CHAdeMO adapter wait frustration

[gregincal]

"A rising tide and electric vehicles may make for a mixed metaphor, but four of Japan's largest automakers say they're going to work together to build out enough of a charging infrastructure to boost demand for plug-in vehicles in their home country. Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi will work with the Japanese government to more than triple both the country's publicly accessible chargers – both Level 2 and DC fast chargers – to about 11,000 units and 5,700 units, respectively."

AutoBlogGreen

Just in case you were wondering, those won't be Frankenplgs.

Nobody's questioning what the standard in Japan will be.

 

[PhilBa]

I've just driven 3472 miles in a Roadster from Bath to Vienna, then Zurich, and back. The longest day was just over 450 miles with a lunch time recharge at ~16kW. Personally I never want to drive more than 400 miles in a day in Europe because it's a *very* long way.

400 miles anywhere is a frickin' long distance. Though it reminds of the old saying "The difference between the Americans and English is the English think 100 miles is a long distance and the Americans think 100 years is a long time."

But I'd love to hear of your experiences. Sounds like a lot of fun.

I think the EVSE infrastructure everywhere is still in it's infancy. There is no question in my mind that this is a drag on EV adoption.

 

[scottf200]

I live in Chicago and have a lovely new P85... and I can tell you that we really need ChaDEMO adapters here. ... Yet, there is a whole foods with a CHADeMO adapter just 1/2 mile away from my place. There are FIVE CHADeMO charging stations in Chicago and FOURTEEN in the Chicago area...

Jeff
What you are not realising is that almost none of the Level 3 chargers work!
They were put in, and managed by, a disgraced company who is under investigation by the FBI. Most, if not all, those you see at Whole Foods, NEVER worked.
If you are that keen on helping get chargers going, help us at the Chicago chapter of TeslaOwners. PM me.

Here some details about the above related to Chicagoland.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=310050#p310050

Part 1: hyperlexis wrote:

UPDATE -- I just tried using the keyring card that Carcharging.com mailed me, and it totally would not work on an L3 charger in Chicago (Western Ave. Jewel parking lot.)

I called the 800 number on the charger (the old number for 350green, and got transferred to carcharging.com's system. The guy who answered said than no, whoever sent me their card was wrong, it will not work on the "Charjit" chademo chargers that 350green owned. He also said you must have a separate charjit card, and they had no idea if or when carcharging.com will be able to supply them.

A manager called me about an hour later and said it is true, they now own all the 350green L3 chargers, but the manufacturer of the chargers says 350green owes them money, so they will not allow carcharging.com to issue any Charjit cards... The manager said he understands the problem, but they just don't know anything yet. He also said they went from being a small company to now one that owns thousands of chargers to deal with. Well you'd think they would know about the 350green debt disputes after spending millions of dollars to buy them.... And would make sure the L3s were their's free and clear to operate when the deal closed.

This would be funny if it wasn't so absolutely insane. What a disaster. So now the only folks who can use the L3s in Illinois are basically those with old Charjit cards. Because I don't know of any chademo stations in the Chicago area other than those owned by defunct 350green, including all the tollway chargers.

Why didn't the state just buy these stupid things on its own? Install hundreds of QC units along strategic routes, make them publically available for free, and really do something for the public when the state says it wants to be the greenest in the US.

Oh no, instead it tried to privatize things, giving money to a company operated by scam artists, who, to make matters worse, in turn, charged people exorbitant rates for each QC session, and relied on proprietary access cards. Total BS.

I hope Nissan puts its free L3 chargers in every one of its dealers in the US and drives inept, for-profit companies like carcharging.com/350green out of business. If the other states or feds wont directly install public units themselves (like in California and other progressive areas) then Nissan and Tesla should pick up the slack. Otherwise EV sales growth will remain stunted by poor QC availability.

Companies like these are the Blackwaters of the EV industry.

Part 2: djkjmuoh wrote:

Just an FYI for anyone that cares... I recently spoke with Kate Tomford from the Illinois Energy Office at the Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity. She was very courteous and reiterated all things I already knew about 350 Green and CarCharging (though she did pretty much tell my HyperLexis' new card wouldn't work before I read these recent posts, sorry 'bout that, was hoping she was wrong.) She did however tell me that the City of Chicago (the main player) and the State of Illinois (kind of a sidekick to the city) are putting pressure on CarCharging to get the ball rolling and here's how... **deep breath** here we go...

