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[Tudor]

I agree with @oobflyer, there is plenty of time to adopt infrastructure for EV - but they better start now.

Most EV's will charge mainly overnight but we certainly need infra structure for fast charging as well, or EV's will remain a second vehicle type of choice.

The chameleon charger, I guess it's not very applicable for a Zero anyway. As from what I understand it requires more parts on the vehicle as opposed being in the charger unit, no?

-maybe this topic should be moved to general discussion? -

[lolachampcar]

Tesla is not waiting on anyone to enable their cars.  They are installing fast chargers across the US.  California already has sufficient stations to get from LA to San Fran.  I believe they have the NY-DC corridor working and will soon have it extended to Boston.  They are placed in 150 mile radius circles and provide roughly 100KW charging; the idea being you get 150 miles of charge in a half hour stop.  Tesla is doing this with solar panel equipped stations that net meter to the grid with the capital costs being a marketing expense.  Charging is free for Model S owners.

The above just might accelerate adoption of this new technology.

[Electric Terry]

I just did the LA to San Fran ride on the Zero and let me tell you the charging stations are a little thin between San Luis Obispo and King City.  With it being below freezing overnight during my ride, and as loaded down and unaerodynamic as I was, I had to do a few level 1 charges waiting in the freezing cold while I wait for the slow drips of electrons at 110v.

San Francisco is even worse.  That place sucks if you have an electric vehicle.  On christmas, yesterday, I spent 8 hours riding around the city from charging station to charging station only to find they are all located inside a parking garage which is locked.  Who the hell locks a freakin parking garage on Christmas???  Are they worried someone will steal their concrete floors or pillars??  I mean really!!  San Francisco must hate the environment and electric vehicle owners as they try to look green and sustainable, at least I had that idea before I got there, but they are the worst, because the only reason they would torture EV owners like this is if really they hate us.  Otherwise they'd make a rule that charge stations need to be available 24/7.  I mean is it fair to say you can have a gasoline car, but you can only dispense gasoline 9-5 Monday thru Friday unless it's a holiday and then you can't dispense gasoline either.  Just park your car and wait in it until Monday morning.  Seriously?  This is the only town I've ever been to that does this, and I've been to a lot of ChargePoint towns.

I'd rather a town only have 2 stations that are available 24/7 than a town have 300 stations and 298 are locked up and you have to drive by each one to find out.  Bottom line San Francisco has got to be one of the worst places in the world to live.  At least to pass through with some sort of decent expectations.  Never again.  I'll go out of my way to avoid this hell hole the next time I hit the west coast.   People are mean too.  No one wants to help, they will kick you out in the rain while trying to look up a charge station on your phone.  I guess I'm spoiled by southern hospitality.  No one would ever do that there.

[Richard230]

I won't argue with you about SF, Terry.  I share your opinions, but there are a lot of people that live there that love the place.  I am just one of those that don't get it and therefore live in the 'burbs.  I am happy to hear that you made it out of SF without one of your wheels getting trapped in a streetcar or cable car track.  Those things, along with all of the city's potholes and other vehicle obstacles, including pedestrians, are tough on motorcycles and scooters. The trolly car tracks parallel many of the streets, are very slippery and are difficult to cross safely when needing to change lanes.

I had no idea that it was going to take you so long to find a charging station in SF.  That would have been plenty of time for you to visit my home (10 miles south) and plug into my 120V outlets.  With some long extension cords that I have, you could have charged from several different outlets and avoided the universal 15 amp limit.   

I hope you were eventually able to find a charging station, survived the heavy showers that we had yesterday afternoon and evening and arrived at your destination safely.  I am looking forward to seeing you on the way back. With any luck it will finally start to dry out and you will be able to get through SF without any more hassle.  If you are coming down the 101 from the north, across the GG Bridge, I recommend taking the 19th Avenue exit, just past the toll booths, head south on 19th Avenue to the west edge of Golden Gate Park.  Then take the last Park road to the right (at the signals) ride along that interior Park road until you come to Sunset Avenue (stop sign controlled), turn left and stay on Sunset until you reach the end of the road, turn right and then left on to Highway 1. Lake Merced will be on your left and the SF Zoo will be on your right. Then continue along Highway 1, which passes through Daly City and its "little boxes".  At the top of the hill, you can either take a right and continue down to the coast and into Pacifica and towards my home, or you can go straight along what is now Highway 35, which will eventually take you to I-280 - the gateway to Silicon Valley and all points south.

P.S. I just heard that Highway 1 has been closed south of Big Sur due to a rock slide. CalTrans hopes to have it open sometime next week.

[benswing]

Here's another question:

After following offthegrid's epic ride across the country and seeing that he did it by using multiple chargers to reduce his down time.  Would it make sense for companies to build in multiple charging ports?  For example have a 120V port and a J1772 port that can be used simultaneously in a stock bike. 

