Rumor is that older S&Xs would need to have a hardware retrofit to enable them to use the CCS adapter.
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CCS for Model 3 in North America
- Thread starter Legen---dary
- Start date
Rumor is that older S&Xs would need to have a hardware retrofit to enable them to use the CCS adapter.
If that turns out to be the case, offer the retrofit for what it costs (including labor and a nominal profit,) and let folks decide if it is worth it to them.
RTPEV
Active Member
I guess I must be lucky enough to live in ground zero of EA CCS chargers then. There is one within a few miles of where I live and I have personally charged our Bolt at it (this particular site had 4 150kW, 1 50kW, and 1 CHAdeMO), and about 20 miles away is another site with 2 150kW, 1 50kW and 1 CHAdeMO, and an identical 4 stall setup about 60 miles up the road. So there's 3 of the 19 within 60 miles of my home!
<sarcasm off>
The EA charging stations are rolling out much quicker than even I imagined. And I have noticed that by the time they show up as "coming soon" on plugshare, they usually get them up and running pretty quickly. Another station about 75 miles away in the other direction is listed as coming soon, and I suspect it won't be long.
On the downside, in my area anyway, these are all going in at Walmarts. Well I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean you'll have good access to bathrooms, shopping (which is going to be really important for people that live in apartments), and at least one restaurant. Downside is that these sites are not always going to be the most convenient to get to while on a trip, and I expect them to be frequently ICEd.
I certainly have no love lost for VW and their diesel shenanigans, but I'm not about to pooh-pooh additional charging stations coming online just because they don't have the Tesla logo on them, particularly if they are going to be putting them in in some areas where the Tesla network is a bit spotty (yes, there are a few such places) or if they will help people that don't have a dedicated place to park every night get an EV.
Right now, CCS stations are used by BMW’s Bolts and Konas... when you go to a Location with Chargers you see 1 or 2 CCS stations only. Here’s 2 that were just installed and waiting to be activated in Yermo Ca. Closer to the street and by the giant Ice Cream building. They are ChargePoint and rated at 50kw. If you notice, 4 Connectors right next each other with no spacing for 4 cars.
Fred
Fred
Each station is probably only capable of delivering power to one of the two cords at a time. Each station appears to have one CCS and one CHAdeMO cord, as is common for most non-EA public DCFC stations (except the 24 kW ones, those are usually CCS only.)
Eno Deb
Active Member
But then, there are also locations like this one in Livermore, CA (8*150kW, 2*350kW):
RTPEV
Active Member
So here is a picture of our Bolt charging at an EA site:
Here is what's interesting about this. It's not a great shot, but as you can see, in between the two spots are two charging stations. Presumably one charging station would serve each spot. But each one also has two cords. Now okay, one of these has 1 CCS and 1 CHAdeMO cord. That makes sense. You use whichever one your car takes. But the other 5 at this site have 2 CCS cords each. And there are no additional spots that those cords could reach. Other than redundancy, I can't figure out why they did it this way. It seems like they could basically have gotten away with half of the charging stations here, or used a simpler charging station with only one cord. And yes, it appeared that both could be used simultaneously (although I suspect at reduced power if shared).
Here is what's interesting about this. It's not a great shot, but as you can see, in between the two spots are two charging stations. Presumably one charging station would serve each spot. But each one also has two cords. Now okay, one of these has 1 CCS and 1 CHAdeMO cord. That makes sense. You use whichever one your car takes. But the other 5 at this site have 2 CCS cords each. And there are no additional spots that those cords could reach. Other than redundancy, I can't figure out why they did it this way. It seems like they could basically have gotten away with half of the charging stations here, or used a simpler charging station with only one cord. And yes, it appeared that both could be used simultaneously (although I suspect at reduced power if shared).
So that you can reach a charge port that is located anywhere on the car, since there is no standard for placement.
You'd think they could do that for less cost and complexity with one cord at the center of the stall that's a little longer.
Longer runs means either heavier gauge wires or more cooling, but we're not talking much of a difference in the overall wire length to achieve it.
It could also be for redundancy purposes, if they expect the cables/connectors to fail fairly often.
I have no problem with them offering an adapter.
I'd have a huge problem if they switched gears and swapped the car side port with CCS in the US like they've done in Europe.
Unless I've missed something, this would be true.
