DC Fast Chargers and Drive Now

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Boatguy

Well-known member
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Aug 5, 2014
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I had a conversation today with John Tarpy at the BMW iConcierge department. Long story short, there should announcements in October regarding the deployment (schedule and locations) of DC Fast Chargers and an ICE loaner program (perhaps tied to DriveNow?). There should also be improved communication about i3 related activities at BMW and possibly some cooperation between BMW and Tesla regarding charging stations.

No details, but the promise of good news to come.
 
BMW should have given DC Fast charger port as standard option in all i3 models. Now a days most of the EVs are coming with that port as standard option. Can we add this option from the dealer if we have i3 with out that port.?
 
Mdsolar said:
BMW should have given DC Fast charger port as standard option in all i3 models. Now a days most of the EVs are coming with that port as standard option. Can we add this option from the dealer if we have i3 with out that port.?

Not currently known to be retrofit-able. :|
 
I am also anxious to get some (usable by BMW) fast charger infrastructure in place. I understand the issues around the three standards and of building infrastructure -- I suggested to my BMW "genius" that BMW corporate put level 3 chargers in place at all dealerships as a starting place. Then the commercial stuff/inter-standard discussions can proceed without us NOT having anywhere to get a fast charge.

It would also be great to have adapter gizmos (they won't be simple) available to go between standards. And it would be so friendly of BMW to give us those soon.

Ron Chestnut
 
YondanRon said:
... would also be great to have adapter gizmos (they won't be simple) available to go between standards. And it would be so friendly of BMW to give us those soon.

Ron Chestnut

They could have offered CHAdeMO inlets for the current existing 730 CHAdeMO stations in the US. They didn't, and likely never will (except Japan).

What do you suppose the odds are of an adaptor from any of the German car makers, or GM ?

How about never?
 
The basic guts to a fast charger are built around a monster DC power supply. The control logic about how to turn it on and off safely (only once the plug is properly seated in the car and the car is ready) and adjust the charging rate is the bigger issue. The plug hardware is defined, so that brings us back to the control logic. To give you a rough idea of a controller cost, www.emotorwerks.com has a chademo controller they sell for about $600 that works with their DC fast charger. I'd expect eventually, they'll have a CCS controller, and it will likely be similarly priced. Note, this is not a stand-alone product, it becomes part of the fast charger and isn't likely to be something that could easily become an adapter cable.

Can't speak to their durability or performance, never seen or used one, but their level 2 units seem to get good reviews (not particularly pretty, but they work). Throw in modifications to basic DC fast charger and labor, and you're probably talking about $3-4K by the time you add in a cable and plug - something that may be a bit much for some to want to subsidize. That's if their design would allow that modification easily, otherwise, it could be a lot more effort to modify. The entire BMW 25Kw CCS unit has something like a $10K price tag, so my unsubstantiated estimate of about 1/3'rd the cost to retrofit some other unit to be compatible with the CCS standard seems reasonable, at least to me.
 
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