[jontracey]

Interesting article over at Transport Evolved http://transportevolved.com/2014/07/03/uk-leads-europe-chademo-dc-quick-chargers-thanks-uk-utility-company-ecotricity/

Shows a nice map of the number of CHAdeMO stations across Europe by country, total deployed is 1181 and seemly growing every day.

So that makes me think back to all the hullabaloo about CHAdeMO being phased out, and the EU mandating CCS, seems that neither has been successful. I cant seem to find figures on number of CCS chargers but I suspect is less than 10% of that number.

Also given it seems every new DC fast charger deployed in the UK is both CCS and CHAdeMO I dont see the balance changing anytime soon.

 

[Edd Beesley]

Yeah it's very interesting. On the one hand I know Chademo is old technology so it seems a bit silly to spend money installing more of it only to replace it in a few years, but on the other, the most popular standard now is Chademo and it will be for at least five years, and the cars that use it will be around for at least another fifteen. At least the units with Chademo an CCS on them cover the transition nicely.

 

[Paul]

Despite what many Brits will tell you, the UK is leading the rest of Europe in the drive towards CHAdeMO DC Quick Charging provision.

Pardon, what? What Brits are saying otherwise, and in what context?

Surprised that Ecotricity provide less than half of the network, thought they'd account for more than that.

 

[jontracey]

There have been people on here (not naming names) saying exactly this, that CHAdeMO will be banned because the EU want CCS, and it will be illegal to install it etc etc

Turns out for now its total rubbish

 

[Paul]

I certainly saw people saying that it will (or may be) be phased out as a result if CCS becoming a standard, but that's totally different to saying that we don't have more than other countries in Europe, the two don't even relate.

 

[jontracey]

we have more because we have companies like Ecotricity willing to invest and deploy them ahead of the need

 

[Paul]

Not really ahead of the need, certainly ahead of the pack and to all our benefit.

But all of that doesn't mean "many Brits" have been saying we don't have more of a certain charger type than other European countries, which is what the subhead says.

 

[Edd Beesley]

Not sure if Ireland counts as European in this context or not, but if so they are well on top of it, their single operator nationwide rapid network has been in and working for years!

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

Nikki works for a US web site so she often looks at the EV market from a USA perspective.

 

[Paul]

For me It's not the Brits thing, it's the fact that many Brits are, according to the article, saying that Britian isn't ahead of the test of Europe in terms of CHAdeMO deployment. Are many Brits really saying this, and when and why?

 

[MK Tom]

How hard is it to convert CHAdeMO to CCS? Isn't CCS just a mixture of type 2 and dc charging anyway?
I'm sure you could change the leaf port to CCS easily and only need to reprogram software to handle the change in comms?

 

[dpeilow]

I've been trying to whack this "CHAdeMO will be banned" story on the head since it first appeared. Unfortunately one of the EV blogging sites published it and it gets quoted as gospel.

Just because something is made a standard, doesn't mean it becomes mandated. There are many examples of this all over technical industries.

 

[dpeilow]

How hard is it to convert CHAdeMO to CCS? Isn't CCS just a mixture of type 2 and dc charging anyway?
I'm sure you could change the leaf port to CCS easily and only need to reprogram software to handle the change in comms?

As I said in another thread, CHAdeMO uses CAN bus communication whereas CCS uses powerline comms to communicate with the offboard charger to set charge rates and command start/stop, so they are electrically very different.

 

[dpeilow]

For me It's not the Brits thing, it's the fact that many Brits are, according to the article, saying that Britian isn't ahead of the test of Europe in terms of CHAdeMO deployment. Are many Brits really saying this, and when and why?

I think there are many glass-half-empty Brits who like to think we are behind the rest of Europe, but in terms of pure numbers that isn't the case. Maybe Scandinavia could claim they are ahead, but as Nikki et al discovered recently, that isn't the case with our nearby neighbours. However, sometimes being early to deploy these things can be a curse: I sometimes wonder if France slowed down the deployment of French chargers while the UK worked out the bugs.