Anyone try a CCS to Chademo adapter

[jcaz2019SoulEV]

Every now and again I search for 'ccs to chademo adapter' and finally seeing some discussion on integrated adaptors, mostly Europe, that are becoming commercially available. Wondering if anyone has tried one out on a Soul?

 

[JejuSoul]

TeslaBjorn has a review of one of them here :-



What he doesn't point out is that there is no theft protection for this. ( Not on early Soul EVs for sure - is there a charger lock for the Chademo plug , that locks the cable when the car is locked, on later cars. ) If it was my car anyone passing by could just disconnect the adapter and walk away with it.
Not good when the price of the adapter is almost the value of the car.

 

[Locuturus]

TeslaBjorn has a review of one of them here :-



What he doesn't point out is that there is no theft protection for this. ( Not on early Soul EVs for sure - is there a charger lock for the Chademo plug , that locks the cable when the car is locked, on later cars. ) If it was my car anyone passing by could just disconnect the adapter and walk away with it.
Not good when the price of the adapter is almost the value of the car.

Also his is a ccs2 to chademo (I think Europe is CCS2, someone correct me if I’m wrong); and for some reason CCS2 to Chademo seems to work better with more stations than CCS1. Though eventually I assume will need a NACS to Chademo adapter (ant least in North America) assuming the Soul will last that long.

I got a CCS1 to Chademo recently (arrived while I was on vacation), so will test it out in a few days when I’m home and see what works and what doesn’t. Given the relatively fast charge time to 80%(or 94%), have slightly less problems with waiting in the car while it’s charging. Though it’s true that there’s no locking mechanism, even if it’s a key shaped thing. I’m wondering if I can take the thing apart and 3D print a better enclosure with a key lock in it…(musings)

 

[jcaz2019SoulEV]

nomadic hippie purchased one for his Leaf (US CCS1 -> Chademo). He spends several videos trying it out, reloading firmware but finally gets it to work

Ccs to chademo adapter North America Nissan leaf unboxing video . Ev charging
It WORKS.. CCs to chademo adapter North America Nissan leaf 2021

Now, Dala reviews a video of one being pulled open and notes only 1 contractor has a disconnect which is concerning.
They did not even test it on vehicles

He posts the links to both CCS1 and CCS2 adapters in the description of that youtube.

 

[Locuturus]

They basically used simulators as the starting point and worked from there. I opened mine yesterday but haven’t gotten to the point where I needed to fast charge yet so will get there and try and see what happens. The factory said to contact them if it doesn’t work and need updated firmware…

 

[Locuturus]

update:

Tested a Shell Recharge 60kw unit today. It connected without issues (i was in the 75% SOC so it wasn’t going fast, I was mostly expecting it to not work at all).

I’ll be testing more ccs chargers and see if I can hit max speed of 60kw/65? - one BCHydro unit I had showed 64kw once…

The unit in question is here:

646 E 44th Ave Parking Lot
https://www.plugshare.com/location/161024

A short video showing the charging actually happening.

 

[Locuturus]

More tests so far. Only one that has failed consistently were BC Hydro AddEnergie stations (though Flo ones were unaffected, worked normally), and Electrify Canada/America stations.

Flo charger test - location info in video description.


SWTCH charger test - hit up to 66kw charging max for about a few mins (though if I had started from low %SOC could probably have maintained it there longer)

 

[Locuturus]

duplicate post. Removed text

 

[jcaz2019SoulEV]

Oh boy I cringed when I saw the water drops on the ground. That always makes me nervous. I'll have to rewatch that teardown video to see how sealed it is.

 

[Locuturus]

Oh boy I cringed when I saw the water drops on the ground. That always makes me nervous. I'll have to rewatch that teardown video to see how sealed it is.

LOL I worried about it too, if you’re really worried about it I suppose you could always put a couple of padded magnets on the hood and cover it with a small tarp or black garbage bag? It was chucking it on the 2nd test…bad day to do a range/charging test. GOM was pretty accurate though, I bailed out one DCFC early cos I would have been limping into town and that wouldn't have been pretty.

I was going to do a 3rd test but I was at 1% (crawled to the Petro-Canada EV station) and didn’t want to risk moving the car any more than necessary, that SOC curve really isn’t linear. Charged from 1 to 65% (Chademo, 62kw all the way, 22 mins) and then charger stopped (not sure whether that was due to temp of the battery hitting 50C or what, but needed to go home, so unplugged and drove home (had enough range by then). I'll try another drive to under 20% and see if I can hit up a Chargepoint station to test.

