First Charge, Electric Avenue Portland

Diagram of Electric Ave. Portland Oregon.

Saturday, March 16th.  Our first charging experience was at Electric Avenue in downtown Portland.   Electric Ave. is a joint research & development initiative of the Postland State Univ., Portland General Electric and the City of Portland.  It’s a block long street dedicated to  free EV charging stations for EV vehicles and electric bikes.  There are perhaps a dozen different charging machines available, most of them Level II chargers.   We were quite excited because I had read beforehand of several DC charging stations on hand, but these unfortunately are not yet compatible with the Tesla Model S.  The DC chargers at Electric Avenue have CHAdeMO connectors which are not compatible with the Tesla Model S connector.  Perhaps in the near future an adapter head will become available.  The owner in a black, Nissan Leaf pulled up and quickly connected his car to a CHAdeMO charger for a quick refuel.

We connected our Tesla to a Level II charger and flipped the switch to chug on free electricity.  Payment was only required for the parking spot- no different than any other parking spot on the street.  We headed over to a local Starbucks for a snack and wireless connection to catch up on work.  Monitoring the Tesla was simple, via the new mobile app I installed on my android cellphone prior to picking up the car.  The car charged for free at around 230V 30AH, 19 miles per hour of charge time according to the app.  Within a few hours the car was back at maximum battery capacity.  Sorry about the photos of the various charging stations.  Something weird happened on my computer and the photos got re-saved to black & white rather than the original color.

Our first charging experience at Electric Avenue, Portland

 

Rustam ready to plug in his Nissan Leaf to a DC CHAdeMO charger 400+ Volt Quick Charger

 

The Nissan Leaf charger receptacles are on the front of the car, kind of ugly but quite practical. The plug receptacle on the left is for DC CHAdaMO rapid charge and the right is the J1772 receptacle for EV chargers. The CHAdaMO is optional on the Leaf’s. Sadly, the Tesla is not compatible with the CHAdaMO fast charging units. A factory specialist explained the CHAdaMO charger wants to control the charging, and the Tesla charging management system is incompatible. The explanation made it sound like the issue is not resolvable.

 

CHAdaMO DC charger. The charging system was developed in partnership with several Japanese auto companies. The charging basis allows for up to 500VDC & 125A fast charging. We encountered these chargers at least half a dozen times in the course of our trip.

 

Generic EV charger. Not sure who makes it. 220V 30A

 

Opconnect, electric vehicle charging system. We didn’t see many or any more of these on our trip. I think Ports 3, 4 are 110V outlets inside.

 

Eaton Charger.

 

Another lousy photo of mine, out of focus. SPX charger. At least 2 of the chargers on Electric Ave. were not working properly. Maybe this is a warning of what to expect on our trip.

 

Another J1772 EV charger. All of the chargers on Electric Ave. were free, but some required accounts. Some of the cables weren’t long enough and we had to back the Tesla in to get close enough to plug in.

 

DC high rate CHAdaMO charger. Not compatible with the Tesla’s, but works with the Nissan Leaf. Lucky Leaf owners!!