P85d. Montreal trip. Range assurance? Chademo? No range anxiety? Right...

omega · May 4, 2015

I wanted to share our experience with our over the weekend trip to Montreal, CA from Concord, NH.

Concord-Montreal:
We left fully charged @ 255mi and we made just one stop @ home charger with HPWC near Burlington VT. One of the best decision I made was to check the plugshare map and get in touch with home owners having HPWC. This portion of the trip was fun and it took us about 5h.
Montreal-Concord:
We charged at our destination from a regular wall connector (slow) and a family in the same neighborhood and left with half full. We then stop by at another Model S owner home and charged for about an hour. After we stopped by at the duty free for 1/2h we continued our trip and stopped by in Montpelier VT to use the Chademo charger there (VSECU location). This is where we started having problems. The charger refused to work and gave us VE122 error code. We called the 800 number only to waste 1/2 h as the guy didn't help at all and also didn't pay attention to what we were saying (game on maybe?). Since this did not work we charged there at L2 (18mi/h) for 1h. These L2 chargers are sort of useless due to their speed.
We continued our trip and shortly after this we stopped at the Barre VT Chademo location only to find that its use was restricted (not working with a chargepoint card). My wife used again her master paypass card but the charger gave us the same error again.
At this point we realized that the only way to make it back home was to take a detour from 89S and go to another Tesla S owner location where we managed to arrive @ 9:00pm with 20mi left. Charged there for 1 1/2 h and got back home @ 12:00 am with 17 mi left (RED battery).

We learned our lessons.
-Chedemo is ..useless and thus will be returned this week to Tesla.
Sorry I don't care why it didn't work: car, adapter or station. We paid a bag of money for our P85D and this adapter (which should really come standard with our cars since the number of superchargers are nowhere near enough).
-Always leave fully charged and this is our mistake, although the supercharger in Montreal has only 2 stales and people are often waiting in line. BTW the service center there I hear is the biggest in NA???
-Forget about L2 chargers. Can they all disappear over night? Yes I won't miss them. I don't want to make a 5h trip a 10h trip just because I enjoy my car.
-Tesla should get their act together with these superchargers and not slowdown in building them BUT grow them faster because it's the only place where we can charge and NOT have the trip impacted.
-Home charges rock!!! God bless the people who offered to help us. Fyi when you contact them using the info in plugshare, most of them will respond, some won't. Life is not perfect.
-No more range anxiety or range assurance or whatever is called? Right....Based on that we should have taken our trip going through Albany only 7h more.

Cheers to All!

wk057 · May 4, 2015

There is a route I used to take in my previous cars (Chevy Volt and others) between my father's place in NC and my place in NJ that let me use I-77 -> I-81 -> I-70 -> I-695 -> I-95 (north of Baltimore), which let me skip the crappiest parts of I-95 (Between Richmond, VA and Baltimore, MD... mainly Washington, DC) at the expense of less than 10 extra miles. Awesome route, never any traffic. Unfortunately this route is impossible to do in the Model S. Sure I could stay at a camp ground or a L2 charger for 10 hours charging, but that's just stupid unless it's a last resort. Without superchargers, IMO, the Model S is completely useless for long trips.

Now, there are three CHAdeMO stations listed on PlugShare that could potentially make my I-81 route doable... the problem is, if I get there and those stations are out of order or can't be used for one reason or another, I'm SOL and stuck finding a L2 or some other way to charge enough to either continue to the Hagerstown, MD supercharger or return home... both of which will require a 100% charge and likely take 10+ hours since I see no charging > 40A/208V besides the CHAdeMO ones.

So, suffice it to say, I'm not planning to risk it. I just generally wouldn't have the extra time to spare for a 10 to 20 hour detour if the CHAdeMO stations weren't working. Your experience with CHAdeMO on your trip is certainly not reassuring.

That leaves me just stuck with stressful I-95 for my multiple-times-per-year trip where the superchargers are plentiful until there are superchargers somewhere on I-81 in VA. Honestly, just one supercharger on I-81 somewhere between Roanoke, VA and Natural Bridge, VA would make the trip doable for me and I would never mess with DC traffic again. Honestly, the lack of charging for my normal I-81 trip was almost a deal breaker for the Model S.... but I decided I could live with I-95 as a detour until they got some superchargers through that route.... which feels like it's taking forever.

