There has been heavy competition for a Level 3 charging standard. In the U.S. they are CHAdeMO and SAE J1772 Combo (we'll leave out Tesla's charger for now). Announcement from GM on being the first to roll out a 200 mile car with a quick charging option of SAE J1772 Combo is no doubt one of the reasons that more charging stations are adopting this port. A look at the current infrastructure in the tri-state area shows a glimpse of the Nrg EVgo network where the old infrastructure has been retrofitted to meet the needs of other charging ports.
Nrg EVgo Chademo DCFCfiltered Note: some stations that are non EVgo have not been properly filtered by plugshare |
Nrg EVgo CCS DCFC filtered Note: some stations the are non EVgo have not been properly filtered by plugshare |
New station |
Old CHAdeMO only |
By comparison, some Nissan dealers have also started installing CHAdeMO DCFC as pictured below:
Nissan of Garden City dealership |
Let's talk Tesla for a bit. Tesla came out with a CHAdeMO adapter not too long ago and what is to stop them from moving onto a CCS adapter in the near future as well? It looks like CCS is on the rise and with more cars adopting this adapter the right move would be go that route. Tesla's supercharger charges at about 100kWh and CCS and CHAdeMO 60kWh-50kWh respectively. For Tesla they have the better technology and their own network that they maintain. They are a different species that can potentially take advantage of an ever growing network by simply making adapters for them so who cares if they battle to be a standard when Tesla can simply come out with an adapter for the network.
The number of quick charging stations is only going up. It seems that Nrg EVgo is not gambling on one port and opting for dual ports for new installations. It will be interesting to see other makes such as Nissan make adapters to use the CCS ports and vice-versa. As the number of stations increase so too the battle for a standard will come to play. It seems that with providers opting for both leaves little room for discussion. I guess we'll have to wait and see when the Chevy Bolt comes out and other makes roll out similar 200 mile cars.