Why can’t FCPs do two cars at once?

Orebro

Is it a configuration decision to allow only either the CHAdeMO or CCS to be pulling juice at any one time, or is it not possible on the FCPs we have? Seems nuts to me that say someone in a Leaf is charging that an Ioniq can’t pull alongside and share the resource at the same time (albeit they would both charge at a reduced rate?).

And I have to admit, before purchasing my Leaf I assumed that two could charge at once.

ELM327

In short, there's only one AC-DC inverter in the charger unit so it can do AC and DC at the same time but not two DC
I was beside a leaf in Ashbourne in the Ioniq on my way back home, the leaf driver was trying to plug in the chademo and they seemed a bit confused that it couldn't charge both.

I don't think any of the fast chargers anywhere can charge two DC cars at the same time (except the Tesla superchargers but that's a different story as they actually have 10-12 inverters per charger and each charger covers two stalls - 1A and 1B share the same "charger" and split the load.)

The solution (for us non tesla owners) is more chargers per site.

Orebro

ELM327 wrote: »

In short, there's only one AC-DC inverter in the charger unit so it can do AC and DC at the same time but not two DC
I was beside a leaf in Ashbourne in the Ioniq on my way back home, the leaf driver was trying to plug in the chademo and they seemed a bit confused that it couldn't charge both.

I don't think any of the fast chargers anywhere can charge two DC cars at the same time (except the Tesla superchargers but that's a different story as they actually have 10-12 inverters per charger and each charger covers two stalls - 1A and 1B share the same "charger" and split the load.

The solution (for us non tesla owners) is more chargers per site.

Thanks for the explanation!

liamog

ELM327 wrote: »

I don't think any of the fast chargers anywhere can charge two DC cars at the same time (except the Tesla superchargers but that's a different story as they actually have 10-12 inverters per charger and each charger covers two stalls - 1A and 1B share the same "charger" and split the load.)

A lot of the modern ones do.

Chargepoint Express Plus is a multi dc charger that has DC blocks in 31.25kW, 2 per charger plus a Power Cube that can serve up to 8 stations using 16 modules. Load can be shared across the available stations in 31.25kW blocks, and the power modules can be added over time.

Evtec have the Espresso&Charge which can supply power to 4 cars, 2 DC, 1 FastAC and 1 Type 2 socket. These are the the ones we've seen in Norway charging the Ioniq at high speeds.

ABB have a high power charger that can also load split.

I've not found one from Efacec yet, but I'm sure they have or are developing one.

cros13

The inverter has to track it's output voltage to the needed voltage for that specific car's pack and charge state. The output voltage also changes at different points in the charging process.
So yeah... it's pretty much one inverter = one charging vehicle.
The inverter is also the most expensive part of the hardware of a rapid charger.

n97 mini

Small correction. A circuit which converts AC to DC is a rectifier. An inverter does DC to AC.

cros13

n97 mini wrote: »

Small correction. A circuit which converts AC to DC is a rectifier. An inverter does DC to AC.

Yup. The rapid charger manufacturers do tend to say inverter/inverter module so the inaccurate term is getting to be common parlance. To my shame I'm guilty of using inverter to refer to rectifiers on a regular basis on this forum.

unkel

n97 mini wrote: »

Small correction. A circuit which converts AC to DC is a rectifier. An inverter does DC to AC.

Every day is a school day for me

FriendsEV

ELM327 wrote: »

The solution (for us non tesla owners) is more chargers per site.

Our charge the **** of them

40c kWh

Problem solved

unkel

At least 40c/kWh. I would have no problem with that at all as long as I never have to wait and I get a 175kW charger.

Charge my Ioniq up from 10%-80% in just over 15 minutes (averaging 70kW) for just €7.80 at 40c/kWh the odd time I need to fast charge on a long run looks like heaven to me.

In fact I would so be happy if we had an excellent infrastructure of say 50 8-bay CCS chargers in Ireland that I would have no problem paying EUR2 per kWh - 15 times as much as retail - still only €40 for that very occasional charge. Anything below that would be a welcome but unnecessary bonus

FastNed in NL charge 59c/kWh afaik if you don't have a subscription

liamog

@40c/kWh you'd be better off driving an I30 Diesel than an Ioniq.

