RIP CHAdeMO?

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Pushmi-Pullyu said:
Problems with Electrify America stations are being frequently reported. It seems that whoever is in charge of setting up the stations is either indifferent or incompetent, or both.

From InsideEVs News: "Electrify America Reduces Power Of Some Chargers Due To Cooling Issue"

One of the comments responding to that article says that in practice, being able to use an EA stations is hit-or-miss. It certainly isn't something you can count on being in operation just by a flag on a virtual map! Hard to plan a trip that way.

Looks very much like the claims that the EA network would soon surpass Tesla's Supercharger network were about as overblown as most of Volkswagen's vaporware claims about making EVs.

Bottom line: Tesla has a strong incentive to make sure its Supercharger stations work properly, are properly maintained, and are fixed promptly when malfunctions occur. Contrariwise, Volkswagen has little or no incentive to do so with the EA network.
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The Inside EVs report is based on some EA stations having problems, but you failed to mention that the article states they will be fixed within a short time.

Regardless of EA or other networks, they all can have issues so it is not fair to single out any one of them. As far as VW claims regarding surpassing Tesla, I've never heard that but if they stated that, they should have known that is a big pill to swallow and almost impossible to achieve.

Bottom line, VW is just as incented as Tesla to do the right thing now and being forced to provide DCFC infrastructure is fine by me. The more charging infrastructure the better so bring it on. We can't change the world and impact Climate Change positively just by promoting one single EV Vendor like Tesla. We need all car manufacturers to get with the program so I always put the hammer down to people that just promote Tesla and say how good they are and they are the best. If Elon can build 50 million cars a year, then I'll be at the front of the Tesla bandwagon yelling the loudest. But since he can't, we need VW's 1 million a year, GM, Ford, all of them to start cranking out EVs as soon as they can to make the difference we need in a short time.

93 million cars and light trucks sold last year globally, just over 2 million were EVs. We have a long long way to go.
 
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Kenneth Bokor said:
The Inside EVs report is based on some EA stations having problems, but you failed to mention that the article states they will be fixed within a short time.
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They absolutely will not be fixed within a short time. If the article says that, it's flat wrong. At last report, EA had not yet figured out how to fix the problem.

Here's an actual quote from the article which the IEVs article summarizes:

According to Electrify America spokesperson Mike Moran, the company began recently noticing that the Efacec equipment was automatically shutting itself down...

Moran says the company expects to update locations using the Efacec equipment with a temporary software workaround over the next week. The workaround will disable the liquid-cooling system but allow charging at reduced power of around 50 kW.

The software update to limit power to Electrify America’s Efacec hardware to around 50 kW (125A) is expected to take about a week or so. The fix for the underlying coolant system hardware issue is not yet available.
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From Electric Revs: "Some Electrify America sites have been going offline due to a cooling system issue"

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Perhaps I'm coming across as being anti-EA. On the contrary, I very much want to see a continent-wide network of reliable, easily accessible DC fast charge stations. Tesla can't build every car and every EV fast charger that the EV revolution needs by itself; it needs lots of help.

I just don't like the rather wild exaggerations made in this thread praising Electrify America, by someone who I presume works for Volkswagen, or is otherwise dependent on that company for his income. The reality about EA is rather less than the somewhat grandiose claims being made for it. EA may become part of the solution to the problem of access to DCFC infrastructure, but it certainly won't be the solution all by itself, and it's simply not realistic to claim it's going to be as widespread, or in any way "better" for those able to use the system, than Tesla's Supercharger network is for those who can use that system.

Actual, verifiable facts clearly disprove any claim of superiority of the EA network, and promoting false claims like that isn't helping anyone. In fact, promoting false claims like this runs a very real risk of creating a backlash against the EV revolution when the general public realizes just how exaggerated those claims are.
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@Pushmi-Pullyu Regardless of fix time, they have started to put a temp fix for now. So in the short time, yes they will be functional is my point. Remember that Ultra-Fast technology is newer and many still have to work out some issues in delivering these kinds of speeds.

Now yes I agree, EA is not the end all and does really need to get their stuff together as they've made promises and are slow to rolling these out. We have the same issues here in Canada. These should have started to roll out last year here and only the first one will launch next month. So I for one don't consider them superior in any way. Just a necessity in the EVSE landscape.

Also agree with you on promotion of false claims to hurt the industry. Happens with every industry and technology, not just VW and cars, so no excuse but I don't think their claims are serious enough to really impact adoption.

The true barrier right now for EV adoption is education. The vast vast majority of people don't realize what an EV can do and may (I say may as not everyone will fit an EV use case) fit their lifestyles and needs. Education and personal qualifying is what is needed to ensure proper adoption.

Thanks for the lively conversation.
 
What's exciting me in the US, is that many midwest states have committed projects to build out their own fast charge networks along their interstate routes. This combined with EA and EVGO will create the needed redundancy. I think for this generation of cars, both standards are pretty equally supported. As we move from 50-150kW to 350-900kW in a few years that could change.

As for Chademo, they are not showing up in the same number of stalls as CCS, mainly due to EA, but are adding location at the same rate as CCS. I am still interested to see how the coming Chinese cars will play in the US market, as they are aligned with Japan on the Chademo/ChaoJi standard. It could be the west is won with CCS, but guessing there is still one more round to come. Remember, BMW, Jaguar, etc.. all make Chademo versions of their cars today in some global markets like Japan and parts of Asia.
 
DougWantsALeaf said:
I am still interested to see how the coming Chinese cars will play in the US market, as they are aligned with Japan on the Chademo/ChaoJi standard.
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China doesn't use the CHAdeMO protocol, but it doesn't use the CCS protocol either. China has established its own entirely different protocol, unfortunately; it's called GB/T.

Leaf sales are on the wane, and I predict it won't be long until the CHAdeMO format is an obsolete tech in the USA and Europe, altho it may linger in Japan. When China starts making BEVs for the American and/or European market, I expect them to equip them for CSS charging, which is pretty clearly becoming the standard for those two regions.
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DougWantsALeaf said:
China and Japan joined forces.
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Yeah, I saw several references to that when I was researching my last post, but I question that China is serious about that. My understanding is that China mandates that all EVs sold there must have a GB/T port, but apparently this "Chaoji" thing is still in development. Who knows if that will become a true Asian standard, or just another failed attempt to create a true standard? Only time will tell.

standards.png
 
Pushmi-Pullyu said:
Yeah, I saw several references to that when I was researching my last post, but I question that China is serious about that. My understanding is that China mandates that all EVs sold there must have a GB/T port, but apparently this "Chaoji" thing is still in development. Who knows if that will become a true Asian standard, or just another failed attempt to create a true standard? Only time will tell.

standards.png
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There is an old joke - "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from"
 
I like that joke. I believe they designed the ChaoJi to be backward compatible with GB/T on purpose. I don't know if it will also be backward compatible to Chademo 1 or 2.
 
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