New Rapid Charger at Newton Nissan

Newton Nissan have replaced their previous CHAdeMO rapid charger with a new unit from ABB that has both CHAdeMO and CCS ports. This is in preparation for the Nissan Ariya EV which will have a CCS port instead of CHAdeMO. So far so good, ABB units are solid.

However… Newton Nissan have chosen a 50kW rapid charger that is essentially the same as the one it replaces that was installed almost ten years ago. Many charging stations being installed today charge at 150kW or 350 kW. I presume the dealer are trying to minimize the cost of installation as much as possible, The transformer is the same one the previous charger was attached to. In addition the charging station has a payment terminal which the dealer representative told me will be activated in the future. Right now the charging station can be used for free.

I used my Tesla CHAdeMO adapter to test the unit and got 40kW charge rate, which isn’t unusual with Tesla and the CHAdeMO adapter. The adapter is limited to 50kW. Interestingly when the CHAdeMO adapter is attached to the Model 3 it now pops up a Supercharger Tips screen, many of the tips also apply to third party rapid chargers. I haven’t rapid charged my Model 3 since before Covid-19 so I’m not sure when the tips screen was introduced.