Anyone tested S/X CHAdeMO Adapter on Model 3

[yuhong]

The comments concerning whether or not you need a CHAdeMO adapter based on another individual user’s particular view is pretty comical. Obviously, there are many uses for the CHAdeMO adapter and they are used daily. If you think it’s too expensive to have, how expensive might it be if you had to tow the car once?

I have used the CHAdeMO adaptor many times over the years, usually and primarily for convenience (why would I want to buy a premium automobile if it didn’t offer convenience?). Convenience simply means that the CHAdeMO charge station is more convenient to use than a supercharger, that may be miles and miles awa, or be crowded, of worse... BROKEN!

There I was, Thanksgiving of November 2016, driving from Southern California to Las Vegas when (for whatever reason) I decided to call Tesla about the Supercharger in Barstow. I wanted to know if it was crowded on that busy holiday weekend, and because it was a mandatory stop in order to be able to reach Las Vegas.

They informed me that it was broken and I informed them that it was going to be a really bad weekend to have this particular site broken. The situation took place not long after a Wall Street Journal article complaining about crowded Superchargers. I told them this was a great way to have a second article written about Superchargers!

But, I had the CHAdeMO adapter, so I pulled into a charge station in Victorville, California and sat there for about 20 minutes with my family. It literally saved the day and was worth far more than $450 at that particular instant.

Obviously, lots of folks are not too concerned with being prepared, but I’m just not one of them.

Of course, there are a lot more Superchargers on that path now, and in fact the Baker Supercharger is open right now while the EVgo is still not open.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Putting aside whether or not the CHAdeMO adapter is useful to everyone -- since it's pretty evidently useful to /some/ -- does anyone have any idea when/if the Model 3 will gain support for the adapter? I have a trip planned in October; I should have the M3 by then (and would love to drive it on such), and would feel more confident if I had the option to use the CHAdeMO charger near the hotel since there's no immediately-nearby Supercharger stations.

(Not that the lack of CHAdeMO will stop me, in all likelihood, but contingency plans are nice.)

There are sites that rent the adaptor, like ours.

 

[Packetdancer]

There are sites that rent the adaptor, like ours.

Sure, but that does no good if the Model 3 doesn't yet _support_ the CHAdeMO adapter.

 

[Karl Boe....]

My guess: the guy who wrote the original car to adapter interface for the S no longer works at the company. And it was poorly documented and/or Tesla has poor software lifecycle processes. So they have to not only recreate the wheel for model 3 but they have to figure out how it worked.

But that’s just a pesssmistic guess.

I'm a bit of a pessimist too usually. But in this case I don't think this is it. The same adapter works with both S and X. There's logic in the 3 that specifically looks at the adapter and says, "Nope, not going to do that." The error message is very specific and calls out the adapter by name. It's my belief that there is nothing to do in the adapter other than say we're ready.

 

[reddy]

I'm a bit of a pessimist too usually. But in this case I don't think this is it. The same adapter works with both S and X. There's logic in the 3 that specifically looks at the adapter and says, "Nope, not going to do that." The error message is very specific and calls out the adapter by name. It's my belief that there is nothing to do in the adapter other than say we're ready.

FWIW, there is actually firmware in the Chademo adapter itself, and that may be what needs updating.

I had the firmware updated at a service call, as part of the annual service on my MS a couple years ago.

 

[Limited]

I really feel like chademo charging should have taken priority over auto dimming high beams...

 

[arg]

One issue may be testing. There was a huge delay on the initial release of the CHAdeMO adapter for the Model S, where testing showed that there were many different CHAdeMO stations out there (including different software revisions on the same hardware) and lots of compatibility issues - including charger owners accusing Tesla of damaging the chargers.

You’d hope that second time around they would find it easier, but at minimum there’s probably a long list of tests needed before it can be signed off (involving driving around the country to perform them).

 

[Limited]

Still no support with latest update 2018.24.1 unfortunately.

 

[CameronB]

Your mileage may definitely vary, but FWIW, I have tried to use CHAdeMO chargers a few times and have yet to have a good experience. And I'm not talking charge speeds. I am talking about having problems like getting the large CHAdeMO plug to connect securely to the Tesla adapter (they frequently seem to not make a tight connection in my limited experience) or the charge point itself being out of service or saying it's charging but the Tesla says it isn't. At best, I charged for about 15 minutes while I was in a restaurant in Napa and then got an alert from Tesla app saying the charging was interrupted. I don't know what happened exactly. Maybe I am just snakebitten but personally I haven't had good success with them. Nonetheless, I faithfully carry around the adapter as sort of an insurance/emergency option. Hopefully when/if that 'emergency' day comes, I'll have better success than on my test CHAdeMO attempts

 

[SigNC]

liketesla had a similar experience when comparing to a tesla SC. It's not difficult but so many more steps than SC.

