Fastcharger - Gardnerville - GARDNERVILLE VISITORS L3 ST1

[fcibot]

This thread is for discussion of the GARDNERVILLE VISITORS L3 ST1 fast charger

Provider: ChargePoint Network

Address: 1395 US-395,Gardnerville,NV,89410

GPS: 38.938496,-119.74268

Stalls: 1(CHAdeMO [?]:?, CCS [?]:?)

Hours: 24 hours daily

 

[DonTom]

This one is not possible to get to until they get done with the road construction. All roads to this charger are now closed.

One CHAdeMO and one CCS plug is correct. Each are 62.5 KW max.

This parking area is unpaved. Perhaps it will soon be paved, I am not sure what all the road construction there is about.

And I have no idea when the construction will be done, but it looks like a fairly big job.

 

[DonTom]

I just came back from there a few hours ago. All roads are now clear to the charger, and this CP has the new 0.22 FW that works perfectly with my Energica Experia. See here.

The lot is still unpaved, and all the road construction is done. I think it was just to dig up some underground pipes, not real road construction.

Behind the building there are two restrooms. Surprisingly clean and well maintained. They appear locked, but they are not. Just pull out on the doors without turning the knob.

This fast charger is FREE to use. I thank Garnerville for the free charge today. The J-1772 there is also free to use.

All the restaurants within short walking distance to these chargers all look as if they are permanently closed.

I find Garnerville to be very EV friendly. Not only is this fast charger free, but there are countless J-plugs in every direction that are also free to use.

But the EVGO fast charger a mile more south of this free CP costs money, of course. But that was handy for the time during the road construction.

-Don- Reno, NV

 

[DonTom]

I used this charger today. It is only 0.3 miles from the EV-Go. Walking distance. Isn't having this free charger here unfair to EV-Go, which is a business trying to make a buck?

I feel guilty just using this free CP. . But not guilty enough to go to the EV-Go that is only 0.3 miles away and pay.

This free CP (screen has minor damaged, the touch screen does not work, but the charger works fine):

-Don- Reno, NV

 

[lpickup]

I've found you get what you pay for. Sometimes you get a great free charge. And sometimes you see people abusing the free charger and using (and thus blocking it) when they don't actually need to, so you need to go with the pay option. And probably the most likely outcome is the host will quickly lose interest in paying for it, eventually something will break, and then it will be left to rot. Hoping that's not the case, but I've seen it all too often.

The one other outcome with publicly sponsored stations (which I am guessing is the case here) is that some politician who doesn't like EVs comes out and declares that no public funding can be used to subsidize charging and voila, they instantly slap an outrageous fee on it. Hopefully that will not happen here.

And yes, it is tough on the adjacent EVgo station. In that close proximity to the free option, they may decide that given the traffic at their station is low, they may not give it priority and it may fall into disrepair. In this case though, I think if they put in a 350kW unit that there would at least be a good reason for people to use it versus the 62.5kW ChargePoint unit.

 

[DonTom]

I've found you get what you pay for.

So far, I have had no issues with the free fast chargers that work. But as with most other DC fast chargers (other than Tesla), when they once break, they are never repaired.

The very most charge, under perfect conditions, that my Energica motorcycles can take is 25KW. I rarely see that high, I usually am around 20 to 22 KW at the peak during the charging. So like yesterday in Bridgeport, CA I always look for the lowest power charger to use, incase somebody else wants a faster charge while Iam charging. I think EA always has both the slower and faster chargers.

-Don- Reno, NV

 

[lpickup]

I think EA always has both the slower and faster chargers.

Their new installs typically only have 350kW (plus a single 50kW CHAdeMO connector if the site previously had that).

 

[DonTom]

Their new installs typically only have 350kW (plus a single 50kW CHAdeMO connector if the site previously had that).

I guess this is an older EA station at BridgePort. The one on the far right as well as the far left is 150KW, IIRC on CCS. The one on the far right has both CHAdeMO (50 KW) and CCS (150 KW). The one on the left, that I used, only has CCS, 150 KW, both sides. The two in the middle are 350 KW.

BTW, I once heard that a KW at a charge station is not a true KW, it is calculated in a weird way. Is there any truth to that?

-Don- Reno, NV

 

[lpickup]

BTW, I once heard that a KW at a charge station is not a true KW, it is calculated in a weird way. Is there any truth to that?

The nameplate spec of charging stations is not an exact number, if that's what you're getting at, and the limit is only indirectly related to power (kilowatts). Rather, there is a maximum current that the unit can put out (during CC mode) and a maximum voltage (during CV mode). So if you look at a faceplate on a charging station, you will typically see something like this:

So for OUTPUT POWER, it doesn't specify kW, but rather a voltage range and a max current.

Now you can't just multiply 920V * 500A to get 460kW. There will be a limit to how high a voltage can be supported while pumping out 500A, and similarly how much current will flow when in CV mode and holding 920V (or more realistically, 840 or so for 800V vehicles--the 920 likely includes a 10% or so design margin). To get that level of detail, you need to dig into the datasheets for the charging station which hopefully include a chart like this (source https://evocharge.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/DCFC-Power-Cabinet-Spec-Sheet-0323.pdf):


This particular example is for a power cabinet (as opposed to a single station), but does illustrate that it can go clear up to 800V at its full current rating (250A per unit, which can be ganged together in single, double, or triple fashion), and then it tapers if you go above that, which effectively limits its power (for the single cabinet application) to 200kW). Other stations may "clip" earlier than that and start limiting the current at a lower voltage (like 600V for example). I had an example of such a curve, but unfortunately I am not finding it at the moment. It would result in a curve that looked like the pink and red lines I've overlaid here (I overlaid them on the "Triple" because it was easier to see):


But of course all this is a bit beyond the average driver, so for simplicity, they just call them 150kW stations or 350kW stations, or whatever.

 

[DonTom]

But of course all this is a bit beyond the average driver, so for simplicity, they just call them 150kW stations or 350kW stations, or whatever.

I never expect the ratings on the machine to be always true. There are too many variables.

But if the CCS charger display, while charging, says 19.4 KW, on my electric motorcycle. is it a real true 19.4 KW?

I am not counting the slight low power loss at the loaded end of the cable. The vehicle charging can show a slightly lower rate because of the voltage drop under load.

I just once heard this was calculated differently and I was wondering if there was any truth to that. IOW, they didn't use simply volts times amps to get the true wattage., and the claimed wattage is higher.

Or perhaps it was the claimed wattage of the machines that is higher than reality. I now cannot remember which I heard but I still wonder if there is a difference between the wattage claim and the true volts times amps.

-Don- Reno, NV

 

[DonTom]

I used this free ChargePoint DCFC yesterday on my 2018 Tesla Model 3 after I changed my charging ECU to one that is compatible with CCS. This one.

I charged to full there and the trip cost me less than nothing as I got back home (110 miles round trip) with a lot more charge than I started out with. I only drove down there to test my new ECU. It worked perfectly on my Tesla M3. The charge started at 60 KW there.

I rarely have the need to charge my Tesla on the road, so I am not even sure why I did this other than in case I need it someday--better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

So this free CCS charger is working well. If busy, one can use one of the two J-plugs there while waiting. But nobody there yesterday when I arrived.

Sometimes this charger is misused by the locals who are too cheap to charge at home. OTOH, they are the ones paying the local taxes to support this free charger for others like me who pay to tax to Garnerville.

-Don- Reno, NV