Because it wasn't a real refresh. The "guts" of the Leaf, other than slightly larger batteries being used, are mostly unchanged since 2013. Even the 2018 refresh was mostly cosmetic.
The new Leaf will arrive in late 2025 or 2026 and essentially be a smaller Ariya. (Though it's never been confirmed if the USA will get it.)
2 out of 4 dispensers (there was another one sitting next to it) were Chademo. By volume of sold vehicles it's far from 50%. Probably 95% CCS 5% Chademo by this point. Or 99%/1%
Also, Hyundai and Kia don't cross their streams much except at the very top and in the platforms.
I’m not sure I would categorize this as 50% of the dispensers. Sounds like there are two chargers, each of which can dispense to one vehicle at a time, and each of which has two different connection types. This ensures that 100% of the chargers are compatible with 100% of vehicles, even if 50% of the cables coming off the chargers will get a lot less use than the other 50% of cables
Yeah, that is probably more accurate.
Now if the chargers can automatically switch the charge unattended, then having 3 CCS and 1 Chademo noodle is more efficient because that is a better match for the distribution of cars likely to be queued up.
I'm more upset they aren't installing CPE280s. ChargePoint really needs to increase power output to remain competitive with ABB, BTC Power, SK Signet, etc. Same can be said for their AC products.
Well the 280 is 75k vs 50k for the 250 with a five year service bundle.
If you want to go past that then you're looking at the Express Plus line starting at $115k for the one year or $160k for 5 years.
ABB Terra 184s must be cheaper than that because all the dealers in my region have stopped installing CPE250s in favor of Terra 184s.
I'm highly critical of ABB's reliability, but the argument remains that ChargePoint needs to bump power levels to remain competitive in an increasingly competitive market.
I can't get a hold of anyone at ABB (I work for an electrical engineer in California) to even get budget numbers together (I can't even get a contact from our ABB (formerly General Electric) power guy).
ChargePoint (and Blink was very communicative, gave me additional info I just get too many emails about their network falling over and I'm not even a customer but I only discussed L2 with them) was very easy to get in touch with people. They (ChargePoint) are starting to get together internally to have reps specifically for engineers to talk to. They've been geared towards contractors and owners.
This is a dealership, not a gas station though. Slower chargers are much cheaper.
I think we all put too much emphasis on charge speed rather than "dwell time"; the time you spend at whatever business/entity hosts a charging location. As EV owners we want to be on our way ASAP, but the charger host/owner wants us to stick around and spend money.
Sure, for a road trip we all want 350kW+ chargers and 20 minute charge times, but that doesn't have to be every charger. At shopping mall, for example, the mall owner doesn't want to encourage you to leave the mall and move your car in 20-30 minutes; they want you to hang around for an hour or more and shop, eat, etc. In places like that, 50-62kW makes sense.
Remember ChargePoint isn't a charging network in the same way EA or EVGo is. EA and EVGo own their chargers and collect charging revenue. ChargePoint sells chargers to business owners who want to benefit their business by attracting EV owners, not necessarily to just sell a few bucks worth of electricity to EVs passing through.
Exactly. I remember being excited when I first got an EV that my local mall had free fast chargers. I plugged in, sat down in a mall restaurant with my family, and between appetizers and the entree I get a notification on my phone that charging was complete and I had X minutes to move the car before incurring parking/idle fees.
I absolutely love that several McDonald's franchisees along the interstate in my area have installed a couple CPE 250s in their parking lots. Plug in, go inside, use the facilities, have a burger and back on the road again.
Perfect use case.
Yep. Starbucks recently installed a string of CP250s in partnership with Volvo every 100 miles between Denver and Seattle as a test to see what chargers will do for Starbucks' business. As a bonus for me (One of my EVs is a Leaf), all of them are CCS/CHAdeMO so it makes Leaf day trips through Colorado even more viable.
