[KenB]

We all know how bad Ecotricity is but do most appreciate how bad.

Using Zap map a snapshot for CCS users , which are the majority or will be soon if not.
There are 141 charging locations but only 84 have any CCS charging at all.
As a sample going from Exeter up the M5 and 6 to Glasgow out of a potential 34chargers 12 were not working ie only 2/3rds are working. Extrapolate that to the whole network then there will only be 54 CCS chargers working out of a total locations of 141 ie 38% !!! Thats is a national scandal when we are talking about our motorways.

Imagine only 38% of any other national infrastructure being available.

 

[freddym]

We all know how bad Ecotricity is but do most appreciate how bad.

Using Zap map a snapshot for CCS users , which are the majority or will be soon if not.
There are 141 charging locations but only 84 have any CCS charging at all.
As a sample going from Exeter up the M5 and 6 to Glasgow out of a potential 34chargers 12 were not working ie only 2/3rds are working. Extrapolate that to the whole network then there will only be 54 CCS chargers working out of a total locations of 141 ie 38% !!! Thats is a national scandal when we are talking about our motorways.

Imagine only 38% of any other national infrastructure being available.

Nah, for Chademo it's OK.😁

 

[Rod85]

Nah, for Chademo it's OK.😁

Yeah, CCS may be "winning" the standard battle, but CHADEMO is perfectly adequate for now.

 

[KenB]

He who laughs last laughs the longest.

 

[Rod85]

He who laughs last laughs the longest.

Not laughing at all! I dont dismiss your concerns. Just saying that for me the situation is OK.

 

[GOSPORT DAVE]

I may be delusional, but CHAdeMO will become the world standard through it’s ability to support V2G, especially in Africa and South American where electric supplies are unreliable. In Europe CCS will be king, because V2G will be seen as secondary and even NISSAN are going CCS for their future European exports.

Fully expect CHAdeMO chargers to be be around for the next 10 years, although they will invariably be in the 50Kw guise. Think about it, when EV’s are queuing around the corner to get a CCS charge, I won’t be waiting in line, the CHAdeMO will be free for a quick turn around.

 

[Troy]

I wonder if ccs will be country’s that drive on right and chademo will be rest of world.
That way second hand cars across borders will continue as per present ice system.

 

[srichards]

Motorway charging with one working ecotricity Chademo vs motorway charging with a raft of CCS from several providers. Hmmmmm.

Not sure it's a clear cut win. There's also all of the rapid gating Leaf 40s to get stuck behind as well

If the CCS cars are generally newer and much longer range then will there be as much charger use as expected? Maybe there will be an angry queue of Honda Es clogging CCS everywhere?

I think Lexus joining the Chademo party could tip things a bit in favour of chademo sticking around a few more years.

 

[80698]

Electric Highway has it's flaws but it's really not as bad as people say.

Chademo and AC43 is still doing very well. CCS has has a number of updates to the point where their 2-head DBT Chargers with CCS are all working perfectly with all but Jaguars now. The triple head units are a little less reliable but they are now ramping up their program to replace them with the new Efacec 50kW units.

As you'll see in another recent thread, they have an agreement with Moto and have submitted a number of plans to install several CCS-Only Tritium HPCs too.

I cover a huge amount of miles every year. I used to in a 30kWh LEAF and loved the Electric Highway at that point. Having since switched to CCS equipped cars it isn't quite as easy as just arriving and plugging in, not having to plan, not having to worry about arriving with 1-2% left in the battery etc. But they have still been very reliable for me throughout the last few months and have even been responsive to maintenence and repairs, even cleaning their chargers since this pandemic started.

Lots of people crap on Ecotricity, but I know for a fact that they aren't at fault for a lot of complaints they get. One of my local service stations has explicitly told Ecotricity they won't be getting extra parking spaces or power supply a while back for example. And that's a problem when the existing unit doesn't have CCS and there are constantly queues of EV's wanting to charge there.

 

[andrew*debbie]

Using Zap map a snapshot for CCS users

Zap map is more broken than Electric Highway.

Status on ZapMap is crowd sourced. I've seen chargers marked faulty becuase they weren't free. -- The situation on the ground is not as bad as it looks on Zap-Map.

In my experience EH is fine for CHAdeMO and not good enough for CCS. The triple head DBT units work about 3 times out of 4 with our i3. That is simply unaccaptable.


I still use them but only as convience chargers or plan B. They are finally bringing some new hardware on line which will help.

 

[andrew*debbie]

I wonder if ccs will be country’s that drive on right and chademo will be rest of world.

They drive on the right in CHAdeMO's home country, Japan.

 

[halcyonrichard]

One of my local service stations has explicitly told Ecotricity they won't be getting extra parking spaces or power supply a while back for example. And that's a problem when the existing unit doesn't have CCS and there are constantly queues of EV's wanting to charge there.

That seems to not make sense. If there is demand and queues then surely the station would welcome more business and rental income for the spaces. Is this an MSA ? How long ago was it - EH were dire maybe less now. Does the service station have other plans with other companies. It's usually the DNO who sort out the supply (unless the station has some way to block this)

 

[andrew*debbie]

I think Lexus joining the Chademo party could tip things a bit in favour of chademo sticking around a few more years.

