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Total Members Voted: 24

[Doug S]

Well they have to be able to cope with the 43kW running through it.

Oh, please! Tesla's supercharger connector is quite a bit smaller than that and can deliver 135kW. It's as if some of these standards bodies are making the connector gigantic on purpose for some reason.

[Erasmo]

Well they have to be able to cope with the 43kW running through it.

Oh, please! Tesla's supercharger connector is quite a bit smaller than that and can deliver 135kW. It's as if some of these standards bodies are making the connector gigantic on purpose for some reason.

Three reasons I can think of why that would be:
-The mennekes plug is an older standard(+20 years)
-Tesla designed their plugs in-house and they only have to fit in 3-4 types of cars
-It has only three connections, two for the DC and on to chat with the car. Mennekes has more connections in their plugs en because HV leads and connections require a minimum distance the plugs get quite bulky every time you add a connection.

[Doug S]

Yep. All those reasons are why Tesla's solution is inherently superior. They're not trying to be all things to all people; they created a standard that achieves the goal while maximizing the resources (in this case connector space) and then design the product around that, not the other way around.

[evtricity]

Tesla uses the Mennekes plug in Europe and Australia for supercharging, 3 phase AC and single phase AC charging. You can also get a cheap J1772 to Mennekes adaptor and you can charge at all the J1772 stations.

So for Europe and Australia (and I would argue worldwide) the best choice for EV manufacturers would be to implement the same charging support as Tesla have done using the Mennekes plug. Once they get access to the Tesla Supercharger networks in Europe and Australia their customers will have the ultimate solution - a single plug for all charging rates and access to the widest charging network.

Chademo has failed in Australia because it is too expensive and has only been adopted overseas through government support. Because it implements a different plug it forces the manufacturers to have two inputs on the vehicle and the socket is expensive versus Mennekes. On a motorcycle you should have inexpensive sockets and ideally, only one.

If Tesla adopted the Mennekes socket in the USA it would have opened the door to shifting people across to Mennekes and away from three plugs - Tesla USA plug, J1772 and Chademo. Their cars would worked with the huge J1772 network with a low cost adaptor (as they have already implemented with their J1772 adaptor). Given the growth of the Supercharger network Tesla are making Chademo all but redundant. I doubt many people would bother buying the Tesla to Chademo adapter for over $500 given that the Supercharger network is or soon will be better in so many ways.

So why would Zero owners want to put expensive Chademo sockets on their bikes when there is patchy network coverage meaning they still need a separate L2 socket as well.

So for Zero owners I think it is better to leverage the L2 network that is in place and suffer the burden of carrying chargers whilst working out how to move onto Tesla DC charging. Buying a Chademo fast charger option saves some weight but gives minimal improvement in charge times. Zeros can handle 1C charging via a Chademo socket (75A-133A depending on your battery capacity) whilst you can push 50A/70A with two/three Elcons and your onboard charger. If you have to go out of your way to use a Chademo station, how much time are you really saving!

[Doug S]

evtricity, in my part of the world, CHAdeMO stations are plentiful, as are L2 stations. But you have to carry around your own (big, heavy, heat-generating) charger to use an L2 station, which is why they developed DC fast charging in the first place (to get that charger off the vehicle). If the CHAdeMO stations all worked, and probably even though they don't all work, I could get all around southern California using them without having to lug around my own L2 charger.

Supercharger looks great to me except for one thing: They're not located in the right places. They're (mostly) putting them BETWEEN large cities, with the idea that they're for people doing long cross-country trips in a vehicle with 200-mile+ range. Again, here in southern CA I'd probably be fine, but I can't venture far from here before they become too far apart to work for me. With L2 and/or CHAdeMO charging, I could refer to PlugShare and plan longer trips just because there are more of those stations around.

And, of course, nobody's got a supercharger solution available. I guess technically nobody's really got a CHAdeMO solution available either, which leaves us with L2 for now, further development of either CHAdeMo or supercharger for the future.

[benswing]

FYI charging via CHAdeMO would cut a full hour off my recharging time (with 2 Elcons + the onboard charger) and they are located along the highway, thereby saving more time. 

To add to this mess the CCS chargers that are beginning to pop up (for BMW, Chevy, etc) use a plug that is based on the J1772 standard with 2 extra contacts.


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[evtricity]

I do appreciate there are time savings with Chademo in some circumstances but the percentage of "use cases" for Chademo are much lower compared to public L2 charging.