Online rapid charging should aim to match or better Diesel prices.

unkel

liamog wrote: »

@40c/kWh you'd be better off driving an I30 Diesel than an Ioniq.

Not at all Liam. Almost all of our EV driving is @7c/kWh. The once or twice a year I make a trip beyond the range of my car I'd be happy to pay @200c/kWh if that meant very fast charging and zero waiting time

Still overall 80-90% cheaper than diesel...

FriendsEV

unkel wrote: »

Not at all Liam. Almost all of our EV driving is @7c/kWh. The once or twice a year I make a trip beyond the range of my car I'd be happy to pay @200c/kWh if that meant very fast charging and zero waiting time

Still overall 80-90% cheaper than diesel...

Agree with that method

Like eating out

95% of your most people's cooking is at home, eating out you can pay alot more

With 400km Evs like the Kona becoming the standard a charge of 40c kWh minimum has to be introduced

I saw a bloody 330e at a charge point today

Thats just ridiculous

Charge the ****er

liamog

That's grand for those who will mostly charge at home, but at those prices the network will never get enough use to make sense.
That means less need to install multiple chargers. Which due to the way queuing works means you're more likely to wait.

FriendsEV

liamog wrote: »

That's grand for those who will mostly charge at home, but at those prices the network will never get enough use to make sense.
That means less need to install multiple chargers. Which due to the way queuing works means you're more likely to wait.

You have a point

It will be hard balance commercially alright when 400/500km Evs are common place

unkel

liamog wrote: »

That's grand for those who will mostly charge at home, but at those prices the network will never get enough use to make sense.

It's a margins game. At the moment the margin on fossil fuel in a petrol station is what, about 2%? And most customers spend nothing else apart from fuel as they are in and out in a few seconds

The margin on 60c electricity is 500%. Plus you have a captive audience spending money on coffee and snacks. Surely you have posted about this yourself several times before?

So in this scenario 100 fossil fuel buyers provide less profit margin than 1 EV fuel buyer

Maybe commerce is not your natural thing, but why else do you think Ionity and Fastned exist? And why BP is installing EV charge points at every petrol station it owns? And of course only 1% of cars are EV now. In 25 years time this will be more like 60-80%

unkel

FriendsEV wrote: »

I saw a bloody 330e at a charge point today

Thats just ridiculous

Charge the ****er

On my way home this evening, I went to pick up a take away at my local shopping center. Car was well below 30% and there was no one at the fast charger, so plugged in and charged to 94% (for free) while doing a quick shop and waiting for my take away.

I agree it really is ridiculous that it's still free. Charge all of us f****ers

liamog

You're making an argument against high priced electricity there.
It's better to sell the electricity at cost and obtain the coffee customer with it's massive markup, than it is to let them drive past and charge at home.

Ionity have indicated they want to price at around the modern diesel mark, that would put it at 35c/kWh.
CircleK bought Topaz for it's forecourts, not it's fuel business. They know where the real money is.

unkel

liamog wrote: »

It's better to sell the electricity at cost and obtain the coffee customer with it's massive markup, than it is to let them drive past and charge at home.

If they are able to make it home, why on earth would they stop to charge?

cros13

unkel wrote: »

why else do you think Ionity and Fastned exist?

FastNed exists because it's investors are willing to take a loss for as much as a decade in exchange for market share.
They've only recently had individual sites start to pay their way.
The network as a whole barely meet 10% of operating costs.... 2017 revenue €530,667... operating loss €4,058,837... net loss €5,015,804
Netherlands has ~150,000 EVs on the road.

FastNed got many of their sites cheap/free from the dutch highways agency and local municipalities. Cheap grid access due to colocation of HV grid with the major roadways and co-location with major on-line motorway services.

And Ionity is funded wholly by car manufacturers with not a single cent of inbound revenue yet (they are currently free to charge).

