Tesla connectors coming to over 600 EVgo electric vehicle charging station

[MEDICALJMP]

Tesla connectors coming to over 600 EVgo electric vehicle charging stations
Fred Lambert
- Feb. 11th 2021 11:56 am ET

@FredericLambert


EVgo announced today that it is expanding its integration of Tesla connectors at charging stations in the US.

It will give more charging options to Tesla owners.





Tesla Connector


In the US, unlike most other electric automakers using the CCS or CHAdeMO standards, Tesla is using its own proprietary connector, and it has yet to offer a CCS adapter.


It does offer a CHAdeMO adapter, but the EV charging station market is mostly moving toward CCS.


Therefore, it limits some of the charging options for Tesla owners to mostly Tesla Supercharger and Destination charging stations.


Most people agree that those Tesla proprietary charging networks are some of the best in the world, but other third-party networks are starting to grow and become viable options.


Tesla and EVgo


Last year, EVgo announced that it will deploy Tesla connectors on their nationwide charging networkin the US.


It was a big announcement as the first third-party charging network to directly support Tesla vehicles, which represents up to 80% of the market in the US. Those chargers are 50kW max and rode off the CHAdeMO line in the EVGO stations.


Today, EVgo announced an expansion of its partnership with Tesla to over 600 charging stations:

“EVgo will deploy more than 400 integrated Tesla connectors at existing EVgo stations, with an additional 200 connectors reserved for new stations planned for 2021 in key cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Denver, Dallas, Austin, Washington D.C., Salt Lake City, and Miami.”

Cathy Zoi, CEO of EVgo, commented on today’s announcement:

“EVgo’s expansion of integrated Tesla connectors underscores our commitment to delivering convenient and reliable fast charging to all EV drivers. EV drivers seek efficiency and convenience in how they charge their vehicles, including the ability to shop while they charge. Today’s exciting announcement will make it even easier for Tesla drivers to top up while they grocery shop and run other errands, while driving greater utilization across our growing charging network.”

EVgo’s charging network is also being integrated into Tesla’s navigation system in order to easily route owners to charging stations.


EVGO confirmed to Electrek that they “integrate these Tesla connectors through an EVgo-designed custom solution attached to the chargers so customers don’t need to bring an adapter with them to the station.” They will continue to be 50kW max for the immediate future.


The company has now over 800 fast charging locations in the US.


It recently announced a deal to go public through a SPAC deal with Climate Change Crisis Real Impact I Acquisition Corporation (“CRIS”) (NYSE: CLII),

https://electrek.co/2021/02/11/tesla-connectors-over-600-evgo-electric-vehicle-charging-stations/

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[LoPro]

We got lucky with the CCS socket on the Model 3 from the start in Europe. Can charge anywhere. Usually don’t though because it’s such a hassle with apps and credit cards and communication failure through the cable, but nice to know that the option is there.

 

[Crissa]

EVgo has over 800 locations in the US, many in out of the way places you may want to charge.

Tesla has over 900, and there are 2400 CCS stations. Tesla stations tend to have more stalls, tho.

More is better! Like the EU, we really should just mandate a connector standard going forward, because Tesla is not going give up their advantage soon.

-Crissa

 

[rodmacpherson]

EVgo has over 800 locations in the US, many in out of the way places you may want to charge.

Tesla has over 900, and there are 2400 CCS stations. Tesla stations tend to have more stalls, tho.

More is better! Like the EU, we really should just mandate a connector standard going forward, because Tesla is not going give up their advantage soon.

-Crissa

The more the merrier.

If we don't get a North American standard plug (be that CCS 1 or Tesla) I do hope charging networks start running both plugs (the same as how most non-Tesla ..at least around me... have Chademo and CCS) Chademo we all know is a dying standard, so if newer chargers including the Tesla ones were dual plug CCS and Tesla that would be fine by me. (and I currently own a LEAF!) Just like every gas station currently offers Petrol and Diesel, and once offered leaded petrol as well, we should see at least the 2 dominant plugs for new cars on every station. (Chademo is this century's leaded, they will phase out. They are already phasing away.)

Unfortunately, as long as regulators lag behind and leave the networks charging by time and not kilowatt, there is not a lot of motivation for non-Tesla networks to enable Tesla charging at full speed. Either you are in a major city and the Tesla station is just a few miles away, or the Tesla drivers are forced to use Chademo at 50kW, and stay 3x as long, paying 3x as much.

Short of a plug standard or standardizing charging stations on multi-plug CCS and Tesla, Tesla should offer the CCS 1 adapter here and build a supercharger to CCS car adapter for those who are interested in charging up their Tycan or Bolt or whatever at the Tesla stations. Setec has shown that they could get away with charging a good buck for such adapters, and Tesla could set special rates for anyone charging a CCS car on the Tesla network as they would control what identifier the adapter sends to the station to initiate billing.

 

[Crissa]

Unfortunately, as long as regulators lag behind and leave the networks charging by time and not kilowatt, there is not a lot of motivation for non-Tesla networks to enable Tesla charging at full speed. Either you are in a major city and the Tesla station is just a few miles away, or the Tesla drivers are forced to use Chademo at 50kW, and stay 3x as long, paying 3x as much.

California is requiring per-kWh pricing starting in 2023. And the old ones have to be removed/replaced by 2033.

(Weirdly, they require it in Level 2 chargers this year, which is... I think bad? There are still coin-op Level 2 chargers. And some chargers haven't been updated in nearly twenty years, so they'll probably just vanish instead?)

CHAdeMO is the defacto standard in Japan, and probably will remain so. There's not much work to swap out a CCS UI with a CHAdeMO UI for import vehicles, and they don't have so many foreign vehicles.

-Crissa