Mockingbird
Member
It said 3 out of 4 operational.
The other charger might work if someone calls in and ask for a reboot.
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The other charger might work if someone calls in and ask for a reboot.
It'll probably work if you're one of the first Tesla customers in North America to get the CCS adapter...for about 1 or 2 months. And then, it'll be obvious that the only real solution is to build more chargers at that shopping center.
And if they call in and get it rebooted they should get a free charging session.
So, pro tip: if you're an EA user and you'd like to charge while you have lunch, look for a charger that's hanging.
(On a trip last year, I'd planned to charge our Kona at West Lebanon, NH to 71%, cross over to White River Junction and have lunch at a Turkish restaurant there, then keep heading west and top up at EVGo chargers in Rutland, VT. Issues at West Lebanon, NH Electrify America meant I had to call customer service, they gave us a free session and with the delay we ate near the chargers instead. Returned to the car with 96% so skipped Rutland charging.)
henderrj
Active Member
That was indeed my sales pitch to tesla, and a dozen other firms too. Kept thinking I'd sell it, but too early to the game I guess. Oh well, I'll just keep the patent active. Eventually it should pay off! Or, not.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
bradtem
Robocar consultant
Louisiana is not dense with charging. There are only a handful of superchargers in the whole state, and only one six-charger station anywhere near Lake Charles. That day, 3 of the chargers were broken and the other 3 were charging slow.
Even though that will be rare, such a line is indeed a bad thing, particularly with all the people who buy EVs but can't charge at home. (I never use superchargers in my own city, only on road trips. If they want to add chargers to solve this, the right place is apartment and work parking lots, not strip malls.) But until that day, they are going to need to have more stations. There is an 4 port EA station and if I lived in this town I would want the adapter. The CdM adapter would not help a lot with only one of the EA units supporting it.
henderrj
Active Member
US10179518B2 (according to google, didn't actually look it up on my own paperwork.)
My provisional patent was in November of 2014. Amazon's was in December of 2014. Didn't know that until after I had gotten the utility patent! Scared me till I found out I was first.Better than nothing... To Electrify America's credit, if I'm counting right, there are 4 stalls near ake Charles, another 4 west in Beaumont and 6 in Lafayette. And Tesla for sure needs to expand or add to any Interstate routes that only have 8 or fewer V2 stalls - when these sites get full, the charge rate suffers quite a bit. Having the option of CCS charging can save quite a bit of time in a number of cases.
Anyway, plenty of further discussion on this specific issue in the Lake Charles thread:
Supercharger - Lake Charles, LA
As of 8-30-2020: Main power line is DOWN in the area. No power to the entire town, supercharger included. A few places have on-site generators. Sam's Club across the street let me plug into their 110v outlet...
teslamotorsclub.com
FalconFour
Member
Hear, hear! That's the right solution. EVs work best when charged where they're not needed, not while in use - a hold-over from the only way you could charge (refuel) a gas car. Workplace charging is sorely under-appreciated, but it's the only way I've lived since 2014.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
I've written several articles on what I call "gasoline thinking." Which is how most of us probably thought before we bought EVs, so we can't blame the public for it too much, but we can educate them. But people setting policy and building charging have no excuse for following gasoline thinking.
Part of this is the call for ultra-fast charging -- 500kw to megawatt. That's useful if you're in a super-hurry or planned poorly but it definitely should not be the norm. It's actually too fast on the stops where you plan to eat or shop, OK if all you will do is pee, I guess. But megawatt charging is going to be very expensive compared to slower charging, as the gear has to be very fancy and robust and extra safe, since there is so much more that can go wrong at a megawatt, and it's also expensive to bring in that much power unless it's one megawatt station vs. 7 150kw stations. It's very unlikely it's not going to be more issues for your battery to charge it this fast, too, though maybe a chemistry will arise that faces no penalty there. It's going to need fancier cooling.
As such, you would expect to megawatt charge maybe just a few times a year in a properly operating world. Your normal life should be charging at home or work every night or every weekday, with fast charging only on road trips, or for those who can't get more than level 1 at their house, fast charging once or twice a month for the rare days when level 1 wasn't enough.
Once we get a world where most motels have level 2 charging, you'll probably just fast charge once a day, around noon, and do it during lunch. Admittedly this is a problem, people will have to spread out their lunches because we can't have everybody charge at the same time (same with megawatt charging) but I think it can be handled. Rare people on hard-slog days over 500 miles of driving (or towing) would fast charge more than once a day.
But as I said above, the big charging infrastructure bills should focus on motels, apartment lots, commuter lots and a little bit of fast charging and some curbs.
I KNOW! I mentioned it to service and sales staff at Rocklin, California Service Center yesterday. But they are like ‘Jon Snow’ from GoT—they know nothing.
FWIW, I bought a Setec/Lectron CCS adapter off eBay. I could not connect it to my laptop through my various micro USB cables (all good data ones) to check or update the firmware. I tried it with my Mac, then with my PC, but no joy. I figured why not just field test it. Plugged into a Green Lots charger, and I was pulling 43-48kW steady. So it works, but I’m not sure what firmware I’m running. As the running joke goes, YMMV.
Attachments
I am bored, late at night--always a dangerous combination: "To Dream, the Impossible Dream..." (Note the date.)
Just need to keep tweeting at Elon about it...maybe he will respond....wishful thinking
gglockner
Member
jabloomf1230
Minister of Silly Walks
I connectors were regulated we wouldn't have so many flavors of USB cables.
