There are loads. Instavolt, Osprey and MFG are reliable networks and still have Chademo on almost every rapid device. Shell and BP Pulse have most but not all devices with Chademo. Gridserve used to put Chademo on half the devices, but have recently reduced to typically 2 out of 6, or 3 out of 12. On the downside, Ionity and Tesla have no Chademo, Sainsburys have usually only 1 Chademo per site, Applegreen did Chademos at a few sites but not on their newer sites.

 

As noted provision of CHADeMO in the wild the last 2 to 3 years has actually increased rather than remained static or reduced.

In addition to the networks that @MarlowMallard has mentioned the following are continuing to install at their locations:

• Evyve
• Fastned
• Mer
• Swarco

 

It really baffles me as to why the CPOs are still installing ChaDeMo. There are no new compatible cars being sold, the cars that are on the road are older short-range cars less likely to be used for long distances. I literally can’t remember the last time I saw a ChaDeMo car at a rapid charger, definitely not in the last few years.

Obviously it is good for the teeny number of people who have those cars and travel long distances in them.

 

I literally can’t remember the last time I saw a ChaDeMo car at a rapid charger, definitely not in the last few years.

I charged at three rapids this week. Would have more over the last two weeks except that a car park near our destination had so-called 7 kW charging points (which delivered less than 3.5 kW but were enough for the purpose). We had some 75 miles each way trips to do in a 120 mile range CHAdeMO. That's not such a rare pattern, occasionally needing to go past home charge range.

Although the number of CHAdeMO cars isn't increasing, it's not going down fast: most Leafs are still running. They need charging more often as the battery ages.

 

As a LEAF owner, thought it might be interesting and useful to know about any new or recent CHAdeMO charger

Two just appeared in Bangor town centre long stay car park.

 

I had a look on ZapMap. On a new network, Sainsburys SmartCharge, the larger Kempower hubs appear almost exclusively CCS;
Leicester Fosse Park = 17 CCS, 1 Chad
Southport = 7 CCS, 1 Chad
Emersons Green = 9 CCS, 1 Chad
On the smaller sites, it seems they aren't even bothering; Desborough 3 CCS, 0 Chad, Fallowfield 6 CCS, 0 Chad.

I'd suggest we'll see less Chad installed going forward. It's a different product to source, and keep in a supply chain. Particularly an issue with the cable thefts across the country. I'd expect at some point as Chad cables are stolen, they'll just be blanked off or replaced with CCS. Why is a network going to pay for a (£1500?) cable when it's never going to recover its cost from charging.

How many Type A tethered Rapids are installed these days? I'm pretty sure even Gridserve gave up installing them, even though there was a lot of screaming from fervent Zoe drivers during the Ecotricity -> Gridserve changeover. I wonder if many of those drivers just quietly traded them in for a CCS car, given the gauntlet of long distance driving with a Type A. (edit: meant Type 1!)

 

BP Pulse @ CHAdeMO sites:

Instavolt @ CHAdeMO sites:

Shell Recharge @ CHAdeMO sites:

 

GridServe @ CHAdeMO sites:

Mer @ CHAdeMO sites:

MFG / EV Power @ CHAdeMO sites:

 

Osprey @ CHAdeMO sites:

Swarco @ CHAdeMO sites:

Sainsbury’s @ CHAdeMO sites:

 

Fastned @ CHAdeMO sites:

evyve @ CHAdeMO sites:

 

Forgive me my forbears!

ChargePlace Scotland @ CHAdeMO sites:

 

As a LEAF owner, thought it might be interesting and useful to know about any new or recent CHAdeMO charger installations around the UK. Probably not that many..?

Sorted. Let’s move on. 😂

 

Just to note that from a social perspective, it's cheap EVs like the LEAF that we will need for the transition from petrol to electric. LEAF is old tech now, but it's also relatively cheap on the used market, with over 1500 LEAFs for sale on Autotrader. Most of those cars are less than £14k, and the LEAF will continue to provide buyers with an increasingly affordable entry to EVs for the rest of the decade.

 

I'm leaning towards getting a Leaf62/59 next even though I agree the increasing proportion of CCS plugs makes Chademo feel more and more like a relic.

I/we have had a Leaf24 since 2015 and a Leaf40 since 2021. The 24 has graduated to short range 2nd car; we want a long range car and to get rid of the 24 and reduce reliance on the 40.