I have no example of a commercially self sustaining rapid charging network anywhere in the world. As far as I can tell... none exist.

Heck even in the UK OLEV has a current budget of £500 million (5 year period) which the UK government has committed to doubling.

On population alone... ignoring road network size... the irish government should have been committing €35m per year (rising to 70 million / year) to EVs since 2010 just to match the UK per head of population spend...
instead they've failed to spend €1 million / year allocated every budget since 2010 (generally SEAI has been handing most of that back..unspent).

Peatys

unkel wrote: »

At least 40c/kWh. I would have no problem with that at all as long as I never have to wait and I get a 175kW charger.

Charge my Ioniq up from 10%-80% in just over 15 minutes (averaging 70kW) for just €7.80 at 40c/kWh the odd time I need to fast charge on a long run looks like heaven to me.

In fact I would so be happy if we had an excellent infrastructure of say 50 8-bay CCS chargers in Ireland that I would have no problem paying EUR2 per kWh - 15 times as much as retail - still only €40 for that very occasional charge. Anything below that would be a welcome but unnecessary bonus

FastNed in NL charge 59c/kWh afaik if you don't have a subscription

Is the ideal not to have cars charging at home? Doesn't matter how fast you can charge a car, see the queues now just to fill with 5 mins of diesel. Small country we have, I'm holding off until I can drive from Dublin to Westport on one charge, as even with the low % of electric cars, the charging bays on that route tend to be full.

unkel

Peatys wrote: »

Is the ideal not to have cars charging at home?

Yes. Ideally at home at night at the cheap night rate which is also the most environmentally friendly way of charging with zero impact on the grid and no upgrades required even if we had several hundred thousand EVs

Peatys wrote: »

I'm holding off until I can drive from Dublin to Westport on one charge

You can hold off until next week then

Hyundai Kona 64kWh has a real life range of 470km. Dublin to Westport is about 250km

irishgrover

unkel wrote:

At least 40c/kWh. I would have no problem with that at all as long as I never have to wait and I get a 175kW charger.

Easy there with the punishment costs ..... That would cost me an additional €125++ per month!!

unkel

You need to do about one full public fast charge (20%-80%) every working day? On your commute? How come?

irishgrover

unkel wrote: »

You need to do about one full public fast charge (20%-80%) every working day? On your commute? How come?

I don't fast charge daily...
daily commute + local driving (all home charged) ~ 2300km per month
Longer trips (airport + family visits - all 400km+ rtn) ~ 1700km per month

Avg efficiency on long trips = 5.7km per kw

This equates to ~ 300 kw charging per month on fast chargers
300 X €0.4 = €120

unkel

I don't feel you have much to complain about if you had to pay €1,700 per year in electricity (€300 at home and €1400 for public or private fast charging at 40c/kWh) for the 50k km you do annually

irishgrover

unkel wrote: »

I don't feel you have much to complain about if you had to pay €1,700 per year in electricity (€300 at home and €1400 for public or private fast charging at 40c/kWh) for the 50k km you do annually

I spend on average 6+ hours per month at fast chargers with a durty big grin on my face...... and Kodi on my phone... :-)

unkel

I hope you have unlimited 4G and a 512GB micro SD card in your phone. That 6+ hours will turn into 24+ hours real soon queuing up after L40s :pac:

Matt Simis

FriendsEV wrote: »

unkel wrote: »

Not at all Liam. Almost all of our EV driving is @7c/kWh. The once or twice a year I make a trip beyond the range of my car I'd be happy to pay @200c/kWh if that meant very fast charging and zero waiting time

Still overall 80-90% cheaper than diesel...

I saw a bloody 330e at a charge point today

Thats just ridiculous

Charge the ****er

This crap again.. should the 330e driver have left the charger empty so you could look at the pristine tarmac underneath?

We need more chargers not elitism. It's a slippy slope on who "makes the grade" as battery density tech increases and doesnt have a parallel in ICE. Your attitude puts off prospective EV owners as it's pretty assholish.

