BMW Installed The Wrong Fast-Charge Port On My i3

[Blue20]

http://insideevs.com/op-ed-bmw-installed-wrong-fast-charge-port-i3/

Being in British Columbia, next to Washington state, I have the same feeling too. There are plenty of CHAdeMo and Tesla Supercharger, but no CCS in sight. All the "Coming Soon" fast chargers show up in Plugshare are all CHAdeMo only.

BMW should not sell a car option that even their dealers can't test. They should either go with existing standard (i.e. CHAdeMo), or seriously invest in CCS - just like what Tesla is doing with Supercharger.

I love my i3, but really tick off by BMW on their neglect in supporting their product. (another example: wait 8 weeks for a set of snow tire in the Great White North...but that's another story.)

 

[TonyWilliams]

BMW did go with CHAdeMO in Japan. They just don't offer you that option, as the article points out.

World standard CHAdeMO grossly outnumbers regional standard CCS Combo1 in the USA and CCS Combo2 in EUROPE.


From the summer of 2012, "GM's Shad Balch, Manager of Environment & Energy Policy... went on to describe the current situation as a "hodgepodge of fast charging standards" with Tesla having its own proprietary level 3 system, Nissan and Mitsubishi using CHADEMO...

Balch said "we need to make sure, especially because we're talking about taxpayer money, that ONLY those standards (CCS Combo1) are installed going forward", and he said, "there is a very small group of cars that use a non-standardized level 3 charging connector," referring to the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV and the upcoming Tesla Model S.

Now, three years later:

***************

Here are the huge volume of chargers and cars that this GM person referred to in 2012 from GM, BMW and VW (the remainder of German auto makers never materialized):

CCS Combo1 - approximately 150 in the USA (and worldwide) as of March 2015

*GM Spark EV - 1,889 US sales cars (adding about 50-100 per month in three CARB-ZEV states only)
*BMW i3 - 7,851 US sales (28 Feb 2015)
*VW eGolf - 668 US sales (28 Feb 2015)

************

and here are the "very small group" that the same GM spokes-hole was referring to:


Nissan LEAF - 75,000 sold in the USA, over 160,000 sold worldwide
Mitsubishi iMiev (and variants) - over 30,000 worldwide
Tesla with adaptor - 55,000 worldwide

CHAdeMO - 5467 Worldwide (6 March 2015)

124 new CHAdeMO chargers added in USA between 9 Jan 2015 and 6 March 2015:

Adding about 2-3 per day in the USA, and 8 per day worldwide.

Japan -- 2819
Europe - 1659
USA ---- 934
Others - 55

***************

Tesla Supercharger - 396 stations worldwide with 2,167 Supercharger charge points, each with 2-14 stalls at each station, growing fast

6 March 2015 - Total USA:
Stations - 171
Charge points - 1139


*Tesla only, except Roadster - 40,000 US sales, 55,000 worldwide (28 Feb 2015)

 

[Blue20]

This is what happen when a multi-standard DC fast charging station is installed in CCS dead-zone.

 

[jadnashuanh]

If BMW made the wrong decision, it is not alone: Ford, GM, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, VW, Damlier also made the wrong one. While Chademo equipped vehicles have been around longer, with so many vehicle models either already here or coming shortly from so many different manufacturers, which one do you feel is more likely to win out in the end? Certainly, it makes it tougher at the beginning, but the Leaf and similarly equipped DC fast charge vehicles went from nothing to some coverage with only a couple of players...I think CCS will gather speed MUCH faster.

But, on a second note, if you bought a current EV and require the use of fast DC charging to make it viable, you either bought the wrong car or are deluded. I look at it as a potential bonus if I'm lucky enough to find the opportunity for a fast/free topup. But, I bought the vehicle based on what it could do with the current infrastructure. In many parts of the country outside of CA (in the USA), it is rare to find any DC fast chargers, Chademo or CCS. That is projected to change. Almost none of the Nissan dealers around me offer it, and there's not enough market for others to provide them. BMW and VW are working to start the ball rolling, but even they are having trouble getting the dealers to install CCS units...it takes a fairly big infrastructure investment to make it happen, and the incentives to the dealers are not big enough at this time. As they sell more vehicles, I think that will change, as the incremental cost and customer satisfaction will then also provide pressure.

 

[WoodlandHills]

This is just a re-run of BetaMax vs VHS: a pissing contest between corporate elephants. All we ants can do is try to avoid being trampled. That means operating in a CYA mode until the situation shakes out, ie, leasing whenever possible and ordering as many charging options as possible.

 

[jadnashuanh]

To me, if you look at the size of the connector required for CHademo verses the J1772 implementation, and the fact that you're tapping into the canbus of the vehicle for control verses on a dedicated control input, I do believe the CCS implementation is superior, and ultimately less expensive to implement. Max power capability is within the range of usability. Both systems can support more power than the current vehicles (maybe except for Tesla) can accept at any one time, and ultimately, CCS may have the edge. IT's chicken-egg conundrum. Lots more manufacturers chose to support CCS, and, over the next few years, it is likely many more CCS stations will show up. Chademo will either switch, or become the bastard stepchild. I do not see the J1772 standard and CCS losing this battle with the seven big manufacturers backing it and starting to produce cars that will use it...Nissan and Mitsubishi just aren't as big overall. I can see BMW's choice for Japan...imports into Japan are not as common as exports, and they had a decent infrastructure already built. Outside of a few metro areas in the USA, there are few Chademo units. Yes, more are being built, but the implementation of vehicles like the i3 that has been released for the entire US as opposed to limited release on some of the other CHademo equipped vehicles, along with the new VW and several other new models soon to be available nationwide, I think the tide is turning.

When dc fast charging becomes as common as finding a gas station, we're all going to be winners...competition will keep the costs down. It's like the early days of the gasoline powered cars, but we have bigger expectations. Those people were true pioneers, and bought in expecting trials...we've been spoiled and expect the infrastructure to exist already...a dose of reality needs to be prescribed.

Hassle is, it is NOT cheap to install ANY DC fast charge system, but it is only a much smaller incremental increase to make it compatible with both systems. They've been selling Leafs in my areas for more than a few years now, but still almost no DC fast charging systems anywhere. So, it's not an issue not having that capability. If BMW and VW fulfill their promises, there will be at least a few CCS units.

There's a business case for gasoline stations...often, lots of potential users - therefore a market. Until there are more EVs around with DC fast charging capabilities (and probably one reason why BMW chose to make it standard on 2015 MY vehicles), there is little incentive for commercial for profit companies to install them, and subsidies only go so far.

Anyone have a state by state sales for EV's? My educated guess says a significant majority of them are in CA, and that is one reason why there are more charging stations coupled with the state's green creds pushing for them. That certainly isn't the case everywhere in the USA. Europe has seemed to embrace it more as a region, verses in the USA where it is more a state-by-state thing.