Or perhaps 2 J1772 ports so you could plug 2 fast chargers in and save time! 

Another idea I had was to make commercial chargers that use one plug with 3 lines, each connected to 240V of electric juiciness.  It would probably be oblong, but looks aren't everything, especially if it could charge your motorcycle or car in 15 minutes!

[Electric Terry]

Benswing I use both the J1772 and 120v level 1 port at charging stations sometimes to pull over 8000 watts to charge in 45 min.  Most times I just use the J port to charge at 7k-7200w.  If I had a larger battery pack and could charge at no more than 1C I could easily use 2 J plugs as may times they are sise by side or many in a row and pull 14,000 watts.  You can do anything you want.  It's all about understanding what's available, and using it to the maximum if you're short on time, or softly charging at say 4,000 watts if you're taking it easy.  Charging overnight at 1kw?  I try not to sleep.  Too much riding to do.

[protomech]

offthegrid, how many of the J1772 chargers in the wild are 15A vs 30A?

[benswing]

offthegrid, that is exactly what inspired me to post about this idea!  Did you talk with Zero about building bikes with the hardware already installed to charge via J1772 and 120V simultaneously?  I'm sure it would cost more, but I would love to have the ability to double charge on a production bike! 

I think it would speed up the whole electric vehicle adoption by the general public by reducing charging times quickly without waiting for new technology to jump from the lab bench to production vehicles. 

Also, did they mention anything about where they are going in terms of faster charging in the future? 

[Harlan]

offthegrid, that is exactly what inspired me to post about this idea!  Did you talk with Zero about building bikes with the hardware already installed to charge via J1772 and 120V simultaneously?  I'm sure it would cost more, but I would love to have the ability to double charge on a production bike! 

I think it would speed up the whole electric vehicle adoption by the general public by reducing charging times quickly without waiting for new technology to jump from the lab bench to production vehicles. 

Also, did they mention anything about where they are going in terms of faster charging in the future? 

As discussed earlier in this thread, the future of charging is going towards DC Fast Charging.  The CHAdeMO allows fast charging times without the expensive and heavy equipment being on the bike.  Terry is able to fast charge his bike using a J1772 and 120V plug simultaneously because he has a couple thousand dollars worth of chargers and more than a few extra pounds on board.  Putting this hardware on board not only increases the price but increases the weight significantly which would seem to conflict with Zero's mantra.

[trikester]

Putting this hardware on board not only increases the price but increases the weight significantly which would seem to conflict with Zero's mantra.

I agree. I suppose if I was only riding paved roads I wouldn't care if the bike weighed 1000 pounds. The reason I'm switching from the DS to the FX this year is because the 2013 DS has gotten too heavy for something I want to take through sand and rocks (I'm not talking pea gravel here). At least the weight increase in the 2013 DS has been primarily in battery capacity so it results in more mileage. A heavy charger on board doesn't do anything for the rider during the ride. If one wants to carry a heavy charger to get back on the road quickly then a good rear rack, to strap one on, is the ticket.

JMHO, Trikester

[benswing]

Harlan, do you know how much a CHAdeMO charger costs?  I thought the chargers themselves cost more since they have to convert AC to DC current. 

I've seen J1772 chargers for residential use for about $800 at Home Depot.  How much are CHAdeMO chargers?  We don't have any in the NYC metro area.

[protomech]

November 2011 Nissan announced a 600k yen ($6700 USD) and 800k ($8900 USD) yen indoor and outdoor CHAdeMO chargers.
http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/NEWS/2011/_STORY/111130-01-e.html

June 2012 Nissan announced the US availability of the $9900 and $15500 basic and advanced chargers.
http://myelifenow.blogspot.com/2012/06/nissan-dc-quick-charger-arrives-in-us.html

Currently only the advanced unit is available at $15500.
http://nissanqc.com/

Nissan's chargers all use 480V input, so very unlikely to be used in a residential setting. For residential service you would need something like the $25000 ORCA Mobile charger discussed here.

[Biff]

I've seen J1772 chargers for residential use for about $800 at Home Depot.  How much are CHAdeMO chargers?  We don't have any in the NYC metro area.

As discussed in a few threads, a J1772 station is not a charger, it is AC outlet. That $800 is the cost of the plug, cable, some electronics and a relay to add some "safety" to the system.  The actual device that converts the power to charge the battery is onboard the vehicle, and if you have a 9kW onboard charger, you paid several thousand dollars for that in the price of the car, and you carry it around with you everywhere you go.  You can purchase a J1172 connector for around $100 and I believe you can wire it up to a regular drier plug (40A 240VAC) and get it to work with most cars.  The new SAE J1772 plug with DC capabilities will be an actual charger, but the size of the connector is not something that will fit easily in a motorcycle.

