UK - Ecotricity and CCS (i3 DC rapid) charging

[SanSerif]

I was curious as to what would happen should I try and plug an i3 into an Ecotricity (clean electricity company in the UK who have free charge points across the country) charge point. So I emailed BMW and Ecotricity.

BMW have utterly failed to respond (very disappointing) but Ecotricity's project manager got back to me within 24 hrs. His reply (with original errors!) is as below.

Great questions. In simple terms the fast AC/DC points don’t wont currently with the BMW i3. This is because the Combi or CCS protocol that the BMW needs is still not available to us to install.

So in the short term the only points you can use are the 22kw AC points with a type 2 lead set – indicated on our map.

You will not be able to 'plug' the i3 in on the AC/DC points as the plug is not compatible. This problem is related to the car manafacturers being unable to agree on charging protocols so german manafacturers are doing things differently to the japanese/koreans who are doing this differently to the french and so on. Even Renault and Nissan who are part of the same group can't agree.

Over time we will upgrade all the points to CCS and begin in install CCS which will be fully compatible. But it wont happen overnight due to the scale and costs.

I hope that gives you some comfort for the future

Having had discussions with the company elsewhere, they are clear that their aim is to provide rapid charging for all EVs sold in the UK so I'm optimistic.

On a related note, I've also been chasing up some of the project teams putting in charging points under recently announced govt and council initiatives. The southern UK teams seem to be CCS-aware so I have some hope there as well.

You never know, my REx may be redundant sooner than I imagined. I've specced both DC rapid charging *and* REx!

 

[Parker]

You never know, my REx may be redundant sooner than I imagined. I've specced both DC rapid charging *and* REx!

Over the last few days I've been thinking of doing the same.

Can anybody put their finger on timescales for CCS 2 years or 5 years or 10 years. I know it won't be "overnight" but some idea would be useful.

 

[TomMoloughney]

You never know, my REx may be redundant sooner than I imagined. I've specced both DC rapid charging *and* REx!

Over the last few days I've been thinking of doing the same.

Can anybody put their finger on timescales for CCS 2 years or 5 years or 10 years. I know it won't be "overnight" but some idea would be useful.

Anybody that tells you anything is just making a blind guess Parker. It's not going to be quick. It took Nissan a couple years to get any CHAdeMO quick chargers installed and only now are we seeing any numbers of them go up. What we are going to do here in the States is install chargers with both the Japanese standard (CHAdeMO) and the US/European standard (CCS). It will likely be a few years before we have them in any kind of real numbers. If you are doing a 3 year lease, I'd pass on paying for the option. If you are buying and plan to keep it longer than 3 years, then it may be a good purchase.