Made In Canada! Jule DCFC Charging Stations at Longo's

[MellowJohnny]

Just ran across a band new DCFC charging option I've never seen at our local Longo's grocery store in Oakville. Seems like they have just gone online recently and are in "soft-launch" mode with reducing pricing for now.

Super impressed with what I saw:

- Seven CCS bays, one CHAdeMO
- Three charging speeds to choose from - 75 / 125 / 150 kWh with increasing prices per minute as speed increases
- Super easy to use touchscreen, with an NFC reader at the bottom. No App needed, no balance required, just tap and charge
- Speed was quite good, started at 85 kW at 40% SoC, ramping down to 70-ish kW as the pack charged
- Designed and Manufactured in Canada! Not sure if all parts are engineered and manufactured here, but still nice to see. The dispenser I used had serial #00039, so pretty new

Apparently they guarantee 99% up-time, which is still 7+ hours of downtime per month, but better than the typical weeks & months we see with Ivy. Would have been nice if the Ivy ONroute locations would have gone out for tender and competitively bid rather than sole-source it to a sudo-government entity.

Thought this was pretty cool (from their web site):
Our EV fast charging stations are directly connected to our Jule Hub that acts as a power amplifier from the grid to the vehicle. This enables our chargers to output up to 150 kW of power per port with, as little as 50 kW of input from the grid. Removing the direct connection from the chargers to the grid is what enables us to deploy 6 times faster and at much lower costs.

Seems like it took just a few months to install from what I can remember...

The only odd thing to me is they are at a grocery store, a few kilometres from the highway. If I was on the QEW and needed a charge this would be way out of the way, and I don't really see a need to DCFC while at the grocery store. But happy to see a Canadian solution.

Overall I was really quite impressed. Has anyone else run across them?

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[Mach-Lee]

Shame they label these as 150 kW when they only have 200A cables. Only 800V cars will be able to get that. They should be labeled as 100 kW.

No sense paying for more than the 75 kW rate because it won't be much faster than that for 400V cars.

 

[MellowJohnny]

Shame they label these as 150 kW when they only have 200A cables. Only 800V cars will be able to get that. They should be labeled as 100 kW.

No sense paying for more than the 75 kW rate because it won't be much faster than that for 400V cars.

*** EDIT ***

Saw this is their FAQ:
If you are concerned about paying for the higher price tier, rest assured as the per minute rate will be adjusted at the end of your session based on the highest speed received.

Yeah, seems like a lost opportunity to educate. Why would I want to choose 75 kW when I see 150? Pretty sure just about everyone will choose the faster option. And to make matters worse, they have publicly said eGMP platform cars are not compatible right now until the cars receive a software update.

What I found interesting after poking around on their site is the "Jule Hub" incorporates battery storage, which explains why is was so quiet when I charged. Can't remember the name of the company in the US with the same approach, but it's interesting.

Also nice to see a home-grown solution.

 

[Tampamike]

I’ve seen one of these on PlugShare near Naples, Florida, off I-75. It‘s a small station with only two chargers located in a hotel parking lot. My MME was actually routing me to them instead of the EA and FP&L chargers nearby. I was skeptical since I never heard of them. A little Googling revealed the charge rates and the battery components. From what I read, the batteries charge up when no one is charging and provide the faster rates until they are depleted, at which point charging slows down (Don’t remember how slow). I think you just plug in and you get the speed that the car and charger will do, without selecting a speed. At the end, you get charged on the highest rate attained during the session.

Still haven’t tried it, but I know where it is.

 

[MellowJohnny]

I’ve seen one of these on PlugShare near Naples, Florida, off I-75. It‘s a small station with only two chargers located in a hotel parking lot. My MME was actually routing me to them instead of the EA and FP&L chargers nearby. I was skeptical since I never heard of them. A little Googling revealed the charge rates and the battery components. From what I read, the batteries charge up when no one is charging and provide the faster rates until they are depleted, at which point charging slows down (Don’t remember how slow). I think you just plug in and you get the speed that the car and charger will do, without selecting a speed. At the end, you get charged on the highest rate attained during the session.

Still haven’t tried it, but I know where it is.

I think that description is bang on. It seems irrelevant which charging speed you pick, they just bill you for the peak kW you pulled. If they end up being reliable I'll be happy...

I think I saw somewhere on their site that solutions start at circa CAD $350,000 which seems pretty reasonable for DCFC.

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