Despite everything, we might go for a Leaf62/59 when we upgrade because our home charger is V2G with Ovo (Chademo). It makes financial sense for both our cars to be Chademo to maximise V2G use and, frankly, shame on the CCS manufacturers who are literally more than ten years behind Chademo in rolling out this important technology.

Large scale V2G would be helpful for the grid and not bad for owners either. It is a huge missed opportunity that CCS did not get V2G-ready in 2013 when Chademo did (I appreciate there are a handful of technical reasons why CCS/V2G represents a significant electrical engineering challenge). And it is therefore sad that while V2G should be a mainstream technology, it has been stuck as a pilot of a couple of hundred Leafs since 2019.

 

I often wonder where all the leafs have gone. Using chademo regularly for over five years feels like a select club now as rarely see other cars using chademo and never have problems finding and using chargers.

Using an electric car is so easy and mainstream now very different to the early days. Need to find something more challenging to stimulate the grey cells. Any tips on availability of steam engines and fuel supplies would be appreciated or other methods of travel. Are sand yachts road legal?

 

I'm seeing a lot more LEAFs (ZE1) in the north of England and in Scotland now, so I reckon they have all moved up north!

 

Not sure about sand yachts but we occasionally see road legal steam powered vehicles here on Anglesey

 

We recently returned our 62kw leaf and bought an MG4. The Leaf was capable enough for our needs with 150 motorway miles but Chademo caused some stress. Often one charger on a site or shared with CCS so maybe blocked. I wonder if there's a term for CCS car blocking a chademo similar to ICEd 😀
As cars achieve longer ranges maybe only old leafs will need dc charging in future!

 

As cars achieve longer ranges maybe only old leafs will need dc charging in future!

There will always be a requirement to be able to get electrons into a BEV relatively quickly, hence DC charging - unless they invent an infinite range EV!

…no quips about “self charging hybrids” 😅

 

It is frustrating that no major chargepoint provider has given a 2024 figure for percentage Chademo use. Or have they?

 

The Leaf is fine as a cheap commuter car on known routes. Mine is 99.999% home charging which is fine.

Last night, I threw caution to the wind and took the Leaf on a longer drive knowing it would need rapid charged. Big mistake as always.

Finally found a working rapid after four tries. It might have limped to another site but if that didn't work I'd be stuffed. And that's the trouble, the rapid charging network is dire, never seen it so bad. Great if you have a long range EV to skip all the dros, but in a Leaf you can't. Never mind the vast swathes of the country with next to no rapids.

This is the state of large flagship site, no working CCS and one working Chad which saved me. The previous flagship site I tried only had two working rapids out the four. The other EVs had hassle just getting those working.

I know this connector does not work and CCS removed on the other HPC unit... Been like this for two years+ It's the same all over with the CPS network. Oh, and apparently in some locations they have relaxed the 3hr limit on destinations chargers and 1hr limit on 22kW posts and they wonder why nobody uses them...

 

Been like this for two years+ It's the same all over with the CPS network.

I think therein lies the rub. CPS.

Besides the original capital investment, it doesn’t appear they they have (or ever had) any commercially sensible maintenance and reinvestment strategy. Correct me if I’m wrong.

 

The reason CPOs are still installing CHAdeMO is pretty simple. In most cases the only cost is an extra connector and a little bit of control hardware. Chargers are configured to either power split when the second connector is in use, or only supply one connector at once. The bulk of the costs are already paid for like the grid connection, the power converters, the cabinet... So an extra connector is not a big deal when you can capture Leaf drivers (and a few others like that weird Lexus).

 

Unless the site is really highly utilised, they win on wider appeal.

my take is that there’s enough CHAd’s out there to justify 1 in 8 or 1 in 12 at an ultra-rapid hub.

one CHAd between two connectors (50/50) ala Osprey /Kempower is however a bit wasteful in my view. Sainsbury’s / Kempower splits are far more sensible. Don’t mess with supermarkets baby. They know! 😅

 

Agreed. The writing on the wall was there for CCS2 when VW, BMW, Mercedes etc announced their support for it. At that point it had lost the format war. It baffles me Nissan continued to produce cars with CHAdeMO for so long... but the worst offender is Lexus launching the UX 300e - a new car - featuring CHAdeMO. I don't know what they were thinking. At least Nissan's decision can be justified in that they did not want to redesign an existing car but the Lexus decision makes no sense at all to me.