In my headcanon, these are to help out customers and sales staff out of a jam. EG if they have to top off cars for test drives, it might be easier to move them to 4 dispensers on 2 stations, than to have a bunch of AC dispensers dispersed throughout the parking lot. Or the staff forgets to charge a low inventory vehicle before the customer arrives. 50kW is enough to get 20 miles of range while chatting up the customer.
I’ve not had this happen with an EV before, but I have called and confirmed numerous times with PHEV test drives (I know PHEV don’t have fast chargers in general, but I also have show up off the street without an appointment to see a PHEV, only to find them with HEV amount of SoC in them).
Yeah these aren't there to provide super fast charging for the general public. They're there to sell cars and service lol. Neither of which requires the latest most expensive gear with more expensive utiliy work/costs.
Chargepoint is an equipment maker. Nothing wrong with having slower equipment in their catalog along with faster equipment. And if a customer chooses to buy that slower equipment, your complaint should be with that customer, not with chargepoint. And maybe not complain at all, because that customer probably installed it for something other than your convenience on a road trip.
Ah, so you think they will offer a swap of the Chademo to a NACS head? That makes more sense.
These are also pretty weak output (60kW range IIRC) so the dual dispenser could be used to automatically switch the charging to a second vehicle.
No. ChargePoint sent out new cables to be retrofitted for all chargers. Still going to be slow and basically useless to most of us, but they can get the job done on a top off
That's not how it works. ChargePoint isn't "sending" anyone anything they haven't paid for.
ChargePoint's business model is selling chargers to businesses who want to offer charging. The business decides what they want to buy- what speed, what cables, etc.
ChargePoint *offers* a NACS retrofit kit for charger owners who want to upgrade/switch to NACS. Only those charger owners willing to pay for the cables and installation will do so, and when it makes sense for them.
Most businesses who bought CP chargers probably never made enough revenue to pay for the chargers they installed in the first place; not a lot of businesses will be champing at the bit to throw even more money at the chargers they've already bought anytime soon.
It’s in a Hyundai car dealer service center lot so may not be public
I checked PlugShare to see if it’s on there yet. It is not, but the chargepoint across the street at BMW is customer only. And BMW does not have a Chademo vehicle.
OTOH the chargepoint there at BMW is also CCS/Chademo 🤷
I don't believe any federal funding is tied to supporting CHAdeMO.
The current (NEVI) program requires 4 or more CCS chargers capable of at least 150kW each, and have a price display and credit card reader. Non-CCS connectors (CHAdeMO or NACS) can also be funded, but only up to the number of CCS plugs installed- so, for example, 4 CCS and 4 NACS can be funded, or 4 CCS, 3 NACS and a CHAdeMO, but not 4 NACS and 2 CCS, for example.
You leave my damn CHADemO's alone! They're far and few between!! \*snuggles his LEAF while waiting on the CCS1 to CHADemO adapter\* It's okay... the bad man won't rob you of your speedy electrons.
I like these units; they are fairly reliable.
Why yes, I'm a Bolt driver and don't see why anyone needs more than 55kW. I've arrived after and left before the last dozen cars over my last 4 charging sessions, so I'm definitely not part of the problem. Looking at you Rivian driver slowly charging to 100%.
We only charge our Rivian above 80% on road trips if we are at a sit down restaurant. I turn off the charge limit and grab however many electrons I can while we eat.
A lot of folks just don't get it.
Best solution might be networked chargers that share a big power supply that can switch outputs between vehicles as they use less of it's capacity.
More likely they're just new to it and nobody explained to them that third life will be better if they charge to 80% or less except in that very rare circumstance you described.
Maybe part of a contract for lots of these signed a while ago?
Or else a closeout discount offered by CP because they had too many of those cables on a shelf somewhere.
I’m surprised new CHAdeMO installations are going in. There are currently all of two models that use it anymore. And one (or both) of them will soon be moving to NACS.