Canadian DCFCs:

• Chargepoint
• Petro-Canada
• Shell Sky EV Technology - I assume they're the same as Shell Recharge?
• SWTCH - I'll try one more since I know they sometimes use different DCFC types. e.g in Squamish they're using Tritium ones and the quality was always pretty bad on those stations. But the one I used was new (if someone knows the type of charger that is, couldn't find the sticker)...
• Chevron ON the RUN - tried to do one yesterday but their station was down and the lady working there didn't know how to reboot it (even though I've been to other ones and they know how to reboot the units); told me I needed to pay to use it (I know, I just needed her to reboot the units because they were frozen)

US DCFCs:

• blink
• evconnect
• EVCS
• EVGo
• Volta

I won't try Electrify Canada/America again until I can figure out how to bypass the "you need to plug it in before you start" thing, it doesn't seem to work well with the adapter.

BC Hydro AddEnergie stations (set up by the power utility here in BC) are probably having some kind of handshake issue - the guy from the factory said to get a log from the adapter while it's plugged in, and send to them, and their engineers will figure out a firmware update

According to the guy from the factory, the communication standard is generally the same across all DCFCs, and the same with the handshake, it's some kind of initial connection that a particular organization's DCFCs has, that the adapter doesn't yet have due to them using simulators.

As far as I'm concerned, i'm using this so I'm not stuck at a charging site where there's 1 chademo and 8 CCS stations, and I can't charge because there's another Soul or Leaf that just arrived.

 

[DOLSENATOR]

There is a new DCFC at the Richmond hospital, it is a Flo, but I've used my BC-Hydro card. It appears to be the same manufacturer as the BC-Hydro ones. It is also cheap atm. 15cents/min. There is also some new DCFC at Lansdown mall. I've not used them, rate appears to be 45cents/kwh. I've seen that the Chevron/On-the-Run stations are now at 65cents/kwh. Rather outrageous now. I likely won't use them anymore. I think they are trying to make up for the months of free charging. Plus they were usually slow unless no one had drained their batteries already. The chevron at 3rd. and Blundell in Richmond now has 4 ccs1's with no Chademo running.

Here's hoping your testing goes well. It will be nice to have more charging options. We've been down to waiting several times with not enough charge to go anywhere else.

 

[Locuturus]

There is a new DCFC at the Richmond hospital, it is a Flo, but I've used my BC-Hydro card. It appears to be the same manufacturer as the BC-Hydro ones. It is also cheap atm. 15cents/min. There is also some new DCFC at Lansdown mall. I've not used them, rate appears to be 45cents/kwh. I've seen that the Chevron/On-the-Run stations are now at 65cents/kwh. Rather outrageous now. I likely won't use them anymore. I think they are trying to make up for the months of free charging. Plus they were usually slow unless no one had drained their batteries already. The chevron at 3rd. and Blundell in Richmond now has 4 ccs1's with no Chademo running.

Here's hoping your testing goes well. It will be nice to have more charging options. We've been down to waiting several times with not enough charge to go anywhere else.

I'll try the DCFC at Landsdowne mall today - Noodoe is a Chinese company with offices in California LOL so I imagine the adapter should work? There's a chargepoint at the Olympic Oval as well so I might see if I can hit both today, and a Chevron on the way home - the only problem with the Chevron stations is that they're positioned assuming the charge port is on the back, or on the front side. I almost have to park in front of it for it to work.

I kinda expected Chevron to start charging soon (too many Teslas/Polestars leaving themselves there for free charging and walking away...)

BC Hydro changed to kWh charging as of May 1, so far prices I've seen have been 34c/kWh (35.7c incl 5% GST)- so at our cars max (assuming you could go from 0%-100% and you had a brand new confirmed 27kWh battery, 9.64 CAD... not bad? The Petro-Canada charging from 1%-64% was time based, but cost about 10.55 CAD total, so $1.96/kWh? Technically even higher than Chevron, and both are in it for the revenue...BC Hydro isn't as much. Tbh the prices are basically to deter folks from hanging there too long when they don't need to IMO, and only charge to hit what they need.