 

Is Chademo more reliable than CCS?
Has anyone driven enough thousands of miles in both a CCS car and a Chademo car to objectively compare them? Have taxi drivers (some taxis have both sockets) got a view on this?
The reason I ask is that I have several times pulled up to a charger and either found a CCS car struggling to charge, but had no problem charging myself, or found that it delivers a charge on Chademo despite recent failed-to-charge reports by CCS drivers on Zap Map etc. However there may be a few issues here:

• subjectivity on my part having only ever owned Leafs (and briefly an iOn)
• there are way more CCS cars on the road therefore the majority of failed-to-charge reports on Zap Map etc will inevitably be by CCS drivers.

If anyone can objectively say they have used both CCS and Chademo enough to form a view then I'd be pleased to hear about the relative reliability of sockets.

I drive in rural Scotland enough that single Chargeplace Scotland units (with no backup in 20 mile radius) are still a consideration and the relative reliability of one socket over another is a real issue; in contrast to more populated areas (English motorways) where I appreciate that the sheer numerical supremacy of CCS chargers outweighs any marginal issue of which type of socket is more reliable.

 

With CHAdeMO there are a few aspects that I think contribute to reliability:

• Relatively few cars use it, so testing your charger with a Leaf, Outlander PHEV, and an old Kia Soul is probably sufficient to prove it works. This means less space for incompatibility.
• It uses CAN bus instead of the ridiculous HomePlug GreenPhy networking standard for comms that CCS uses (design by committee anyone?)
• The charger directly controls the contactors in the car. And besides the BMS communicating with the car indicating desired voltage/current, the charger controls most of the charging process.
• The lock is on the charging cable. I have issues with my ID.3 sometimes at certain chargers where I have to prop the cable up to lock it in place. Combined with the heavier weight of most CCS cables due to their higher power level, I think this puts extra strain on the connector.

Having said that, whilst I have had some issues with starting a charge due to the above issue, I have generally found CCS chargers to be very reliable.

 

I know this is a niche user case but if you are a resident of a Scottish island and/or the remotest parts of the mainland then the reliability of Chademo is a real benefit. I'm in Glasgow and I drive to visit family in various parts of England so could theoretically use CCS for most purposes but don't want our holidays in the far north and west to be ruined by failed rapid charging especially on the ageing Evolt and ABB rapids that Chargeplace Scotland typically use, which are likely to be the backbone of the rural Scottish network for at least 5 years to come.

 

Year on year the number of chademo connections are still increasing in England and Wales in ratio to number of cars using system.

It gets easier every year. Comparing with CCS where demand is increasing with new cars being purchased faster than supply of extra chargers, so I will stay with chademo out of convenience. I’m happy but wouldn’t think of criticising other people’s choice to use CCS as it makes more Chadeo available when I want to use them.

 

I ran some figures from How Many Left based on Q4 CHAdeMO vehicles on the road and not under SORN, as these will be the vehicles that have access to the charging network. It gets a bit complicated when you add Outlander PHEVs in to the mix as there's a lot of those but it's cheaper for them to use petrol than most rapids these days. Also there are 16,039 Tesla Model S & X that could use a CHAdeMO adapter but I suspect only a small portion have one, and even less use one, as most will be using CCS adapters these days.

2023 Q4
Nissan Leaf	56739​
Lexus UX300e	1646​
Nissan e-NV200	8960​
Toyota Prius Plug-In	3405​
Kia Soul EV 1st Gen	1860​
Citroen Berlingo Electric 1st Gen	142​
Citroen C-Zero	193​
Mitsubishi iMiev	196​
Peugeot Ion	351​
Peugeot Partner EV 1st Gen	425​
Total CHAdeMO BEV	73917​
Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	47468​
Total CHAdeMO BEV+PHEV	121385​
UK BEV	1083636​
UK PHEV	645580​
BEV / Chademo	6.8%​
BEV+PHEV / Chademo	7.0%​

I think I haven't missed any off the list, if I have then please list them. I expect the percentage of CHAdeMO cars to quickly decline now as there are just stock Leaf left to shift and Lexus UX300e sales are negligible and actually declined by 11 last quarter as SORNs were more than sales.