Basically you are right, Efacec, the Portuguese manufacturer of CharJit stations is owed money by 350 Green, who put them up. CarCharging bought 350 Green and knows they now inherited the debt owed to Efacec and as such can't issue new CharJit cards. They also know there are tons of malfunctioned CharJit stations needing repair.

Problem for them, and therefore us, is that they are entangled in a lawsuit with the locally based JNS Holdings who also entered into a contract with 350 Green. CarCharging does not want to invest more $$$ into fixing these stations or into paying off Efacec when, in their eyes, they might still be at risk for losing the legal battle with JNS Holdings. Basically CarCharging thinks "Why pay all this money to fix stuff when we may lose a lawsuit and the winning company gets the benefit of all our work/investment?"

I can't say I blame them for waiting for a legal outcome. This contract was not an outright purchase agreement, however, so in the eyes of the City and State, CarCharging OWNS 350 Green and should act as if they do without regard for the "What IF?" possibilities of losing a legal battle. The City and State unofficially feel that there is no chance they will lose to JNS too since JNS-Green deal wasn't a full buyout, just an agreement. Moreover, the City and State feel CarCharging should payoff Efacec, fix broken stations, build new ones, and issue new cards NOW and is pressuring them to do so apparently. They are encouraging CarCharging, if they should lose to JNS, to then counter sue to recoup the work/investments put into doing all the payoffs, fixing, card issuing, new station construction, etc.

... Well that was a mouthful. I'll be keeping tabs with this Kate Tomford every so often and will keep you updated. May reach out to her at the end of August/beginning of September. She was also very helpful with info regarding the IL rebates on in-home L2 EVSE's but that's for another thread.

 

[JakeP]

So I discovered a working 50kW DC Fast Charge unit right near my house, and more importantly, right at the intersection of I-76 and I-79 outside of Pittsburgh. It is at an Eaton facility, surrounded by 30A J1772 units.

Yes, this will be between two Tesla Superchargers, hopefully by the end of this year. But it is still painful to lack the ability to tap into this resource, especially when they may start appearing at PA Turnpike rest areas before the SCs arrive.

I have to say it was the only time I ever felt my Tesla had let me down, in any way at all. Hopefully Elon will fix this, by delivering SCs as rapidly as promised, or by providing a CHAdeMO adapter.

Address of this unit is 130 Commonwealth Dr, Warrendale PA 15086.

All of the employees loved the Model S of course, and only one had seen one previously.

 

[PhilBa]

Some one needs to that picture to Elon!

 

[JakeP]

I wanted to Tweet it to him, but felt like that was being too much of a jerk! But maybe it isn't, with a pleading caption like "Dear Elon, please help!"

 

[rdrcrmatt]

So I sent Tesla an email today on their "Contact us" section of their website asking about the CHAdeMO adapter. They said there were no plans to make one for North America because of issues with t he CHAdeMO chargers potentially being able to override the Model S's internal charging safety systems.

bummer. Just dropping this in the CHAdeMO threads...

 

[jerry33]

So I sent Tesla an email today on their "Contact us" section of their website asking about the CHAdeMO adapter. They said there were no plans to make one for North America because of issues with t he CHAdeMO chargers potentially being able to override the Model S's internal charging safety systems.

bummer. Just dropping this in the CHAdeMO threads...

I'd take that with a fairly large grain of salt as it's not unknown for different Tesla personnel to say different things.

 

[brianman]

large grain of salt

Pet peeve.

 

[hiroshiy]

So I sent Tesla an email today on their "Contact us" section of their website asking about the CHAdeMO adapter. They said there were no plans to make one for North America because of issues with t he CHAdeMO chargers potentially being able to override the Model S's internal charging safety systems.

bummer. Just dropping this in the CHAdeMO threads...

Wow, if that's true, we Japanese won't get Model S, or our Model S is market specific despite the fact that Japanese market for MS is very small...

 

[ChadS]

So I sent Tesla an email today on their "Contact us" section of their website asking about the CHAdeMO adapter. They said there were no plans to make one for North America because of issues with the CHAdeMO chargers potentially being able to override the Model S's internal charging safety systems.