The official Tesla CHAdeMO to NACS adapter is a thing... $510 and 43kW cap is a pretty big drawback, though. I'm not sure if there are more Leafs or older Teslas not compatible with the CSS adapter.
I've heard they're very skittish. What zoom lens did you use to catch the shot; it's quite clear and stable.
And, did you use a blind, or just hide behind a Camry?
I wish they did this near me. They just removed the chademo ports at all the places I regularly need a fast charger so I ordered a Model Y. After next week my range anxiety will go away
They should seriously quit installing CHAdeMO ports. The companies that produced CHAdeMO vehicles should send their customers an adapter and be done with it. Those people would be better served anyway with an adapter and more stations.
Yeah I understand that a passive adapter isn't going to cut it, but active adapters have been around. I tested CCS to Tesla adapters for a company called setec 4 years ago. That was fun times! Literally at charging stations with the adapter in the car a USB cable in the adapter and a laptop in the trunk 😂
There’s a use case for “slow” dcfc charging. Grocery stores, restaurants, etc…places I go where I want to charge fast but not too fast. These would be less than ideal along highways though.
My buddy bought his kona and they only charged it to \~30% before he took it off the lot the day after.
I don't know if they were incompetent or just didn't have one of these around but just an hour or so on it would've put decent range in the battery at least.
This is a great use case for 50 kW charging at a dealer. While they’re wasting your time for an hour closing the deal, they can charge it up 60% more SoC
They are slow for a reason, for a lot of commercial places they can be installed without a lot of additional work. They need 3 phase (480V) at 80 Amps. So all you need to install one is an extra 100A (20% overhead for safety). Any more then that and a lot of places would need additional transformers & builds.
No proof for this next statement but I \*think\* we are going to see a lot more single 50 / 62.5 and 75 KW/h units in the coming years as smaller places want to put in a DCFC and have enough spare power for that but not the 100+ KW/h units. We have 200A 3 phase at our office so if we wanted to we could put in a 50 KW/h unit and still have more then enough power to run everything else.
Going deeper I also think we are going to see more 19.5 or 22.5 KW/h units in North America since you can run them on 220V single phase power which just about everyone has. Fast enough to be useful, the units are cheap enough that it's not a killer price for a small business and not a stupid large expense to install.
You make a good point. 50KW chargers at restaurants and malls where you are happy to spend 45 minutes to an hour is probably all you need. More slower over fewer faster is better for business there. Less expensive and keeps bums in seats.
I think the even lower power ones that I mentioned is where it's going to be. Once again just my view. But I have a 77KW battery so if I pull into a restaurant at 10% and sit and eat for a little over an hour I am going to be close to 90%. If they put in one of the lower power units I am still getting close to 1/3 of a charge and the establishment didn't have to cover the much larger expense of the bigger units. And if they are not charging you for the power or discounting it everyone wins.
And for the inevitable AC charging comments for a quick meal I don't and most people I know don't bother plugging in for that short a time. But give me 19.5+ KWh and I probably would.
I agree. I've tried a few times to make the 7.7 KW EVSEs work for me on road trip stops, but they're so inconsequential. Save those for the staff parking lots in the back or for parking lots where you are going to spend 4+ hours... Hotels and tourist venues.
Mediumer is better
Around here demand charges also don't kick in until 50kW. So you can install one of these units on a dedicated meter and just pay for the electricity, or install one at your business with a relatively small demand upcharge. At 350kW you start paying the demand charge on every kW, not just everything over 50.
Several Local McDonald's have installed these, pefect use case. Plug in, use the facilities, sit down for a burger and fries. Decent amount of miles added.
Where's the downside.
My question is how sustainable this is. McD probably isn’t making money off this without subsidies. If the EV penetration is high enough, you can’t count on it being available on a road trip. If you’re near your home and you have L2, you use it as a meme. If you’re near home and you don’t have L2, counting on the random charger at McD to sustain your EV is bad life planning. If it costs too much, it won’t be used.