The CHAdeMO adapter is something good to keep in the car just to have every possible option available.... but I wouldn't rely on anything besides superchargers for trips beyond ~100 miles from home unless my destination was within range of a 100% charge at home and had a HPWC or at least a NEMA 14-50 or similar.

bluetinc · May 4, 2015

And I think it should be clear with these two stories exactly why Tesla was so uninterested in getting their CHAdeMO adapter released to the US public.

Peter

omega · May 4, 2015

bluetinc said:
And I think it should be clear with these two stories exactly why Tesla was so uninterested in getting their CHAdeMO adapter released to the US public.

Peter

Thanks. Let me guess, because most of the times is useless?

bluetinc · May 4, 2015

Tesla has spent a huge amount of time and energy installing and maintaining their Supercharger network. When I received my car there were 6 stations in the world, today there are over 400 (180+ in NA) with almost another 50 in process (that we know about). With all of those Superchargers, Tesla makes sure they are never down. I've only known of a handful of times when a Supercharger location was down, and most of those were because of Power Company power outages that happened to include the Supercharger also. One time, Tesla even had flatbed tow trucks waiting at the charger that had gone down, for anyone that needed to be taken to the next closest one. That's simply amazing, and no other charging network thinks of itself in that way.

The CHAdeMO network is made up almost entirely of single points of failure, and built on chargers that can't really handle what they were designed for, charging the Leaf. They are run by companies that don't value uptime highly, and many locations go down for periods of months before they are replaced. They aren't even at the point where they are looking for a single 9 of up time (90%+), well maybe one but that would be 9%+...

All that said, I have the adapter, and have used it on trips. It worked well and saved us many many many hours of slow charging and I have no thought of returning it but, I always had a backup and a backup backup slow charging option I could use instead because I know it's a bit of the wild west out there with CHAdeMOs and I don't trust them. I don't feel the same about Superchargers at all

Peter

omega said:
Thanks. Let me guess, because most of the times is useless?

JohnQ · May 4, 2015

While L2s may be useless for you, they are indispensable for many. I am happy to leave my car on an L2 overnight at a destination to regain my charge. This enabled two trips to Knoxville where I had to jump from Burlington, NC across the Smokies and overnighted in Asheville. Plus countless day trips to Boston where I didn't have to deal with 95. I do agree that they are time consuming in the middle of road trips and not a preferred method.

I agree about PlugShare hosts. I added 20 miles at a 14-50 in VT that allowed me to jump back to the Brattleboro SC.

SmartElectric · May 4, 2015

EV Trip Planner

I plugged in the locations and asked for supercharger route, it was <9 hours of driving.
L2 is not for long distance driving, but as another person noted above, it's great for destination charging.
Looks as though the fundamental miscalculation was not fully charging in Montreal before heading back.

The CHAdeMO technology is sound, as it the Tesla adaptor.
What doesn't work is the owners of the CHAdeMO (and L2) chargers have zero incentive to keep them running, whereas Tesla has direct ownership and requirement to keep their supercharger network running well.

glenhurst · May 4, 2015

Here in the greater Twin Cities a bunch of CHAdeMO chargers have popped up in the six months. They've all worked fine for me, but most of them are brand-new, too, so one would hope they work well. Many of them are placed at shiny new Goodwill stores that have also been popping up in the past couple of years (not sure what that is all about). While I'm happy to have any additional chargers anywhere, I do wish they were more "local business community owned". Those merchants stand to benefit when an EV stops to charge: They've got a captive audience for 30-120 minutes, a chance to sell you something. It's in their interest to make sure that charger is working, and if there's money to be made, they'll see to it that it is.

Cosmacelf · May 4, 2015

CHAdeMO is not useless. Depends on where you live. Here in California, there are several charging networks, and they generally keep their chargers working - having many more EVs writing reviews on Plugshare helps too.