The chargers can't override the Model S internal systems. Tesla is making the adapter; the part talking to the Model S is theirs. They can always shut off the charge if the charger is not doing what they ask. They may have to say funny things to get the charger to do what they want; maybe even the exact thing they want is impossible - but the charger can't change anything in the car.

I sent the ownership alias a query just under a year ago and was told that one was under development, though they couldn't specify a date for release. I was just checking for a response, as I had already been promised that one was coming as a condition of buying the car.

Too bad, as I'm taking my wife to Mt Rainier this weekend for her birthday. With a full range charge on a nice day, we would likely make it there and back. But it's going to be raining, there's a lot of elevation, and the car will sit overnight (at elevation where it's colder). If we go really slow or we turn off the heater (yeah, just try that with my wife in the car), we might make it; my wife will not settle for that answer. The Centralia Supercharger is way out of the way, only 12 miles closer to the destination than we are - it would about double the trip and it's far enough away from the destination (on the East side) that I'm still not positive we'd make it round trip; though we likely would. Superchargers are great for getting out the state, but are not placed well for a lot of in-state locations. HPCs or HPWCs are even farther away.

There are CHAdeMO stations in Auburn and Fife that would make this trip a cinch...if I had an adapter.

My son is out of town, so we will take his plug-in Prius. I hate doing that, but without the CHAdeMO adapter, I'm just not sure I can make the trip in the Model S. At least without charging at 30A for a long period of time, which my wife isn't going to put up with on her birthday (or any other day, for that matter).

We have credit at a hotel on the Oregon Coast, but we've been putting that off for months for the same reason - can't make the trip without the CHAdeMO adapter. I know Tesla is doing a lot of great things and there's no car other than the Model S that I would have considered, but it is still frustrating to not be able to take the car you specifically bought for long trips along a route that has good charging infrastructure because an adapter is not ready yet.

 

[doug]

Back in January, I got confirmation from Tesla that there would be a CHAdeMO adapter for Japan. So I'd expect they'll have the adapter ready by the time Japanese deliveries commence (or shortly thereafter).

 

[stopcrazypp]

Back in January, I got confirmation from Tesla that there would be a CHAdeMO adapter for Japan. So I'd expect they'll have the adapter ready by the time Japanese deliveries commence (or shortly thereafter).

Wonder why they are not committing to a NA version? Is there a local certification issue (only thing I can think of is UL and NEC, and NEC does not disallow such adapters AFAIK)?

Maybe they are worried the next version of NEC might adopt something similar to the adapter ban in IEC 61851‐1, although it appears there is no plan to do so for the next 2014 update (EPRI does keep tabs on the progress in IEC though):
http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/publicm...tandards/D2_11 G Nieminski On-road report.pdf

Or maybe my market factor theory is correct. There's been some recent trouble in the existing CHAdeMO charging networks (Ecotality bankruptcy being a big one, further upthread describes the issue with former 350Green chargers).

 

[mnx]

SunCountry can't get all those 70/80A EVSE's installed fast enough!

The chargers can't override the Model S internal systems. Tesla is making the adapter; the part talking to the Model S is theirs. They can always shut off the charge if the charger is not doing what they ask. They may have to say funny things to get the charger to do what they want; maybe even the exact thing they want is impossible - but the charger can't change anything in the car.

I sent the ownership alias a query just under a year ago and was told that one was under development, though they couldn't specify a date for release. I was just checking for a response, as I had already been promised that one was coming as a condition of buying the car.

Too bad, as I'm taking my wife to Mt Rainier this weekend for her birthday. With a full range charge on a nice day, we would likely make it there and back. But it's going to be raining, there's a lot of elevation, and the car will sit overnight (at elevation where it's colder). If we go really slow or we turn off the heater (yeah, just try that with my wife in the car), we might make it; my wife will not settle for that answer. The Centralia Supercharger is way out of the way, only 12 miles closer to the destination than we are - it would about double the trip and it's far enough away from the destination (on the East side) that I'm still not positive we'd make it round trip; though we likely would. Superchargers are great for getting out the state, but are not placed well for a lot of in-state locations. HPCs or HPWCs are even farther away.

There are CHAdeMO stations in Auburn and Fife that would make this trip a cinch...if I had an adapter.