 

[chibi_kurochan]

Finally got a chance to try it today and still error.
2018.21.9

Called support and they said it will be enabled by future firmware update but no ETA in sight.

 

[H2000]

Finally got a chance to try it today and still error.
2018.21.9

Called support and they said it will be enabled by future firmware update but no ETA in sight.

That's too bad. I sometimes report it as a bug report. Not sure if that helps or not!

 

[RayK]

Called support and they said it will be enabled by future firmware update but no ETA in sight.

I've been told that here since this past January. Tried plugging in my 3 on a ChargePoint DC Fast station 2 days ago for giggles and got the same error message. And I'm on 2018.24.1.

 

[chibi_kurochan]

That's too bad. I sometimes report it as a bug report. Not sure if that helps or not!

yeah, unfortunately.
I will do that as well!
Flood the bug report with feature request!

 

[H2000]

yeah, unfortunately.
I will do that as well!
Flood the bug report with feature request!

Hopefully they'll start listening! I just do it from time to time when I'm stuck in traffic. Lol

 

[Ulmo]

Your mileage may definitely vary, but FWIW, I have tried to use CHAdeMO chargers a few times and have yet to have a good experience. And I'm not talking charge speeds. I am talking about having problems like getting the large CHAdeMO plug to connect securely to the Tesla adapter (they frequently seem to not make a tight connection in my limited experience) or the charge point itself being out of service or saying it's charging but the Tesla says it isn't. At best, I charged for about 15 minutes while I was in a restaurant in Napa and then got an alert from Tesla app saying the charging was interrupted. I don't know what happened exactly. Maybe I am just snakebitten but personally I haven't had good success with them. Nonetheless, I faithfully carry around the adapter as sort of an insurance/emergency option. Hopefully when/if that 'emergency' day comes, I'll have better success than on my test CHAdeMO attempts

(This is regarding Model S.) Everything you said is correct. I had the same experience with my Chademo adapter, with the exception that I depended on it for a lot of trips, so I tried much much harder. Apparently, if one fenagles endlessly trying different ideas, it can make the Chademo adapter work. You are correct that they have to be all the way plugged in. The other things to try are sequence of startup, etc. I would get used to certain Chademo stations, and tended to not have a huge problem with them. My success rate kept going up and up after that.

If the Model 3 can accept Chademo, I wouldn't see why they wouldn't enable that feature, but it is not an optimal user experience, to be sure. With the recent SuperCharger buildout, it's becomming close to unnecessary. I bet there's enough used Chademos in the marketplace now to handle all of the niche cases where that's not true. Half the Chademos I used to use now have a nearby SuperCharger that could be used instead. The only reason I might prefer the Chademo is because they are located in places I'd rather visit (Nob Hill), but usually not (Walmart and some pretty ratty malls). There are still some routes that it's nice to have Chademo rather than rely only on SuperCharging.

Obviously, if someone buys a Standard Range Model 3 and starts to take trips often to where there is Chademo on the way but not SuperChargers, they would want to get a Chademo adapter, provided Tesla started finally supporting that. I was in a similar situation with my Model S 60D. One such trip is up to Lake Tahoe.

Another case where Chademo would be helpful is in anyplace that is not named California.

An option for a built-in CCS plug and support by Tesla would be great, especially if it can be installed as a retrofit. I don't know if all of that can fit inside the car.

 

[ThosEM]

Your mileage may definitely vary, but FWIW, I have tried to use CHAdeMO chargers a few times and have yet to have a good experience. And I'm not talking charge speeds. I am talking about having problems like getting the large CHAdeMO plug to connect securely to the Tesla adapter (they frequently seem to not make a tight connection in my limited experience) or the charge point itself being out of service or saying it's charging but the Tesla says it isn't. At best, I charged for about 15 minutes while I was in a restaurant in Napa and then got an alert from Tesla app saying the charging was interrupted. I don't know what happened exactly. Maybe I am just snakebitten but personally I haven't had good success with them. Nonetheless, I faithfully carry around the adapter as sort of an insurance/emergency option. Hopefully when/if that 'emergency' day comes, I'll have better success than on my test CHAdeMO attempts

My experience is pretty similar. Except that one of the first few times I tried it out, it absolutely refused to work in any combination I could think of. When I reported that to Tesla, they asked for it to be brought in for a firmware update. That cured it so I have gotten it to work a couple of times since then. But it just isn't a good experience and only serves to create range anxiety when there is no real need for it.

It seems to me that this experience epitomizes the absurdly disorganized and chaotic situation with respect to charging of electric vehicles. It almost seems like there is a conspiracy to make it difficult and annoying at the least, and to discourage EV adoption in this way. Except that, Tesla supercharging is clearly, as we say in Maine, "the way life should be."

 

[TonyWilliams]

 

[TonyWilliams]

 

[TonyWilliams]

One of the newest Supercharger locations in Southern California, built 9 months ago.