Adventures with CHAdeMO - Is it Good or Should the CHArging adapter be deMOted?

It’s a safe bet that your typical Tesla owner would never part with Supercharging.

Never mind it being abundant and convenient; it’s downright ingenious.

Just consider each pedestal’s elegant no-user-interface user interface: no complicated screens, no mandatory buttons, and all the payment transactions happen behind the scenes. With all of that minimalist amenity in mind, read on.

First, though, let’s give a round of applause to TOCNYS President Patrick Ho for offering to lend out the CHAdeMO adapter in question, bookable here.

TL;DR, the adapter (valued at $450—if you can find one in stock!) is a leftover from his otherwise $15.94 trip to and from Winnipeg this summer.

Also, if you need a primer on CHAdeMO or charging in general, please read the handy article that TOCNYS Manager Joe Moore references here.

Back to the topic of ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ on this downright oddity of an adapter.

You’ve seen a geoduck, right? The not-so-pretty burrowing mollusc (Panopea abrupta) that can live to be over 150 years old? Well, 150 years happens to be the break-even point for this pricey adapter. . . .

Sorry, I take that back! The adapter just looks like a geoduck.

Which is to say it’s a beast of an electrical product—hefty, floppy, and generally unwieldy—especially versus the compact J1772 adapter or even the Euro CCS adapter for Model S and Model X.

It gets worse.

The weight of the adapter is small potatoes compared to the CHAdeMO “nozzle” (connector) and cable. It defies logic that a 62.5kW-rated setup in the USA (50kW max in use with the adapter) has to be several times heavier than the 150kW or 250kW Supercharger cable + connector combo. Conceivably too chunky for a compact adult or kid to clean and jerk up to the charge port.

Okay, we know it’s pricey and clunky, but is the sum of its parts worth it?

In Patrick’s case it actually was.

Given the state of DC fast charging in 2019, with the Supercharger network still evolving and Electrify Canada not even off the ground at the time, the Winnipeg trip counted on CHAdeMO and Level-2 access. At the destination, though, one of the planned CHAdeMO stops was foiled by an out-of-order charging station.

All the more reason to plan for the worst, and build in redundancy if that’s ever possible. Fortunately a fee-based “Flo” CHAdeMO station saved the day.

Or saved a day, as it were.

In my case, it is not about a road trip, but instead a typical week in the life of a Model 3 LR RWD owner without home or work charging.

That’s right, I still make a go of it without the luxury of topping off as you would with a cell phone every night. All thanks to a public charging routine that is plenty tenable.

Until borrowing the adapter, that meant mainly Level-2 charging a few times a week, at destinations where I already spend time or else can hoof it to a meeting, café, etc. Supercharging picks up the slack only about one in eight to ten charges—after longer trips, mostly, or else if I get down to needing more than two or three hours of Level-2 charging. I like to say that range anxiety kicks in when I’m down to 200 miles of range . . . which just means I have no range anxiety.

That said, my experience with the adapter seems to echo Patrick’s.

Echo Patrick’s? Yes, I still rely on Level-2 and Supercharging for the bulk of my needs, and when I tried CHAdeMO, half the time there was a major issue.

My first attempt at this new-to-me Fast DC charging was on the way back home to the Buffalo area from picking up (and I use the term lightly) the CHAdeMO adapter in Rochester. I called up CHAdeMO.com on the in-car browser to find that the sole installation there happens to be across from the airport, at RG&E, and still suspiciously states “Coming Soon.”

Already, that was false. There is a Chargepoint Express pedestal there, as well as another multistandard unit right beside it. Maybe it pays to read the fine print, though, because the CHAdeMO website does convey that only one station is for public use. Though if you just show up there, that isn’t apparent. Devoid of any labeling, it is a crapshoot and entirely up to the end user to find out which of the two wide-open stations is supposed to be free and open to the public.

Still, not too tough—it's a 50/50 chance, right?!

Surprise, surprise: both towering pedestals were on the fritz. I tried in vain to activate the touted free charging, just to say I did it, but no dice. At times like this you wish that Chargepoint support could diagnose and resolve the problem remotely, in a snap. Nope. I can’t recall that being the case, ever, and this call to their toll-free number was no exception.

A cryptic error message stayed on one pedestal’s screen, and an equally user-unfriendly notice scrolled across the other pedestal’s screen (something about “hours of operation,” even though the website states 24). I left disappointed and wondering how tough it is for the electric company to provide a minimal quality of service from that level of infrastructure.

It certainly looked impressive! That was about all it had going for it.

Strike two happened at the relatively new Electrify America setup in Cheektowaga, just east of Buffalo, in the lot of a fresh and clean Wal-Mart. (Take that with a Supercenter-sized grain of salt!) The welcoming committee of gulls going after bags of fast food littered in front of the station was an omen for the quality of experience at that upcoming charging session, including another desperation call to an 800 number.

