My first DC fast charge

[Chrisn]

I noticed a press release from eVgo yesterday announcing the first SAE DC Combo charger in Northern California (at least in their network). It is in the Nob Hill grocery store parking lot in Mountain View. I signed up for free DC charging with ChargeNow and swung by.

I pulled into the charging station (which also had Level 2 chargers and a Chademo (Leaf) charger. I had assumed that the SAE Combo retrofit would involve a double-headed "Y-Splitter" thingy at the end of the cord, but it was a whole new tower-- totally separate from the Chademo one (I wonder if charging is throttled if both in use at once).

Anyway, I wasted a few minutes looking for a place to swipe my RFID ChargeNow card before I noticed the charger screen said "Plug in to start." The handle was not locked so I plugged it in. After a little system check and handshake, it said "push here to start," which I did. Not sure if the authentication happened by VIN over the charge cable or what, but it never asked my to swipe anything or enter any info. Maybe they have the unit in free-access mode for now?

Anyway, per the iPhone app, I started with 36% charge. I apologize for not timing my visit, but in the time required to enter the store, order a sandwich, wait for sandwich, consume sandwich while checking email and return to car, it was charged to 93%, which I thought was pretty awesome. I was gone for maybe 20 minutes?

Now all we need is a couple hundred more stations like it (for the Bay Area)!

 

[jadnashuanh]

There is no digital data exchange between the EVSE and the i3 by the cable, but if the EVSE is on the internet, it could maybe figure something out but I doubt it. That would require trying to access a database of i3s based on their gps and reported positions and trying to determine what's what. I doubt it has gotten that sophisticated, yet.

 

[M2140]

We tried to charge at both of the 2 quick charge stations in Irvine, CA and neither worked.

Both stations are managed by a small local company and one of their techs called me to see if they could fix it. He said that the BMW quick charge is very different from the Chevy Spark. He had to update the machine to get it to work. So we went back to the station and had him try and get the quick charge to work. After an hour we still were not able to charge. Kept getting an over voltage error on the machine and my car kept reading a charge station malfunction.

The quick charge is 60 miles from my house. From reading plugshare, other I3 have charged at at least one of these stations. So we figured it was worth a try considering there are 2 quick charge stations with 10 miles of each other.

These stations not working with our car almost stranded us and completely ruined our weekend. We had a nice planned trip and then had to scramble and find somewhere to sit that had a level 2 charger and enough things to do to kill 4 hours so that we could get home.

SEA Combo level 3 charging needs to be made more reliable.

 

[Zzzoom3]

I noticed a press release from eVgo yesterday announcing the first SAE DC Combo charger in Northern California (at least in their network). It is in the Nob Hill grocery store parking lot in Mountain View. I signed up for free DC charging with ChargeNow and swung by.

I pulled into the charging station (which also had Level 2 chargers and a Chademo (Leaf) charger. I had assumed that the SAE Combo retrofit would involve a double-headed "Y-Splitter" thingy at the end of the cord, but it was a whole new tower-- totally separate from the Chademo one (I wonder if charging is throttled if both in use at once).

Anyway, I wasted a few minutes looking for a place to swipe my RFID ChargeNow card before I noticed the charger screen said "Plug in to start." The handle was not locked so I plugged it in. After a little system check and handshake, it said "push here to start," which I did. Not sure if the authentication happened by VIN over the charge cable or what, but it never asked my to swipe anything or enter any info. Maybe they have the unit in free-access mode for now?

Anyway, per the iPhone app, I started with 36% charge. I apologize for not timing my visit, but in the time required to enter the store, order a sandwich, wait for sandwich, consume sandwich while checking email and return to car, it was charged to 93%, which I thought was pretty awesome. I was gone for maybe 20 minutes?

Now all we need is a couple hundred more stations like it (for the Bay Area)!

BIG +1

 

[Zzzoom3]

We tried to charge at both of the 2 quick charge stations in Irvine, CA and neither worked.

Both stations are managed by a small local company and one of their techs called me to see if they could fix it. He said that the BMW quick charge is very different from the Chevy Spark. He had to update the machine to get it to work. So we went back to the station and had him try and get the quick charge to work. After an hour we still were not able to charge. Kept getting an over voltage error on the machine and my car kept reading a charge station malfunction.

The quick charge is 60 miles from my house. From reading plugshare, other I3 have charged at at least one of these stations. So we figured it was worth a try considering there are 2 quick charge stations with 10 miles of each other.