The main issue is that the CCS standard doesn't have any kind of power on the plug at all before activated by the car. CHAdeMO, for example, has a small amount of 12V power available, which can be used to power the chunky adapter.
The Model S/X have no ability to provide power to an adapter, and since CCS doesn't supply power, that kind of puts adapter prospects for current owners in the probably-will-never-happen file.
That said, doesn't mean an adapter isn't possible. There are a couple of ways I could see this being done for existing vehicles:
One way would be that the adapter will need a rechargeable battery of its own so that it can do the CCS handshake. This is less than ideal, because the adapter would be useless if it were dead. Could recharge from the HV power while charging, however, so if used frequently would be an issue. Or USB, 12V socket, whatever... but overall probably not the greatest solution. This does, however, have the benefit of being able to be designed to work with every Model S/X that can supercharge, since the adapter can just be made to emulate a supercharger.
(Edit: Everything below assumes updates are made to vehicles via an OTA software update to support the needs of the adapter design.)
Now, my idea for a better solution.... the hacker in me would make an adapter that could be powered by the car, despite the car not having a straightforward way to power the adapter. So, if I were on Tesla's dev team for making such an adapter, here's what I'd do:
Make the adapter detectable by all of the current charger/chargeport hardware passively. This could be done with a non-standard resistance across the pilot/prox pins to ground while the adapter is "inert". Worst case, this could just be made a user-imitated "CCS Adapter" button somewhere in the UI, but should be doable without such a kludge.
Once the adapter is detected, the car shuts down all high voltage systems, opens the main contactors, waits a moment for the system to settle, then closes the fast charge contactors, closes the negative contactor, and pulses the precharge relay with a super small cycle time. This would provide a very small amount of DC power directly to the charge port, and could be monitored by the BMS to ensure the voltage never reaches an unsafe level (~<60VDC or so). The capacitors in the HV system (motors, DCDC, charger, etc) ensure that the voltage doesn't ramp too quickly, and they have self-discharge circuitry for safety, anyway.
Assuming our newly designed CCS adapter is connected, it should have a small amount of power to work with now, enough to initiate some SWCAN communication with the BMS to say, "I'm here! It's me, a real adapter, I promise! Thanks for the juice! Everything looks good! What next boss? I can stay awake for another X seconds before I'll need some more juice."
If done really well, this could be pulled off without any contactors inside the adapter itself, although it would require that the adapter perform the CCS handshaking and such with very little power to work with, which would be tricky. I figure such an adapter could be made a similar size/style as the CHAdeMO adapter, maybe a little chunkier, though, if it needed a set of contactors.
(Edit: I'll note, that if this adapter didn't have contactors, the car would likely be deprived of HV auxilary power for a somewhat extended period... like 20-90 seconds, I'd venture, without things like HVAC possible. So, an adapter with its own contactors probably makes the most sense overall.)
@tesla - I do contract work.
Long story short, existing Model S/X folks are NOT getting a passive CCS adapter like the one we've seen photos of for the Model 3.
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I have no problem with them offering an adapter.
I'd have a huge problem if they switched gears and swapped the car side port with CCS in the US like they've done in Europe.
Unless I've missed something, this would be true.
The main issue is that the CCS standard doesn't have any kind of power on the plug at all before activated by the car. CHAdeMO, for example, has a small amount of 12V power available, which can be used to power the chunky adapter.
The Model S/X have no ability to provide power to an adapter, and since CCS doesn't supply power, that kind of puts adapter prospects for current owners in the probably-will-never-happen file.
That said, doesn't mean an adapter isn't possible. There are a couple of ways I could see this being done for existing vehicles:
One way would be that the adapter will need a rechargeable battery of its own so that it can do the CCS handshake. This is less than ideal, because the adapter would be useless if it were dead. Could recharge from the HV power while charging, however, so if used frequently would be an issue. Or USB, 12V socket, whatever... but overall probably not the greatest solution. This does, however, have the benefit of being able to be designed to work with every Model S/X that can supercharge, since the adapter can just be made to emulate a supercharger.
(Edit: Everything below assumes updates are made to vehicles via an OTA software update to support the needs of the adapter design.)
Now, my idea for a better solution.... the hacker in me would make an adapter that could be powered by the car, despite the car not having a straightforward way to power the adapter. So, if I were on Tesla's dev team for making such an adapter, here's what I'd do:
Make the adapter detectable by all of the current charger/chargeport hardware passively. This could be done with a non-standard resistance across the pilot/prox pins to ground while the adapter is "inert". Worst case, this could just be made a user-imitated "CCS Adapter" button somewhere in the UI, but should be doable without such a kludge.
