Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Supercharger vs CHAdeMO deployment

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.

David99

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Jan 31, 2014
5,508
9,333
Nomad (mostly US)
Mod Note: this thread was taken out of a different thread so the OP of this thread didn't start this topic. dsm363

This is why I want this adapter! Drawing a 200 mile circle around a Supercharger and saying 'that entire are is covered' is just nonsense.

chvssc.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
This is why I want this adapter! Drawing a 200 mile circle around a Supercharger and saying 'that entire are is covered' is just nonsense.

How many of those 83 are at Nissan Dealers with limited access and poor support? As a Leaf owner I can tell you how frustrating it is to be at a DCQC that is not working and be staring at 5 hours charging instead of 30 minutes. I have not heard of too many people stuck at a Supercharger.
 
How many of those 83 are at Nissan Dealers with limited access and poor support? As a Leaf owner I can tell you how frustrating it is to be at a DCQC that is not working and be staring at 5 hours charging instead of 30 minutes. I have not heard of too many people stuck at a Supercharger.

Indeed. Just ask the folks over at transport evolved about how well Nissan monitors the charging facilities at its dealerships...
 
How many of those 83 are at Nissan Dealers with limited access and poor support? As a Leaf owner I can tell you how frustrating it is to be at a DCQC that is not working and be staring at 5 hours charging instead of 30 minutes. I have not heard of too many people stuck at a Supercharger.
I wish plug-share would have a "dealer" filter for this reason. Also it should be noted that there are many stalls per supercharger station, while the CHAdeMO tend to be one each.
 
How many of those 83 are at Nissan Dealers with limited access and poor support? As a Leaf owner I can tell you how frustrating it is to be at a DCQC that is not working and be staring at 5 hours charging instead of 30 minutes. I have not heard of too many people stuck at a Supercharger.

Feel free to just subtract half of them, it's still 40 vs 4. The area I captured has +25 million people. 6 Superchargers (adding the two that are under construction) for that amount of land and people isn't going to cut it, no matter how good they are. All I said is I want to have access to a significant number of fast chargers. Just as much as I want to have access to L2 chargers even though they are not anywhere as fast as my Model S could charge. People are willing to pay $1500 for dual chargers to charge at 20 kW which is mostly only available at home. I want to pay $1000 that allows me to charge at 50 kW in many places outside of home. Reasonable, right?
 
Since SCs are focused on travel routes, I think of Chademo as the best destination charging option. Much better than the large majority of public Level 2 options, since most of those are limited to 7.2kW. Yes, SCs would be great everywhere, but I know they should be set up on routes first. And since Chademo are in cities, its valuable to me as someone who lives in a city where they are plentiful, and would most likely visit cities where they are plentiful.
 
Feel free to just subtract half of them, it's still 40 vs 4. The area I captured has +25 million people. 6 Superchargers (adding the two that are under construction) for that amount of land and people isn't going to cut it, no matter how good they are. All I said is I want to have access to a significant number of fast chargers. Just as much as I want to have access to L2 chargers even though they are not anywhere as fast as my Model S could charge. People are willing to pay $1500 for dual chargers to charge at 20 kW which is mostly only available at home. I want to pay $1000 that allows me to charge at 50 kW in many places outside of home. Reasonable, right?
Most CHAdeMO chargers, as pointed out, have just 1 stall. Superchargers have 4-10 stalls. Multiply those 6 superchargers by an average of say, 7 and you get 42. Those 40 CHAdeMO locations are probably just that: 40 stalls total.

That said, there is an advantage to more locations, but it only takes 1 other car to make you have a wait.
 
Feel free to just subtract half of them, it's still 40 vs 4.
Again, you should be careful about the numbering. The 4 supercharger stations you highlighted have 25 stalls in total. If you include Tejon Ranch (missing in your diagram) there is 31 in total. However, the geographical spread of it does not make them suitable for destination charging (as noted by others).
 
... Charging there is not cheap. $4.95 to plug in plus $12 per hour for 44KW (best case)

Daytime electricity in LA is about 20 ct. 44 kWh = almost $9. If I pay $17 for one hour charging there that's reasonable. For the benefit of being able to charge pretty quick that's a very fair price. I pay more at some parking structures that have L2 chargers. The parking fees plus Blink/Chargepoint fees combined for a slow 6 kW charger is a much worse alternative. CHAdeMO is 8-9 times faster.

...but it only takes 1 other car to make you have a wait.
As opposed to driving 30 miles (best case) out of your way to a Supercharger and then back. I can still do that, but I'd prefer to check the 4 local CHAdeMO chargers first before I drive 2x30 miles :)
 
As opposed to driving 30 miles (best case) out of your way to a Supercharger and then back. I can still do that, but I'd prefer to check the 4 local CHAdeMO chargers first before I drive 2x30 miles :)
Not saying it is "as opposed" to using a supercharger. Just saying that you were not comparing the number of available stalls in an apples-to-apples way. I already stated that CHAdeMO has the advantage of more locations. They would be even more advantageous for in-city charging if there were multiple stalls per location because once those adapters are available you are gonna get stuck waiting a lot more often, especially with all the Teslas in LA.

Superchargers are clearly intended for a different purpose than charging up fast for local driving only.
 
That said, there is an advantage to more locations, but it only takes 1 other car to make you have a wait.
It's my hope that if Tesla's start using CHAdeMO stations, that it will significantly increase demand enough so that networks like eVgo have to install more plugs to keep them usable. It's a huge disappointment now that there is only one plug per location. eVgo is really bad as they also only install a single L2 plug, too.
 
It's my hope that if Tesla's start using CHAdeMO stations, that it will significantly increase demand enough so that networks like eVgo have to install more plugs to keep them usable. It's a huge disappointment now that there is only one plug per location. eVgo is really bad as they also only install a single L2 plug, too.

We are going to get 200 stations over 4 years... demand or no demand.
 
Feel free to just subtract half of them, it's still 40 vs 4. The area I captured has +25 million people. 6 Superchargers (adding the two that are under construction) for that amount of land and people isn't going to cut it, no matter how good they are. All I said is I want to have access to a significant number of fast chargers. Just as much as I want to have access to L2 chargers even though they are not anywhere as fast as my Model S could charge. People are willing to pay $1500 for dual chargers to charge at 20 kW which is mostly only available at home. I want to pay $1000 that allows me to charge at 50 kW in many places outside of home. Reasonable, right?

The real problem is that a lot of them are single units. That's fine for range-stretching top-ups, but not for general travel. I'd suggest that if Tesla finishes the CHAdeMO adapter it could be bad for Leaf owners.
 
How much does a SpC install cost? How much does a ChaDeMo install set one back?

Trust me, I am at the vanguard of urging for more SpCs, but there are some real cost issues involved. I also believe that population density is not an effective parameter for determining SpC placement. For example, if you want economic bang for your buck (not that TMC has, to my knowledge, expressed that as one of their corporate goals), then stringing SpCs north through Canada and around Alaska's pitiful road network would perform far more economic benefit - bringing real amounts of high-spending tourists in for a road trip of a lifetime - than would emplacing twice or thrice that number around southern California. Just saying.....