The price of Chademo chargers is coming down, perhaps by companies wanting to get them installed quickly so that people start using them, and don't start making competing charge "standards" (Tesla, and SAE already have) Maybe there will be smaller 3kW or 5kW Chademo compatible chargers for home use available for $2k, if there were a market for it.

-ryan

[Electric Terry]

offthegrid, how many of the J1772 chargers in the wild are 15A vs 30A?

I don't know any public stations that are 15A.  I think all are 30A or 32A.  A few stations in Florida I could run 3 delta Q's and 2 elcons and pull 7600 watts briefly when the pack voltage was low from just the J port.  But out west I've blown 50+ stations using just 2 elcons and 2 delta Q's.  (Blown meaning I get an overcurrent fault from the station and it shuts down and has to be reset.)  Chargepoint is just north of Zero HQ in Campbell and I was supposed to stop in 2 weeks ago and talk to them about this.  I did stop by and talk to a lot of their engineers but the specific person was gone for the holidays.

The fault lies first whether the service feed is 208V 220v 230 or 240.  208v@32A=6.66 kw  vs.  240v@32A=7.68kw  Also if the property owner decided to put the station on the far corner end of the parking lot and there is a long copper run and he cut installation cost by going with the minimum gauge wire required by code, there will be a small compounded voltage drop.  To compensate, and output the same wattage, the current has to go up.  

Since the Tesla model S also charges at 7 kw from J1772 ports, Chargepoint wants my log of all the crappy stations I've visited across the country with poor installations that won't deliver 6600 watts without faulting and I've been to quite a few.  

Some of those stations i was the first to ever use, and most others in dense areas the station gets used often by Volt's and Leaf's and MiEV's but never has ever had to deliver more than 3.3kw until I plugged my bike in and shut the whole thing down.  

Harlan was with me in Beverly Hills the second day I was in town on the way to the IMS with him and Brandon when I faulted a charge point station in the parking garage of the Tennis Club, AND with a low battery (constant current chargers pull less watts when the pack voltage is low).   That poor station in Beverly Hills could barely do 6100 watts.  

But this year with the 7kw charging Tesla S and the 2013 Leaf which will charge at 6.6 kw, so there is an incentive to fix these below par stations quickly.  Like the ones is slumlord towns where they cut costs on installations like Beverly Hills.  

[Electric Terry]

offthegrid, that is exactly what inspired me to post about this idea!  Did you talk with Zero about building bikes with the hardware already installed to charge via J1772 and 120V simultaneously?  I'm sure it would cost more, but I would love to have the ability to double charge on a production bike!  

I think it would speed up the whole electric vehicle adoption by the general public by reducing charging times quickly without waiting for new technology to jump from the lab bench to production vehicles.  

Also, did they mention anything about where they are going in terms of faster charging in the future?  

Ben as Harlan and Biff mentioned here, I don't think production bikes will come with lots of onboard AC chargers installed.  It's possible as chargers get more efficient, more powerful, smaller, lighter and less expensive you might see aftermarket upgrades to allow faster AC charging.

But remember, the more times you charge faster, the more you heat the battery pack, and eventually you will see a slightly reduced range, granted it may be over 1000 cycles like this but still if you don't need to charge quickly, don't do it on a regular basis.  Even with all my chargers, when staying in a hotel, I charge with just 1 Delta Q overnight, unless I'm going to sleep for less than 4-6 hours to get back on the road, then I might use 2.

To go back to charger technology, there is a company I believe called ElTek that is making a 3kw automotive charger in 3 flavors between 70v and 420v DC in a small form factor that weighs about 6 pounds.  (about 1/2 the weight and 3.5x the power of a Delta Q)  They have extremely high efficiency and so generate less waste heat than the PFC chargers from Delta Q and Elcon which are already better than non Power Factor Corrected chargers.  But it may be a few years before the price on those is reasonable.

I believe because the Nissan Leaf has a built in CHAdeMO, and there are Leafs everywhere now, I think in the next few months, these chargers will start popping up everywhere.

My recommendation to everyone here is to talk to Harlan from Hollywood Electrics and place an order for a 2013 model Zero.  ***ESPECIALLY*** if you look at the map and you already have tons of CHAdeMO stations in your area!!! -  (Washington, Oregon, San Fran, LA/San Diego, Houston, Dallas, Tennessee, Phoenix, Chicago, Indianapolis and more growing every day!  Each time i look at the map there's a handful more stations that weren't there the other day.  

Bottom line:  It's happening, and coming to a town near you.  Get a 2013 Zero and save yourself a lot of headache, cost, weight, cords and installation complication.  Just my 2 cents, but then again, having "been there, done that" I hope my opinion means something to you guys here.  

Plus I've seen the 2013 Zero's first hand.  Trust me, this is what you want.  Did I mention that brand new designed 102 volt motor with a built in heatsink all around it and 50% more power?  I mean is it even a question?