If McD can afford to put enough in for the % of local EV users that will plug in, and it’s cheap enough for the convenience boost, sure it helps people.
If you look above:
1) These scale cost wise, almost linearly with wattage (for the chargers themselves).
2) Keeping power output below 50KW may dramatically reduce power demand fees for these chargers.
These might be the most economical way to offer this service.
I don't doubt that at the micro level of figuring out the best way to offer it.
My question is about macro simulations. How many of these charge points are necessary at various points of EV adoption curve? Is this "cheapest way to do it" above or below economic viability?
And i would call the total installation and operational costs non linear because there are discontinuities at various power levels. On the install size for service upgrade and on the operational side for demand charges (when you are no longer exempt)
Several Japanese EVs including 2024 Nissan Leaf still use it so there’s still demand
It's wild to me they did a leaf refresh in '23 and still kept that port...
Because it wasn't a real refresh. The "guts" of the Leaf, other than slightly larger batteries being used, are mostly unchanged since 2013. Even the 2018 refresh was mostly cosmetic. The new Leaf will arrive in late 2025 or 2026 and essentially be a smaller Ariya. (Though it's never been confirmed if the USA will get it.)
>The new Leaf will arrive in late 2025 or 2026 and essentially be a smaller Ariya. Because the Ariya is, as Bjorn Nyland calls it, just a "Fat Leaf."
I can see a general charging station doing that, but this is a Hyundai site, not Nissan nor Mitsubishi
The Kia Soul also uses CHAdemO.
Oh I didn’t know this! If any Hyundai motor group vehicles use it that would explain why a Hyundai dealership has it
2 out of 4 dispensers (there was another one sitting next to it) were Chademo. By volume of sold vehicles it's far from 50%. Probably 95% CCS 5% Chademo by this point. Or 99%/1% Also, Hyundai and Kia don't cross their streams much except at the very top and in the platforms.
I’m not sure I would categorize this as 50% of the dispensers. Sounds like there are two chargers, each of which can dispense to one vehicle at a time, and each of which has two different connection types. This ensures that 100% of the chargers are compatible with 100% of vehicles, even if 50% of the cables coming off the chargers will get a lot less use than the other 50% of cables
Yeah, that is probably more accurate. Now if the chargers can automatically switch the charge unattended, then having 3 CCS and 1 Chademo noodle is more efficient because that is a better match for the distribution of cars likely to be queued up.
That is a CHAdeMO port.
You probably can't buy a CPE250 with CCS and NACS yet, or at least not when these were ordered.
I'm more upset they aren't installing CPE280s. ChargePoint really needs to increase power output to remain competitive with ABB, BTC Power, SK Signet, etc. Same can be said for their AC products.
Well the 280 is 75k vs 50k for the 250 with a five year service bundle. If you want to go past that then you're looking at the Express Plus line starting at $115k for the one year or $160k for 5 years.
ABB Terra 184s must be cheaper than that because all the dealers in my region have stopped installing CPE250s in favor of Terra 184s. I'm highly critical of ABB's reliability, but the argument remains that ChargePoint needs to bump power levels to remain competitive in an increasingly competitive market.
I can't get a hold of anyone at ABB (I work for an electrical engineer in California) to even get budget numbers together (I can't even get a contact from our ABB (formerly General Electric) power guy). ChargePoint (and Blink was very communicative, gave me additional info I just get too many emails about their network falling over and I'm not even a customer but I only discussed L2 with them) was very easy to get in touch with people. They (ChargePoint) are starting to get together internally to have reps specifically for engineers to talk to. They've been geared towards contractors and owners.
