johnlocke said:
The CCS chargers are open but not the combined Chadeno/CCS station. Took a much closer look at the CCS stations. There are two cables on each station labeled 1 and 2. They are very short, maybe 8-10 ft. Rated at 150KW for each. You would need to pull in such that the charging port is next to the station. The 240VAC station is open as well. I can only guess that one cable is for cars with the charge port on the left while the other is for cars with charge port on the right. I doubt that either cable is long enough to reach across the car.
The combined station is next to the garden dept. The station is located half way down the parking space with a 4 ft wide no parking area between the station and the EV charging space and faces parallel to the parking space. both the CCS and Chademo cables are short also. If I pull in next to the station as indicated by the parking stripes, the Chadamo cable is too short to plug in to the charge port. In order to use the Chademo cable I'd have to pull in right next to the station and about half way into the parking space with my tail in the traffic lane. If they had put the station in front of the parking space it would have worked much better. It might work for a car with the charge port on the fender depending on which way they pull into the stall
I'll keep monitoring the station to see when the Chademo charger becomes operational. Looking at their pricing schedule, it looks to me that the EVGO station down the road is about the same cost except that EVGO gives me some charge time for my subscription fee where EA doesn't.
Ok sounds like you have a typical station. There was talk about queuing at EA and I could barely contain my composure. None of the dozen EA stations I have seen have
**any extra parking spaces
**cables long enough to reach adjacent spaces
**On nose in parking; Cables barely reach ports located on sides of cars.
**On drive in parking; Some have to back into the space, while others cannot align properly in order for cable to reach
**Many Bolters are having to hold the cable in place to insure sufficient contact to initiate charging session
Your pricing comment is a bit of a surprise so wondering about the details of EVgo pricing and EA pricing because EVgo is significantly more money here because
** Higher per minute fees 25 cents during daylight, 22 cents at night verses 18 cents for EA
** Whole minute billing rounded UP ALL the time which means at charge "timed" at 12:00 is billed for 13 minutes verses EA which prorates by the second.
** Added time to charge for handshake, disconnect, etc. Roughly 20-30 seconds added to billed time from machine time. FYI; machine time is nearly identical to LEAF Spy timing on the charge
But your situation also illustrates the issue for chademo based cars. I am happy to say I am seeing MUCH less CCS cars using the combo station. Thank you for that. But its still a one plug station and for the extra dime, I will gladly move on to the next station up the road (likely a EVgo multi combo station) where queues are shorter and availability of a plug is higher.