But, good God man, don't leave on a long trip without being fully charged if you have the choice! Even with Superchargers, long road trips are still an adventure. We do not have Superchargers on every corner.

I agree, Elon is blowing smoke when he says end of range anxiety. This isn't true, and it only creates situations like yours where people assume everything is going to work out well.

glenhurst · May 4, 2015

Cosmacelf said:
...Even with Superchargers, long road trips are still an adventure.

That was one of the reasons I decided to spring for the Model S last year. I had been planning to wait for the Model 3, but then I'd miss all the fun of plotting out charger routes to different remote places and the thrill of seeing how low can I take the battery and still make it to my destination. I know that's not for everyone, but that's part of the fun of being an early adopter. And I think it is still very early in EV evolution.

RiverBrick · May 4, 2015

Sorry about the experience. Two CHAdeMO stations in a row not working is bad luck, at least as far as I can tell for the Fuji units in Vermont. Their sister units in South Burlington and in downtown Burlington (also on Chargepoint) worked without a hitch for me, albeit at only about the designed 21 kW (60A).

I took delivery of my adapter in March after having driven to California. Since then, between the West Coast and Quebec I'm batting 91% for getting CHAdeMO to work. 22 attempts at 20 different locations with nine different station models. Two failures out of 22. However, there were several times where I didn't connect the clunky and inelegant CHAdeMO pistol well enough the 1st time and it took a 2nd attempt to make it work.

omega · May 5, 2015

RiverBrick said:
Sorry about the experience. Two CHAdeMO stations in a row not working is bad luck, at least as far as I can tell for the Fuji units in Vermont. Their sister units in South Burlington and in downtown Burlington (also on Chargepoint) worked without a hitch for me, albeit at only about the designed 21 kW (60A).

I took delivery of my adapter in March after having driven to California. Since then, between the West Coast and Quebec I'm batting 91% for getting CHAdeMO to work. 22 attempts at 20 different locations with nine different station models. Two failures out of 22. However, there were several times where I didn't connect the clunky and inelegant CHAdeMO pistol well enough the 1st time and it took a 2nd attempt to make it work.

Thanks. I'm kinda debating whether to return the adapter. The thing is that is my route to Montreal. Moreover once they put the supercharger in Lebanon , it will become useless.

CathieQ · May 5, 2015

Thanks for posting this Omega. My husband had a similar experience in PA so had to make a huge detour to northern NJ -- and he arrived at the supercharger with just 1 mile of range to spare. Unless a miracle happens with the supercharger in Lebanon it looks like we won't be driving our Tesla to Canada this summer. Our neighbor has helpfully offered to switch cars so we can make our trip -- so we'll have an ICE while he enjoys our Tesla. I love the car but I'll love it much more once there are more superchargers! I hate range anxiety.

Cosmacelf · May 5, 2015

I will also say that you pretty much need to practice at a local Chademo station or two before using it for real. The way they lock onto the adapter is frequently counter intuitive (and there are several types of handles, each quite different).

Cosmacelf · May 5, 2015

Here's another recent thread discussing the same error code:

CHAdeMO error tracking thread

mattmass · May 6, 2015

Based on the error-tracking thread, it sounds like Freedom Nissan is South Burlington is Tesla-friendly and compatible. That's great, as at least there is one option (out of the 10 listed on PlugShare). It sounds like none of the other CHAdeMO stations in Burlington are actually going to work, and neither will any of the three around Montpelier.

A few people seem to have had success with the units around WRJ, but I'm still concerned about those. It sounds like at one point they were free, but will eventually require an eVgo membership. I've tried applying on the eVgo website, but their location restriction makes it much more complex than other networks. I just applied by choosing a state I don't live in, but I wonder if that actually will work. So far, I've not heard back from them.

I'm planning on making this exact trip this weekend, but I'm getting pretty nervous about it, hearing about how many issues people have been having. Plus, it will be my first real trip in the Model S.

So, two questions. Has anyone else had any successful charging sessions along this route? And, is it possible to authorize a charging session with eVgo without having a membership card?