Problem is with EVs you kind of need to be nerding a bit in order to maximize charging speeds and your available time. should be DC charging to 75%ish and unplug, do the rest at home, unless you really need the extra distance to go to the next one. Problem is you won't know until you have an OBD scanner, or know what to look for...

 

[DOLSENATOR]

The Chargepoint at the oval is good, just the touchscreen is bad, need to use the app to stop the charge. Yeah, my 2017 Soul usually charges to 80% in about 20 min. for about $4.50 to $5 (time based) I usually watch the charge rate and cut it at about 20KW rate. Last year it used to max out about 48-49KW, but now is about 63-64KW. I think they must have pushed updates to the chargers as my car hadn't had anything done. I haven't charged at any kwh chargers yet. have only been charging at home. I plan to get the new universal Tesla charger with integral adapter. Considering switching to time of use billing. We have more than a car using lots of electricity, some can be put on a timer to take advantage.

 

[Locuturus]

though one thing is you probably want to plug in after long drives (since that runs the battery fan in the trunk, and it won't run if the car is off and isn't plugged in and charging)

Regular day-to-day charging based on time of use is probably fine though.

If you're charging at a 50kW station then 48-49 is good. Sometimes some stations have a 100kW Chademo so you'll get the higher rates. I think by 2017 they had the slightly bigger cells? (I'm assuming yours is a 30kWh model? or was that 2018?)

 

[DOLSENATOR]

I was charging at the same stations as before. The oval and other city of Richmond Chargepoints I thought were listed as 50KW. I got the same 48-49 at the BC hydro ones at the superstore.. Now they all give me 63-64 peak. That's why I thought they all got some updates that allow more. Hmmm, thinking about it... Maybe last summer I once was going harder on a hwy run, was quite hot, and on a 100kw BC-hydro (in Chilliwack) it charged real fast for quite a while before slowing the rate, A/C running hard to keep things cool . Was under 15 min. for 10-85%, maybe that cycled the cells hard enough to free things up chemically. So now the cells are in better shape. Seems to me there was something about that from one of Jeff Dahn's talks I listened to.

Yes, I think it was 2018 that got the bigger 30KWh battery.

 

[Locuturus]

Brought in my 2016 to have the OBC replaced, so we'll see how that performs with the adapter too...

I wonder if there's a better way to get the heat pump in the car to exchange the heat in the car and help cool the battery?

 

[jcaz2019SoulEV]

I've set the money aside, but we haven't hit the 'really need it' yet. Wife has managed to trip to Tucson hitting Chademos, but it would sure be handy for the extra CCS stations. But thus far 99% we're charging at home overnight.

 

[Locuturus]

it works pretty well, doesn't do as well for Electrify America/Canada stations (since they try to communicate with the car and want you to plug in first); I think probably a software update should do - Bjorn Nyland's videos mentioned that the EVniculus one (which is very very similar looking, and is probably made in China anyway) now has the ability to use European Tesla superchargers (where it's all CCS2 anyway, no NACS obviously), so I'll check with the guy to see if there's a software update.

Yeah the adapter is mostly for longer road trips and such anyway... if I sell the car I'll probably sell the adapter separately.

 

[jcaz2019SoulEV]

Our initial stations are Electrify America, at several Walmarts & Fry's Food, but EVGo has been building like crazy both here and in Tucson. New stations are only CCS, like a new one 2 miles from the house. But if we could make it there, we could 32a Lvl2 charge at the house.

ADOT does have plans for stations along barren interstates, but only CCS so it would help if we wanted a day trip somewhere.

 

[Locuturus]

In the US it seems most of the issue is having stations, having enough of them, and having them where they're needed on routes. To be honest, would be easier if they wired up a bunch of metered plugs and we brought our own charge cables. That way don't need to worry about the cables getting cut (cos unless the thief is insane and wants to have 125-200+A surging through them) cos the only time it's out would be when it's active.

I'm hoping someone makes a NACS to chademo adapter that will do superchargers - that'll be the ideal.

wifey is considering a car since we're probably moving to Saskatchewan sometime next year, and the Soul definitely can't make it out of town... (it can putter around town no problem though).

trying to convince her that we should get the new Niro or the Equinox EV or something, if only for the ultium battery architecture. Or the mini countryman EV (I saw one in the wild and it's equivalent to a Niro in range and size but obviously it's a Mini)