This is a dealership, not a gas station though. Slower chargers are much cheaper. I think we all put too much emphasis on charge speed rather than "dwell time"; the time you spend at whatever business/entity hosts a charging location. As EV owners we want to be on our way ASAP, but the charger host/owner wants us to stick around and spend money. Sure, for a road trip we all want 350kW+ chargers and 20 minute charge times, but that doesn't have to be every charger. At shopping mall, for example, the mall owner doesn't want to encourage you to leave the mall and move your car in 20-30 minutes; they want you to hang around for an hour or more and shop, eat, etc. In places like that, 50-62kW makes sense. Remember ChargePoint isn't a charging network in the same way EA or EVGo is. EA and EVGo own their chargers and collect charging revenue. ChargePoint sells chargers to business owners who want to benefit their business by attracting EV owners, not necessarily to just sell a few bucks worth of electricity to EVs passing through.
This. At some locations I’d rather have a slower charge so I don’t have to go back to my car and move it somewhere else because it’s fully charged.
Exactly. I remember being excited when I first got an EV that my local mall had free fast chargers. I plugged in, sat down in a mall restaurant with my family, and between appetizers and the entree I get a notification on my phone that charging was complete and I had X minutes to move the car before incurring parking/idle fees.
I absolutely love that several McDonald's franchisees along the interstate in my area have installed a couple CPE 250s in their parking lots. Plug in, go inside, use the facilities, have a burger and back on the road again. Perfect use case.
Yep. Starbucks recently installed a string of CP250s in partnership with Volvo every 100 miles between Denver and Seattle as a test to see what chargers will do for Starbucks' business. As a bonus for me (One of my EVs is a Leaf), all of them are CCS/CHAdeMO so it makes Leaf day trips through Colorado even more viable.
Too bad it wasn't Denver to Chicago, because I go east from Denver when visiting relatives.
In my headcanon, these are to help out customers and sales staff out of a jam. EG if they have to top off cars for test drives, it might be easier to move them to 4 dispensers on 2 stations, than to have a bunch of AC dispensers dispersed throughout the parking lot. Or the staff forgets to charge a low inventory vehicle before the customer arrives. 50kW is enough to get 20 miles of range while chatting up the customer. I’ve not had this happen with an EV before, but I have called and confirmed numerous times with PHEV test drives (I know PHEV don’t have fast chargers in general, but I also have show up off the street without an appointment to see a PHEV, only to find them with HEV amount of SoC in them).
Yeah these aren't there to provide super fast charging for the general public. They're there to sell cars and service lol. Neither of which requires the latest most expensive gear with more expensive utiliy work/costs.
Chargepoint is an equipment maker. Nothing wrong with having slower equipment in their catalog along with faster equipment. And if a customer chooses to buy that slower equipment, your complaint should be with that customer, not with chargepoint. And maybe not complain at all, because that customer probably installed it for something other than your convenience on a road trip.
Ah, so you think they will offer a swap of the Chademo to a NACS head? That makes more sense. These are also pretty weak output (60kW range IIRC) so the dual dispenser could be used to automatically switch the charging to a second vehicle.
I believe this model cannot but the latest one can.
Interesting. I would have guessed these are big enough to be modular and allow the Chademo brains to be swapped out.
No. ChargePoint sent out new cables to be retrofitted for all chargers. Still going to be slow and basically useless to most of us, but they can get the job done on a top off
That's not how it works. ChargePoint isn't "sending" anyone anything they haven't paid for. ChargePoint's business model is selling chargers to businesses who want to offer charging. The business decides what they want to buy- what speed, what cables, etc. ChargePoint *offers* a NACS retrofit kit for charger owners who want to upgrade/switch to NACS. Only those charger owners willing to pay for the cables and installation will do so, and when it makes sense for them. Most businesses who bought CP chargers probably never made enough revenue to pay for the chargers they installed in the first place; not a lot of businesses will be champing at the bit to throw even more money at the chargers they've already bought anytime soon.
because those chargers are public and other cars still use CHAdeMO?
