooner and more severely than a Spark EV does. Even with similar maximum charge rates in ideal conditions, the area under the curve is quite different, especially in extreme temperatures. I've owned both and the data doesn't lie. While the Spark EV battery is a little smaller, the efficiency is a little better, and the charge acceptance is drastically better, particularly from 50-100% SOC. Good chemistry and thermal management FTW!

Bryce

 

[Alcalira]

Right on Bryce. I suspect the active cooling has a lot to do with the quicker charging. The cooling system operated during and after the quick charge. Looks like GM put a lot of good engineering into this EV!

 

[nikwax]

this could be good news for us:

http://www.bmwblog.com/2015/12/21/bmw-and-nissan-are-joining-forces-to-offer-public-dc-fast-charging/



bit sparse on the details. And where are Oregon and Washington?

 

[nikwax]

ChargePoint has added DCFC in Grants Pass and Roseburg Oregon on the I5 corridor ! They are marching north!

 

[oregonsparky]

ChargePoint has added DCFC in Grants Pass and Roseburg Oregon on the I5 corridor ! They are marching north!

Lookin plugshare you missed one and the one at grants pass is "coming soon"...

- Roseburg (available now)
- Grants Pass (coming soon)
- Medford (available now)

All three of these are chargepoint located at fred meyer...

With EV sales up in seattle area and good adoption of EVs in Portland - seems like they need to 'connect the dots' between Portland and Seattle. I have scoped out this drive (my father lives in Issaquah) - someone should make a DCFC in Centralia a priority...

Kia and BMW dealers have added a few SAE DCFC to the seattle area - but it is a long stretch to drive along i-5 without fast charging. e.g. From downtown Portland heading north, you have to drive to Fife before hitting another SAE DC fast charger (At Fife BMW). That is 145 miles...


jeff

 

[nikwax]

Medford was just added...woo hoo!


We could use one in Eugene, and one in maybe Centrailia, and somewhere between Redding and Sacramento, then we'd have the gaps closed.

 

[oregonsparky]

I visit my daughter in corvallis. She goes to osu. There is a charger at the corvallis exit on interstate 5. But it is electric highway station with chademo. Sure would be nice if they had plan to upgrade all of those stations to support sae dcfc. They have three sae dcfc in Salem now. But it sure would be nice to have one at that corvallis exit....

Jeff

 

[ReddyKilowatt]

From my (admittedly geographically limited) point of view, it looks like a lot of the new stations going in are SAE-style plugs. Is the Plug Wars battle swinging toward adoption of a single standard for non-Tesla cars?

Does anyone have a chart of how many SAE vs CHAdeMO cars were sold/leased in the US in the last year (especially interested in charts by geographic region, here on the west coast we seem to have a different set of cars available to us)? How many of the cars sold/leased had DC fast charge capability?

 

[nikwax]

this may be a result of the push by BMW and VW to add CCS stations.


There is also a push to upgrade existing CDM stations to dual standard.

 

[cwerdna]

Does anyone have a chart of how many SAE vs CHAdeMO cars were sold/leased in the US in the last year (especially interested in charts by geographic region, here on the west coast we seem to have a different set of cars available to us)? How many of the cars sold/leased had DC fast charge capability?

No, but http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/ has the list of cars. Unfortunately, we don't know what % have DC FC capability installed.

As for west coast or whatever, California has by far the most choices due to CA ZEV regulations. Then there are other CARB emission states for which some EVs are available. Outside of those, many of the compliance cars (e.g. Fiat 500e, Spark EV, VW e-Golf, etc.) aren't available.

CHAdeMO's standard on the Kia Soul EV and 2014+ i-Miev. VW went the other way by starting off w/SAE Combo being standard but then coming out w/a lower cost trim that doesn't have it. I believe on '15+ BMW i3, SAE Combo inlet is standard, whereas it was definitely optional prior to that. For the others, it's optional (e.g. Leaf and Spark EV). Some BEVs have NO DC FC capability at all, not even as an option (e.g. current FFE, Fiat 500e, smart ED, B-Class ED) and we have 0 PHEVs in the US w/DC FC capability.

The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV has CHAdeMO but it's been delayed over and over for the US market despite selling well outside the US (http://insideevs.com/mitsubishi-ceo-thanks-outlander-phev-buyers-making-plug-suv-europes-1-selling-electric-car/).

And there is the $450 CHAdeMO adapter for the Model S: http://shop.teslamotors.com/collections/model-s/products/chademo-adapter.

There is also a push to upgrade existing CDM stations to dual standard.

By who? By "upgrade", in most cases that means replacing a single head unit w/a dual-head.

 

[nikwax]

I might be thinking of the Nissan / BMW program.

 

[cwerdna]

I might be thinking of the Nissan / BMW program.

I'm a little confused by http://insideevs.com/nissan-bmw-team-deploy-120-dual-chademo-ccs-fast-chargers-u-s/ due this verbiage:
"A total of 120 dual-port 50kW DC Fast-charging stations have been installed across 19 states to support longer distance electric vehicle travel for Nissan LEAF and BMW i3 drivers.
These publicly available Greenlots-networked charging stations include both CHAdeMO and CCS (Combo) connectors, suitable for all DC Fast charging-capable electric vehicles in the U.S.

WOODCLIFF LAKE, NJ and NASHVILLE, TN – December 21, 2015… BMW and Nissan are joining forces to offer public DC Fast charging at 120 locations across 19 states in an effort to support Nissan LEAF and BMW i3 customers and to promote increased adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) nationwide..."

Since it says has been installed, that whatever we have as of Dec 21, 2015 is already there. Are they going to install more?

To steal a comment on a Facebook group about this: "6 per state? The future is here." :lol:

 

[Alcalira]

Within my sphere of travel (northern California) I haven't seen any DCFC that are CCS-exclusive. Either they're CHAdeMo-exclusive, or a combination of the two. It does seem that the trend now is to install the combo units. I haven't seen any new CHAdeMO-only units in a couple of years. With a Spark EV and a LEAF in the family I need both!