ELM327

Matt Simis wrote: »

This crap again.. should the 330e driver have left the charger empty so you could look at the pristine tarmac underneath?

We need more chargers not elitism. It's a slippy slope on who "makes the grade" as battery density tech increases and doesnt have a parallel in ICE. Your attitude puts off prospective EV owners as it's pretty assholish.

If it was a fast charger capable of 43KW and the 330e is taking 3 or 6 of that, is that an efficient use of the resource?


We need more chargers, we need payment for charging and it will sort itself out anyway

liamog

ELM327 wrote: »

If it was a fast charger capable of 43KW and the 330e is taking 3 or 6 of that, is that an efficient use of the resource?

We need more chargers, we need payment for charging and it will sort itself out anyway

Can't agree more, the biggest constraint on chargers right now is availability. Its the main reason I keep suggesting a time based fee based on available charging power. A 330e may plug in to a 6kW charger if the fee is €1.50 an hour, they won't plug into a 43kW charger if it's going to cost €10.75.
Either way they need an hour to charge their battery.

cros13

ELM327 wrote: »

If it was a fast charger capable of 43KW and the 330e is taking 3 or 6 of that, is that an efficient use of the resource?y

More like 1/15th. The 330e is pulling 3.3kW out of 43kW.
It's not elitism. I've arrived on occasion to rapids to find 330e charging and been unable to access the DC side of the rapid charger because the 330e usually parks in the bay i3s need to use because of the physical layout.
In the case of Blanchardstown... there's a 22kW right beside the rapid... but many PHEV drivers are too cheap to buy the cable and use the rapid.

A 3.3/6.6 PHEV using the FastAC side of a rapid is abuse... plain and simple.

The charging for charging also gets rid of the impending L40 charging doomsday all the non-L40 drivers are advocating. I have used CHAdeMO once in the past month for 20 minutes to get us home from day trip to Wexford. The car has now close to 9000 km on the clock since the purchase in April and we *had* to use DC 6 times in just over 3 months. On top of that there are another 4 times for testing purposes and/or to freeload if the charger was free and nobody was using it. There are total of 13 rapid charges on the car including the one in the factory and couple at the dealer before collection.

FriendsEV

Matt Simis wrote: »

This crap again.. should the 330e driver have left the charger empty so you could look at the pristine tarmac underneath?

We need more chargers not elitism. It's a slippy slope on who "makes the grade" as battery density tech increases and doesnt have a parallel in ICE. Your attitude puts off prospective EV owners as it's pretty assholish.

Your wrong here Matt

330e has no place on a fast charger with its turbo charged 180bhp 2.0l petrol engine

Its not an EV

irishgrover

personally I don't believe that phevs should be allowed to use fast charge stations at all, full stop, end of story. I genuinely beleive that, if possible, there should be a software mod to all the triple head fast chargers to prevent PHEVS for connecting at all.
There is no use case that I can think of where a fast charger is critical to the function of a PHEV.
This is not the case for EV's
The only exception I can think of is potentially the i3 REX's
Given the increased criticality of the infrastructure to existing drivers, and given that it's well publishised limitations are acting as a barrier to future EV buyers then baring PHEVs is a natural thing to do to protect the limitations of the resouce.

ELM327

irishgrover wrote: »

personally I don't believe that phevs should be allowed to use fast charge stations at all, full stop, end of story. I genuinely beleive that, if possible, there should be a software mod to all the triple head fast chargers to prevent PHEVS for connecting at all.
There is no use case that I can think of where a fast charger is critical to the function of a PHEV.
This is not the case for EV's
The only exception I can think of is potentially the i3 REX's
Given the increased criticality of the infrastructure to existing drivers, and given that it's well publishised limitations are acting as a barrier to future EV buyers then baring PHEVs is a natural thing to do to protect the limitations of the resouce.

I agree, I suggested that before. I saw someone suggest it a couple of times in the facebook groups but it was shouted down by PHEV drivers.

Ecotricity in UK did that by introducing a fixed initiation charge that was way above the savings a typical PHEV would get and then rate per kWh on top of that. They reduced the fixed charge and then incresed the kWh portion recently.