When the Chademo socket was available from Zero, few people ordered it and I would argue that even if it was still available a far greater number of people would buy and attach L2 charging support to their bikes because that is a much more plentiful infrastructure and gives the freedom that most of want - after all that's why many of us ride motorcycles in the first place, not just to ride up and down the same freeways as the cars and trucks - that's long distance/high speed commuting!

As benswing pointed out in another thread, add-on J1772 charging is an interim step.

The ideal state (at least in Europe and Australia) would be:
- single Mennekes socket
- 3.3kW or better 6.6kW onboard charger that supports 6A-30A charging so can be plugged into regular household sockets (just as Brammo did with the Eltek Valere chargers) with any L2 EVSE (portable, public, home) as per Leaf, Volt, Imiev etc

Unfortunately, in terms of fast charging, the USA as the early adopter suffers with too many different formats and it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. If Tesla were to open up their charge stations that could change things significantly as it would provide a revenue stream to Tesla to expand the Supercharger network even further. And further to Doug's point about the Supercharger's being spread wider, Zero continues to increase the range of their bikes and coupled with an ever expanding Tesla network, fast charging possibilities will open up more route options over time.

I'm very jealous at the fast charge options available in the USA but when everything is proprietary you really are forcing consumers to make an expensive gamble on which one to go with. I'd also argue that having single DC Fast chargers at each location really isn't sufficient. Tesla got it right when they put in 6 or more Superchargers at each location. Bit hard to go for a trip with your EV mates when you have to wait at the "pump" for 30-60 minutes for each of you to fill up!

Sometimes it's better to just accept the limitations of L2 and save your fast charging money to be spent later when the winner becomes obvious.

Having said that I think we should lobby Zero to put a 3.3/6.6kW J1772/Mennekes charger on our bikes. It should be an option instead of the PowerTank and I've no doubt that the tank could support that size charger and incorporate ventilation as well.

[Lecram]

Well they have to be able to cope with the 43kW running through it.

Oh, please! Tesla's supercharger connector is quite a bit smaller than that and can deliver 135kW. It's as if some of these standards bodies are making the connector gigantic on purpose for some reason.

In Europe, the Tesla chargers has the 'Mennekes' connector, too.

[Erasmo]

@evtricity: It's all a matter of regions and their preferred standards. For example take the J1772 plug, while it may be plentiful in the States here in the Netherlands we have a mind boggling amount of 4 J1772 chargers because Mennekes is the standard for normal charging here. And although Mennekes is not bad ChaDeMo is better because it slashes loading times to 20-30 minutes and you don't have to haul a topcase with 20kg of chargers that cost several thousand dollars.

[Erasmo]

I'm not on Facebook so I can't follow the events there but does somebody know how the progress is?
Did enough people apply? Are the wanted after features released?

[MichaelJ]

Haven't seen any updates in the Facebook thread since May 16th.

[benswing]

The last thing I heard was that quick charge power was going to set up a deposit on their website. I don't see it right now, but it should appear sometime soon.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[evtricity]

@evtricity: It's all a matter of regions and their preferred standards. For example take the J1772 plug, while it may be plentiful in the States here in the Netherlands we have a mind boggling amount of 4 J1772 chargers because Mennekes is the standard for normal charging here. And although Mennekes is not bad ChaDeMo is better because it slashes loading times to 20-30 minutes and you don't have to haul a topcase with 20kg of chargers that cost several thousand dollars.

If Zero can use the Tesla DC fast charging via Mennekes plug ie. in Europe and Australia, then they have a cheaper and smaller solution than Chademo and a rapidly increasing network in the Tesla superchargers and can still plug into J1772 or Mennekes for L2 charging. Chademo is at best losing or at worst dying in Europe and Australia.

Appreciate the value of Chademo for those in the USA with the current subsidised installations but can't see how Chademo is going to win out anywhere but Japan in 5 years time.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah CCS is probably going to win out in Europe. Especially as its an extension of the Type2 charging system.

[Erasmo]

Yeah CCS is probably going to win out in Europe. Especially as its an extension of the Type2 charging system.

The J1772 plug is a truly rare sight on mainland Europe. For example there are just 4 in the whole Netherlands.

But most fast chargers that are being installed have both CCS and ChaDeMo, probably from the same power source. By simply adding a plug and interface board or whatnot you make a charger a whole lot more functional for a small price.