RiverBrick · May 6, 2015

mattmass said:
A few people seem to have had success with the units around WRJ, but I'm still concerned about those. It sounds like at one point they were free, but will eventually require an eVgo membership. I've tried applying on the eVgo website, but their location restriction makes it much more complex than other networks. I just applied by choosing a state I don't live in, but I wonder if that actually will work. So far, I've not heard back from them.

... is it possible to authorize a charging session with eVgo without having a membership card?

1) Yes, evGo needs to update and improve their web site and make it easier for people to enroll. For now, there's no option to enter a Canadian address, and even if you speak directly to a rep they will not accept an address from North of the border.

2) It is possible, though somewhat of a hassle to activate a charging session without a membership. You call their customer service and give your address and CC info each time.

The real inconvenience with evGo CHAdeMO is that charging is based on 30-minute max sessions. Yes, after 30-minutes you have return to the station, call back, and resubmit your billing info.

You can say that evGo is set up for a world of LEAFs, where 30 minutes is enough and there's little intrastate travel. Indeed, their representative couldn't fathom why someone in Canada could possibly want a membership card.

snooprob · May 6, 2015

I've done 6 "long" trips (2 or more charging stops):
- Boston to Miami twice
- Boston to Montauk (NY) twice
- Boston to Montreal (QC) twice

And numerous trips to the Cape, New York city, and Hartford (CT) in the last 2 years and 45k miles... And - everyone really needs to keep in mind that *ALL* chargers of *ALL* types exist in a "your mileage may vary" state. Problems I've seen include:
1) I ran into dead SuperChargers (would not charge at all)
2) I ran into SuperChargers that only ran at 1/2 speed
3) J1772 that are dead or don't exist
4) Communication issues with CHAdeMO (VE122 is a "vehicle error" - IE the car and charger aren't communicating properly)
5) Hotels that could give a crap about my need for electricity and won't even offer up a 120V outlet

I've also been pleasantly surprised and very happy to meet many:
- Nice owners on PlugShare offering to help me get someplace and offer hospitality
- Other owners of all makes/models of cars who offer to swap to slower charging so I can take higher power charging to shorten my stop
- Hotels and their garages that bend over backwards to charge me as much as possible on 120V

Unless we all pitch in as a community to help educate (non-EV owners), fix (problems like this CHAdeMO VExxx error), and lobby (with our governments and building/property owners) for what we need to make electric cars a viable replacement for gas cars - it's going to be a LONG painful road! ;-)

FWIW - I've verified that two separate ChargePoint Fuji Electric 25kW units in Burlington (VT) produced the same VE122 error - and my service manager has escalated the issue to the Tesla CHAdeMO team. I also verified that the Nissan 50kW unit in Burlington works great! And I was pulling 37.5kW for most of my charging session (about 35% of a "full power" SuperCharger).

So - for those not in the computer business as long as me - what we have here is a simple software/communication protocol issue (read : incompatibility BUG) - and we just need to be patient with Tesla as we help them fix it

Rob

DMC-Orangeville · May 6, 2015

CathieQ said:
...it looks like we won't be driving our Tesla to Canada this summer.

The problem is getting into Quebec. Boston to Toronto (or anywhere in Southern Ontario) isn't an issue. Syracuse SC, I84 up to the Thousand Island Bridge - then Kingston SC gets you to Toronto or Ottawa....and when Buffalo SC opens follow I90 right into Ft Erie or Niagara.
A Burlington VT SC would sure help your trip to Montreal, though.....

RiverBrick · May 6, 2015

omega said:
Thanks. I'm kinda debating whether to return the adapter. The thing is that is my route to Montreal. Moreover once they put the supercharger in Lebanon , it will become useless.

I see your dilemma. The best solution would be able to rent or borrow the adapter for the few times you'll need it. Is there a NH or NE Tesla Club that might consider purchasing the adapter to rent out at low cost to its members?

For what it's worth, CHAdeMO stations that have reliably delivered 122A (about 44 kW) to Model S are coming this year to St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Magog, Ste-Julie and Granby. Based on your destination, they could help, at least until you can get something faster than 120V at your destination.

P85d. Montreal trip. Range assurance? Chademo? No range anxiety? Right...

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