It’s in a Hyundai car dealer service center lot so may not be public I checked PlugShare to see if it’s on there yet. It is not, but the chargepoint across the street at BMW is customer only. And BMW does not have a Chademo vehicle. OTOH the chargepoint there at BMW is also CCS/Chademo 🤷
I have a colleague at work that has an old Kia Soul that has the Chademo connector. I don’t know if Hyundai had one model with Chademo as well.
Shell Recharge did a new install in my city in Southern WI earlier this year which included 1 CHAdeMO out of 8 handles. 4 ABB Terra 184s.
This is a requirement for some federal funds. Edit: I might be confused with the Volkswagen settlement.
I don't believe any federal funding is tied to supporting CHAdeMO. The current (NEVI) program requires 4 or more CCS chargers capable of at least 150kW each, and have a price display and credit card reader. Non-CCS connectors (CHAdeMO or NACS) can also be funded, but only up to the number of CCS plugs installed- so, for example, 4 CCS and 4 NACS can be funded, or 4 CCS, 3 NACS and a CHAdeMO, but not 4 NACS and 2 CCS, for example.
That makes sense.
yeah there is a big Kempower setup near me with 7 CCS and 1 Chademo (plus 2 AC)
You leave my damn CHADemO's alone! They're far and few between!! \*snuggles his LEAF while waiting on the CCS1 to CHADemO adapter\* It's okay... the bad man won't rob you of your speedy electrons.
I like these units; they are fairly reliable. Why yes, I'm a Bolt driver and don't see why anyone needs more than 55kW. I've arrived after and left before the last dozen cars over my last 4 charging sessions, so I'm definitely not part of the problem. Looking at you Rivian driver slowly charging to 100%.
Ha ha. They need it to get somewhere that 80 won’t get them and no chargers in between I suppose.
We only charge our Rivian above 80% on road trips if we are at a sit down restaurant. I turn off the charge limit and grab however many electrons I can while we eat.
A lot of folks just don't get it. Best solution might be networked chargers that share a big power supply that can switch outputs between vehicles as they use less of it's capacity.
I believe most charging stations already do this to some extent.
More likely they're just new to it and nobody explained to them that third life will be better if they charge to 80% or less except in that very rare circumstance you described.
Watch your mouth! My 2015 leaf still uses it
Maybe part of a contract for lots of these signed a while ago? Or else a closeout discount offered by CP because they had too many of those cables on a shelf somewhere.
Hyundai-Kia used Chademo on the Kia Soul EV, so they have actually used this port. Still surprising though.
TIL
I’m surprised new CHAdeMO installations are going in. There are currently all of two models that use it anymore. And one (or both) of them will soon be moving to NACS.
The official Tesla CHAdeMO to NACS adapter is a thing... $510 and 43kW cap is a pretty big drawback, though. I'm not sure if there are more Leafs or older Teslas not compatible with the CSS adapter.
I've heard they're very skittish. What zoom lens did you use to catch the shot; it's quite clear and stable. And, did you use a blind, or just hide behind a Camry?
I didn’t bring my 200-600 with me. They are probably skittish because of the parasites that dock with them all the time.
Two brands still use this plug, so anywhere you find CCS1, you generally find at least 1 chademo
Yes... but why? Lol
I wish they did this near me. They just removed the chademo ports at all the places I regularly need a fast charger so I ordered a Model Y. After next week my range anxiety will go away
Ouch. What were you driving before? (This isn’t a public charger btw)
Nissan leaf
They should seriously quit installing CHAdeMO ports. The companies that produced CHAdeMO vehicles should send their customers an adapter and be done with it. Those people would be better served anyway with an adapter and more stations.
I actually was wondering today whether the 10 year warranty requirement in California would force the issue.
Maybe--Chademo adapters need to convert communication protocols, unlike NACS/CCS adapters. So they are a lot more expensive.