An odd decsion. It is almost like Toyota couldn't be bothered to change the car for the UK. I'd wouldn't be half surprise to find the Nav system can be switched between English and Japanese.

 

[80698]

That seems to not make sense. If there is demand and queues then surely the station would welcome more business and rental income for the spaces. Is this an MSA ? How long ago was it - EH were dire maybe less now. Does the service station have other plans with other companies. It's usually the DNO who sort out the supply (unless the station has some way to block this)

It's a Roadchef MSA yes. Roadchef as far as I can see are burying their heads in the sand regarding EV charging demand. The other brands like Moto have signed the new deal with Ecotricity. Welcome Break and Extra have their deals with Ionity and some Tesla (and still mostly host EH too). But no real sign of progress from them at all.

We're only talking maybe a year ago. Possibly a tiny bit longer? It was a decision that made no sense even back then. But they had power supply issues and wanted to keep it for themselves in case they extended. They have since at least doubled their car parking capacity so can't use that excuse anymore, but the power will probably continue to be a problem if they don't want to share, or spend money on upgrading the site.

 

[mad_rich]

They drive on the right in CHAdeMO's home country, Japan.

No they don’t!

 

[GOSPORT DAVE]

The Goverment's idea is to open up all the service stations with new EV charging infrastructure that will be in the same area that fuel pumps are. (might even get a cover to keep the rain off)

Will have to include some new CHAdeMO installations, surely.

Link below:
Fuel stations must provide EV charge points under new law

 

[grahamcheese]

If you look at their accounts at companies house, which are a bit out of date (April 2019), you can see they seem to be stuck, they made £13m cash but only spent £6m on new assets which is half what they spent the year before. They operate a 'not for dividend' model of profit reinvestment which is unfortunately moot as they never make a profit so no reinvestment either....

 

[GOSPORT DAVE]

Electric Highway has it's flaws but it's really not as bad as people say.

Chademo and AC43 is still doing very well. CCS has has a number of updates to the point where their 2-head DBT Chargers with CCS are all working perfectly with all but Jaguars now. The triple head units are a little less reliable but they are now ramping up their program to replace them with the new Efacec 50kW units.

As you'll see in another recent thread, they have an agreement with Moto and have submitted a number of plans to install several CCS-Only Tritium HPCs too.

I cover a huge amount of miles every year. I used to in a 30kWh LEAF and loved the Electric Highway at that point. Having since switched to CCS equipped cars it isn't quite as easy as just arriving and plugging in, not having to plan, not having to worry about arriving with 1-2% left in the battery etc. But they have still been very reliable for me throughout the last few months and have even been responsive to maintenence and repairs, even cleaning their chargers since this pandemic started.

Lots of people crap on Ecotricity, but I know for a fact that they aren't at fault for a lot of complaints they get. One of my local service stations has explicitly told Ecotricity they won't be getting extra parking spaces or power supply a while back for example. And that's a problem when the existing unit doesn't have CCS and there are constantly queues of EV's wanting to charge there.

From a CHAdeMO point of view, I have never been let down at a EH site, always been able to get a charge, sometimes a bit slow, but never been let down. Seems that for years EH have been fire fighting, trying to keep old chargers they acquired from NISSAN in service, with little renewal, these old chargers are withering on the vine.

Times have moved on, motorways need charging hubs every 15 / 20 miles that are 100% reliable, just not efficient to drive off the motorway to find a CCS charger, when you are trying to cover a distance.

 

[80698]

I have never been let down at a EH site, always been able to get a charge, sometimes a bit slow, but never been let down.

I have heard so many people say this before, yet over more than 1000 charges with Ecotricity I have never once had one of their chargers fail to supply 395V, 106A (Around 42kW) for the majority of every charge session with my old LEAF. I Know that the car could take a little more but Ecotricity had to limit the charge rate a little to stop their units from starting fires, but I have always found they run all the way to their limit in my experience.

Times have moved on, motorways need charging hubs every 15 / 20 miles that are 100% reliable, just not efficient to drive off the motorway to find a CCS charger, when you are trying to cover a distance.

That seems a little excessive. But if every MSA just had the same number of chargers as they have fuel pumps I would personally be more than happy with that for quite some time to come.

 

[andrew*debbie]

No they don’t!

Sorry, I missunderstood your post. I confused traffic with drive.

Japan is Left Hand Traffic(LHT) and cars in Japan are Right Hand Drive(RHD). The UK is the same.

So going back to your original post, but with the above terminology:

I wonder if ccs will be country’s that drive on right and chademo will be rest of world.
That way second hand cars across borders will continue as per present ice system.

This UK legislation covers standardization of EV charging --> https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/897/pdfs/uksi_20170897_en.pdf

For all public chargers installed or renewed after 17 November 2017

Type-2 AC is required for all posts between 3.7 and 22kW AC.
Type-2 CCS required at all new level 3 DC rapid chargers. The wording is "at least". Other connectors are allowed but CCS is required. We are starting to see some CCS only charge stations.


Here in the UK, the only current cars with CHAdeMO are Japanese: LEAF, Outlander and Lexus.

Tesla Model S and X come with a CCS adapter. Everything else I can think of sold in the UK either has CCS on the car or doesn't have DC rapid charging.