As a L40 owner I continue to partially shoot myself on foot but I would even suggest just charging a fixed charge per minute based on the maximum charging rate at least for the DC chargers. For AC cost per kWh is probably the correct way to do maybe combined with normal parking rate to stop people hogging the bays unnecessarily. That way all EV users are treated equally.

Most of the hogging currently in Ireland are done by the fellow EV drivers living locally but charging as it makes financial sense to do so. Taking this away would stop the needless usage for people that have the range to continue their journeys to destination (private) charger.

Matt Simis

If the bays are empty then sticking a PHEV on it IS the most efficient use of the resource (for the 1.5hrs max it might be around, not abandoning). There is no way this isnt true. If one bay is in use, I contest a PHEV using slow charging on the other bay is also better use than what I've observed sometimes, two Leafs there with one unplugged, waiting.

In the brief time I had a PHEV the problems I mostly encountered were ICE hogging the spaces or simply parking too close to the bays and broken chargers and sometimes fully charged Leafs (etc) using the charging bay as free parking (and claiming it as a right). These are the problems, not having to share your FREE electricity with an increasing number of PHEV.

I don't think they should take a space over something that can charge faster (and is there) but I also disagree with the fallacy that an empty unused resource is a "better use" of said resource just in case a Leaf drives by in the next few min.. learn to get along people.

ELM327

Matt Simis wrote: »

If the bays are empty then sticking a PHEV on it IS the most efficient use of the resource (for the 1.5hrs max it might be around, not abandoning). There is no way this isnt true. If one bay is in use, I contest a PHEV using slow charging on the other bay is also better use than what I've observed sometimes, two Leafs there with one unplugged, waiting.

In the brief time I had a PHEV the problems I mostly encountered were ICE hogging the spaces or simply parking too close to the bays and broken chargers and sometimes fully charged Leafs (etc) using the charging bay as free parking (and claiming it as a right). These are the problems, not having to share your FREE electricity with an increasing number of PHEV.

I don't think they should take a space over something that can charge faster (and is there) but I also disagree with the fallacy that an empty unused resource is a "better use" of said resource just in case a Leaf drives by in the next few min.. learn to get along people.

Yes that's correct Matt but what I observed in the wild is PHEV abandoned at fast chargers. EG the Ampera in Galway, the ETron in Naas etc.
Even an 11kW charging Tesla that blocks the fast charger in sandyford P&R... That's worse as the charger can't do AC and DC at the same time.


If you're sitting at the car and it was free when you got there then more power to you (pardon the pun). I've done it myself to get from 94% to 100% in the Ioniq as it stops at 94. But I stay with the car and if a Zoe shows up I get out of the way.


I'd fully support a software ban on charging below 10kW on AC or DC, and to block non 3 phase use of the AC.

unkel

Matt Simis wrote: »

In the brief time I had a PHEV

You sold the i8? :eek:

Matt Simis

ELM327 wrote: »

We need more chargers, we need payment for charging and it will sort itself out anyway

Yes I agree, but until we start paying no one is more entitled to use a charger than anyone else that can plug into it. Our collective taxes are presumably paying for it, not the person in a Zoe or Leaf vs the 330e and Volvo T8 drivers (ironically despite those vehicles contributing more in tax to the kitty).
However I do think some public consideration to grow etiquette would be good (ie clarifying who can charge the fastest and which combos of cars can share a charger). I wouldnt use a charger above any type of full EV (but as I can charge at the same time this doesnt happen outside more limited chargers) and the average time I charge is like.. 45min (tops)when in shops.

unkel wrote: »

You sold the i8? :eek:

Yeah, I'm moving to Canada now.. I plan on another next year.

unkel

Matt Simis wrote: »

until we start paying no one is more entitled to use a charger than anyone else that can plug into it.

Indeed. The bickering over who is more entitled than others is plain ridiculous. There is no filling up etiquette at a petrol station. Bring in hefty charges for public EV charging and we won't need any charging etiquette there either