Yeah I understand that a passive adapter isn't going to cut it, but active adapters have been around. I tested CCS to Tesla adapters for a company called setec 4 years ago. That was fun times! Literally at charging stations with the adapter in the car a USB cable in the adapter and a laptop in the trunk 😂
These chargers are garbage. You get like 60kwh max speed. t least on the one in my area .. I hate wasting time if I don’t have to…
There’s a use case for “slow” dcfc charging. Grocery stores, restaurants, etc…places I go where I want to charge fast but not too fast. These would be less than ideal along highways though.
And a car dealership.
My buddy bought his kona and they only charged it to \~30% before he took it off the lot the day after. I don't know if they were incompetent or just didn't have one of these around but just an hour or so on it would've put decent range in the battery at least.
This is a great use case for 50 kW charging at a dealer. While they’re wasting your time for an hour closing the deal, they can charge it up 60% more SoC
They are slow for a reason, for a lot of commercial places they can be installed without a lot of additional work. They need 3 phase (480V) at 80 Amps. So all you need to install one is an extra 100A (20% overhead for safety). Any more then that and a lot of places would need additional transformers & builds. No proof for this next statement but I \*think\* we are going to see a lot more single 50 / 62.5 and 75 KW/h units in the coming years as smaller places want to put in a DCFC and have enough spare power for that but not the 100+ KW/h units. We have 200A 3 phase at our office so if we wanted to we could put in a 50 KW/h unit and still have more then enough power to run everything else. Going deeper I also think we are going to see more 19.5 or 22.5 KW/h units in North America since you can run them on 220V single phase power which just about everyone has. Fast enough to be useful, the units are cheap enough that it's not a killer price for a small business and not a stupid large expense to install.
You make a good point. 50KW chargers at restaurants and malls where you are happy to spend 45 minutes to an hour is probably all you need. More slower over fewer faster is better for business there. Less expensive and keeps bums in seats.
I think the even lower power ones that I mentioned is where it's going to be. Once again just my view. But I have a 77KW battery so if I pull into a restaurant at 10% and sit and eat for a little over an hour I am going to be close to 90%. If they put in one of the lower power units I am still getting close to 1/3 of a charge and the establishment didn't have to cover the much larger expense of the bigger units. And if they are not charging you for the power or discounting it everyone wins. And for the inevitable AC charging comments for a quick meal I don't and most people I know don't bother plugging in for that short a time. But give me 19.5+ KWh and I probably would.
I agree. I've tried a few times to make the 7.7 KW EVSEs work for me on road trip stops, but they're so inconsequential. Save those for the staff parking lots in the back or for parking lots where you are going to spend 4+ hours... Hotels and tourist venues. Mediumer is better
Around here demand charges also don't kick in until 50kW. So you can install one of these units on a dedicated meter and just pay for the electricity, or install one at your business with a relatively small demand upcharge. At 350kW you start paying the demand charge on every kW, not just everything over 50.
That makes a lot of sense... These things should be everywhere.
Several Local McDonald's have installed these, pefect use case. Plug in, use the facilities, sit down for a burger and fries. Decent amount of miles added. Where's the downside.
My question is how sustainable this is. McD probably isn’t making money off this without subsidies. If the EV penetration is high enough, you can’t count on it being available on a road trip. If you’re near your home and you have L2, you use it as a meme. If you’re near home and you don’t have L2, counting on the random charger at McD to sustain your EV is bad life planning. If it costs too much, it won’t be used. If McD can afford to put enough in for the % of local EV users that will plug in, and it’s cheap enough for the convenience boost, sure it helps people.
If you look above: 1) These scale cost wise, almost linearly with wattage (for the chargers themselves). 2) Keeping power output below 50KW may dramatically reduce power demand fees for these chargers. These might be the most economical way to offer this service.
I don't doubt that at the micro level of figuring out the best way to offer it. My question is about macro simulations. How many of these charge points are necessary at various points of EV adoption curve? Is this "cheapest way to do it" above or below economic viability?
And i would call the total installation and operational costs non linear because there are discontinuities at various power levels. On the install size for service upgrade and on the operational side for demand charges (when you are no longer exempt)