Picture a different brand of pedestal (Efacec) but with even more heft built into the handle and cable, to the point it feels like 20+ lbs. Throw in a large LCD that is not a touchscreen, but instead studded with vintage ATM-style stainless steel buttons below the screen’s bottom border.

But wait, there’s more! A puny, pack-of-cards-sized card reader with its own microscopic typefaces on a color LCD. That one was apparently touch sensitive. In sum, the most cockamamie user interface I had ever seen on an EVSE. Station switchover to the Superchargeresque “Plug & Charge” standard (ISO 15118) can’t happen fast enough.

CCS/CHAdeMO multistandard charging station, Cheektowaga • Photo by JPW 9/20/2019

I still had hope, since these same stations were recently overhauled both with hardware and software in a marathon multi-day effort by an entire team of out-of-state technicians. Word has it that their jobs were on the line to get these fussy EA stations active in time to support the debut of the Porsche Taycan this past September 4. A batch of those cars up from their Georgia HQ allegedly used EA chargers to get a DC fix before heading to the official reveal ceremony taking place in Niagara Falls, Ontario, in sync with global events in Germany and China.

Fat chance! Maybe the CCS worked; who knows. No other EVs were there.

Not even Porsches.

I just know the first-time CHAdeMO attempt I was busy making kept running into an obscure loop of failed authorizations and never ended up initiating a charge session. Their phone support staff was more on the ball, luckily, and went through the process of rebooting the station remotely (twice!) before throwing in the towel and waiving the session fee so I could get past the card reader snafu.

By then I had racked up 20+ minutes of cable wrangling that 20+ pounder plus the Tesla adapter in a strange sort of Simon Says/Hokey Pokey until the power clicked on, then finally I juiced up the car in the heat of the late summer sun. Imagine if all those minutes were in the middle of a winter storm. Or if security were a factor there, maybe later in the evening, whipping out your credit card over and over in the middle of a parking lot.

The decision behind Tesla engineers to streamline the Supercharger experience to the hilt—even if the EA stations can use an app to pay, once you’ve deciphered the screens and buttons—speaks volumes.

On the other hand, now imagine finding yet a third style of CHAdeMO station that is free and works.

Be careful not to interpret this as too glowing of a commendation for NY State, after they began installing Fast DC charging along the Thruway via stations that at first did not support the most popular selling EV on the road (Model 3, and eventually Model Y). Superchargers or even destination charging are yet to be seen on the Thruway proper, and sadly may never appear.

Their CCS/CHAdeMO stations now do allow Model 3 charging since Tesla released an update over the summer to support CHAdeMO using the adapter.

Yes, fortunately it does work, and is free for now, at least. A card reader is built into the pedestal.

The unit I have used a pair of times is located in the new Welcome Center on Grand Island. The building itself is a monumental piece of construction, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s works. Even its restrooms look like a million bucks. Among the bank of three BTC brand CCS/CHAdeMO stations, you have a comparatively spartan LCD (with discrete buttons, despite being a touchscreen—go figure) and connectors that weigh about as much as the Chargepoint ones.

CCS/CHAdeMO multistandard charging station, Grand Island • Photo by JPW 9/27/2019

The value proposition for me, as someone who cannot charge at home/work, is probably location, location, location. The Welcome Center is on a direct vector to and from The Falls and Canada, and happens to be that much closer to many of the northern destinations I tend to visit. Contrast that with the present Supercharger at the eastern edge of Buffalo/Niagara’s metro area. Thanks to relatively quick travel times at off-peak hours, and the fact that the Welcome Center is a well-lit, 24/7 facility with Wi-Fi and vending machines (when they work, that is—probably made by the same companies as the RG&E and EA stations), not even the dollar bridge toll spoils this apex charging scenario. It’s even less when using the E-ZPass Green Pass for which all Teslas qualify.

By now you probably noticed I didn’t mention charge rates and maximum power at these stations. My rationale is the common “Your Mileage May Vary,” along with the usual state of charge of my battery being over 50%. There is no easy way for me to measure peak CHAdeMO performance without a more depleted battery, only I did notice it once at 47.2kW before taper.

CCS/CHAdeMO multistandard charging station, Grand Island • Photo by JPW 9/19/2019

Respectable enough. Granted, nothing can top the standard 150kW Superchargers, let alone the new 250kW ones. But when your SoC is in the ballpark of attaining a 90% target in the time it takes to visit a million-dollar restroom and also check your e-mail, that is a win in my book.

Bottom line, ‘yes’ or ’no’? If you’ve got it (a CHAdeMO adapter), flaunt it!

Sure, it will peeve you about half of the time, and remind you it’s a workout for your bicep all the time, but enjoy this weird, on-the-verge-of-codependent privilege while the CHAdeMO standard still exists. Rumor has it that CCS will force CHAdeMO into being the first Fast DC player to fall, though it still makes a nice pinch hitter when Level-2 options and Superchargers are both no-shows where you happen to be.

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