These stations not working with our car almost stranded us and completely ruined our weekend. We had a nice planned trip and then had to scramble and find somewhere to sit that had a level 2 charger and enough things to do to kill 4 hours so that we could get home.

SEA Combo level 3 charging needs to be made more reliable.

The only stations I would personally count on are the eVgo Freedom stations and the new BMW DC Fast stations. Neither is widely available to SAE CCS yet in SoCal at least. I know of only 2. The 1st in at Fashion Valley Mall in San Diego. The other is in a parking structure in Hermosa Beach.

 

[cwerdna]

I pulled into the charging station (which also had Level 2 chargers and a Chademo (Leaf) charger. I had assumed that the SAE Combo retrofit would involve a double-headed "Y-Splitter" thingy at the end of the cord, but it was a whole new tower-- totally separate from the Chademo one (I wonder if charging is throttled if both in use at once).

I doubt very many, if any will be "retrofitted". If the unit was only designed to be a CHAdeMO DC FC, it's likely not economical to retrofit that and have the retrofitted version certified by UL or an equivalent body.

The communications protocols the two use are different: CAN for CHAdeMO and Green PHY for SAE Combo.

I suspect most will have two DC FCs, like the above or they will be purpose-built dual or triple standard units to begin with, possibly replacing a CHAdeMO only that's there now. Examples below, including some locations:
http://btcpower.com/products-and-applications/EV-Fast-Charger/
http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/10076
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=339430#p339430

http://www.efacecusa.com/product-services/electric-mobility/ev-chargers
http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/8428

http://www.abb.com/product/seitp332/5d5534b9d6428d64c1257b0f003a35b2.aspx
http://insideevs.com/abb-launches-sae-combo-chademo-terra-53-fast-charger-in-us/

http://www.chademo.com/wp/chademocharger/ gave some clues and led me to http://www.dbtcev.fr/specification/2-charging-points/ (I've seen people in Europe post pictures which look like these units), which probably would all be useless in the US as the ones I looked at had Combo2, which isn't used in the US. Combo1 is what's in the US (http://www.mychevysparkev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5012#p5012).

We tried to charge at both of the 2 quick charge stations in Irvine, CA and neither worked.
...
From reading plugshare, other I3 have charged at at least one of these stations.

You did report your experiences on Plugshare, right?

 

[user 1096]

I noticed a press release from eVgo yesterday announcing the first SAE DC Combo charger in Northern California (at least in their network). It is in the Nob Hill grocery store parking lot in Mountain View. I signed up for free DC charging with ChargeNow and swung by.

I pulled into the charging station (which also had Level 2 chargers and a Chademo (Leaf) charger. I had assumed that the SAE Combo retrofit would involve a double-headed "Y-Splitter" thingy at the end of the cord, but it was a whole new tower-- totally separate from the Chademo one (I wonder if charging is throttled if both in use at once).

Anyway, I wasted a few minutes looking for a place to swipe my RFID ChargeNow card before I noticed the charger screen said "Plug in to start." The handle was not locked so I plugged it in. After a little system check and handshake, it said "push here to start," which I did. Not sure if the authentication happened by VIN over the charge cable or what, but it never asked my to swipe anything or enter any info. Maybe they have the unit in free-access mode for now?

Anyway, per the iPhone app, I started with 36% charge. I apologize for not timing my visit, but in the time required to enter the store, order a sandwich, wait for sandwich, consume sandwich while checking email and return to car, it was charged to 93%, which I thought was pretty awesome. I was gone for maybe 20 minutes?

Now all we need is a couple hundred more stations like it (for the Bay Area)!

Lucky You! I did my first public station charge today after calling the supermarket yesterday and complaining that a) their stations don't show up on a variety of Nav maps. b) aren't branded except for the store's name; c) had no instructions, but did include an 800 number which I didn't bother with; d) used GE terminals that had places to swipe or wave cards, but nothing worked and e) had no indication of level of service.

The (regional chain) market manager called me back after she went out to check them and luckily found a user hooking up. So, she got the directions from him and called to say that they were installed without any instructions or training for employees and first required an Amazon Account, currently, they are requiring a PayPal account, but the store has made them free, so "just push the release button, plug in, and start charging."

On my second trip today, it all came true, but this is typical with diverse independent marketing strategies (not to mention the Beta vs. VHS battle brewing between SAE and the Japanese standard). And then, there's Tesla...lol.

I figure they'll get it straightened out by the time I need to trade mine for a much-improved power pack and charging regimen.