My son is out of town, so we will take his plug-in Prius. I hate doing that, but without the CHAdeMO adapter, I'm just not sure I can make the trip in the Model S. At least without charging at 30A for a long period of time, which my wife isn't going to put up with on her birthday (or any other day, for that matter).

We have credit at a hotel on the Oregon Coast, but we've been putting that off for months for the same reason - can't make the trip without the CHAdeMO adapter. I know Tesla is doing a lot of great things and there's no car other than the Model S that I would have considered, but it is still frustrating to not be able to take the car you specifically bought for long trips because an adapter is not ready yet.

 

[wycolo]

> Originally Posted by Kevin Sharpe:
I've just driven 3472 miles in a Roadster from Bath to Vienna, then Zurich, and back. The longest day was just over 450 miles with a lunch time recharge at ~16kW. Personally I never want to drive more than 400 miles in a day in Europe because it's a *very* long way.

Makes more sense with last word as "day". Curious why, in a charging thread, he makes no mention of charging his Roadster. Assume not to be a problem in EU as it would be in Central US.

Re spoofing Chademos to enable MS fast DC charging: not sure I would be comfortable with this, even on a brand new Chademo charger. Needs to be some agreement between TM and whoever it is that is putting in these shiny new 10 ft tall Chademo monoliths. Too much could go wrong.
--

 

[hiroshiy]

There is a rumor that Japanese Model S will have European vehicle side connector. I'm not sure this is related to the CHAdeMO adapter availability in Europe and Japan though. As you pointed out, Japan will have CHAdeMO adapter on launch next year.

 

[rdrcrmatt]

There is a rumor that Japanese Model S will have European vehicle side connector. I'm not sure this is related to the CHAdeMO adapter availability in Europe and Japan though. As you pointed out, Japan will have CHAdeMO adapter on launch next year.

This is what I heard. the Japan MS would not be the same charging solution as the US MS.

 

[stopcrazypp]

There is a rumor that Japanese Model S will have European vehicle side connector. I'm not sure this is related to the CHAdeMO adapter availability in Europe and Japan though. As you pointed out, Japan will have CHAdeMO adapter on launch next year.

That does not seem to make much sense given Japan uses J1772 and doesn't need the extra pins in the European connector for AC charging. Although it is possible they need the extra pins just to implement the CHAdeMO adapter. Or maybe it has to do with commonality between RHD models.

Actually looking back at the source of the rumor that Japan will use the European connector, the same source also said that the adapter will also come to the US:

repeating a bit here but since there are several CHAdeMO threads it seems valuable. at the Burlington ribbon cutting today a Tesla engineer affirmed with certainty that a CHAdeMO adapter was coming to the US later this year with the roll out in Japan, that it will have a different plug than the Japan model, since japan's S will have the European plug. I was encouraged, I wouldn't hold your breath on the timing but I'm happy to know that Tesla understands there is significant demand here in the US.

 

[HP832]

I think Tesla battery is great for driving in the city, where you can charge your car in your garage. I think SuperCharge stations are excellence to get you to where you need to be but I see a REAL problem, after I get to my destination. How am I going to charge my Model S? I'm not at my garage anymore, SuperCharge stations are mostly locate outside the city, near the major highways, and I am in a strange city where I don't know place, or where to charge my car.

There are a lot of charging stations that have already been built in the city (like eVgo freedom Charge stations in Houston/Dallas area) with CHAdeMO DC fast charge that I could use to charge my car really quick when I'm out of town but I can't because we don't have an CHAdeMO adapter for our Model S.

Elon Musk has all the smart engineers from Tesla and SpaceX under him, I'm sure he can figure out how to make a simple CHAdeMO adapter that we can use to charge our Model S, with the existing charging infratructures that has already been built in most major cities.

I hoped that I'm not the only one to think like this. I'm not against Tesla or anything. I own the car for 3 months and love every moment of it. I just think that this is the only hurdle that Tesla have to overcome that will ease the range anxiety from most people.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I'm sure he can figure out how to make a simple CHAdeMO adapter

I think "simple CHAdeMO adapter" is an oxymoron. The CHAdeMO connector/protocol itself is fairly complicated and we've already established a pin-to-pin adapter is not possible. It seems almost certain that any North American CHAdeMO adapter will come after the Japanese version, if it comes at all. If it's really a pin count issue (such that it requires the European port with 7 pins) then the US may never get one.