Once the adapter is detected, the car shuts down all high voltage systems, opens the main contactors, waits a moment for the system to settle, then closes the fast charge contactors, closes the negative contactor, and pulses the precharge relay with a super small cycle time. This would provide a very small amount of DC power directly to the charge port, and could be monitored by the BMS to ensure the voltage never reaches an unsafe level (~<60VDC or so). The capacitors in the HV system (motors, DCDC, charger, etc) ensure that the voltage doesn't ramp too quickly, and they have self-discharge circuitry for safety, anyway.
Assuming our newly designed CCS adapter is connected, it should have a small amount of power to work with now, enough to initiate some SWCAN communication with the BMS to say, "I'm here! It's me, a real adapter, I promise! Thanks for the juice! Everything looks good! What next boss? I can stay awake for another X seconds before I'll need some more juice."
If done really well, this could be pulled off without any contactors inside the adapter itself, although it would require that the adapter perform the CCS handshaking and such with very little power to work with, which would be tricky. I figure such an adapter could be made a similar size/style as the CHAdeMO adapter, maybe a little chunkier, though, if it needed a set of contactors.
(Edit: I'll note, that if this adapter didn't have contactors, the car would likely be deprived of HV auxilary power for a somewhat extended period... like 20-90 seconds, I'd venture, without things like HVAC possible. So, an adapter with its own contactors probably makes the most sense overall.)
@tesla - I do contract work.
Long story short, existing Model S/X folks are NOT getting a passive CCS adapter like the one we've seen photos of for the Model 3.
Please Tesla, hire this Senior Tinkerer!
I wonder how much of the handshaking/contactor work could be done on the inside of the car if retrofitted? The adapter could use an RFID tag to alert the system that it's plugged in, before the CCS mains is plugged into the adapter. Maybe a custom flash of the LED to show it's ready to take CCS.
I have no problem with them offering an adapter.
I'd have a huge problem if they switched gears and swapped the car side port with CCS in the US like they've done in Europe.
Unless I've missed something, this would be true.
The main issue is that the CCS standard doesn't have any kind of power on the plug at all before activated by the car. CHAdeMO, for example, has a small amount of 12V power available, which can be used to power the chunky adapter.
The Model S/X have no ability to provide power to an adapter, and since CCS doesn't supply power, that kind of puts adapter prospects for current owners in the probably-will-never-happen file.
That said, doesn't mean an adapter isn't possible. There are a couple of ways I could see this being done for existing vehicles:
One way would be that the adapter will need a rechargeable battery of its own so that it can do the CCS handshake. This is less than ideal, because the adapter would be useless if it were dead. Could recharge from the HV power while charging, however, so if used frequently would be an issue. Or USB, 12V socket, whatever... but overall probably not the greatest solution. This does, however, have the benefit of being able to be designed to work with every Model S/X that can supercharge, since the adapter can just be made to emulate a supercharger.
(Edit: Everything below assumes updates are made to vehicles via an OTA software update to support the needs of the adapter design.)
Now, my idea for a better solution.... the hacker in me would make an adapter that could be powered by the car, despite the car not having a straightforward way to power the adapter. So, if I were on Tesla's dev team for making such an adapter, here's what I'd do:
Make the adapter detectable by all of the current charger/chargeport hardware passively. This could be done with a non-standard resistance across the pilot/prox pins to ground while the adapter is "inert". Worst case, this could just be made a user-imitated "CCS Adapter" button somewhere in the UI, but should be doable without such a kludge.
Once the adapter is detected, the car shuts down all high voltage systems, opens the main contactors, waits a moment for the system to settle, then closes the fast charge contactors, closes the negative contactor, and pulses the precharge relay with a super small cycle time. This would provide a very small amount of DC power directly to the charge port, and could be monitored by the BMS to ensure the voltage never reaches an unsafe level (~<60VDC or so). The capacitors in the HV system (motors, DCDC, charger, etc) ensure that the voltage doesn't ramp too quickly, and they have self-discharge circuitry for safety, anyway.
Assuming our newly designed CCS adapter is connected, it should have a small amount of power to work with now, enough to initiate some SWCAN communication with the BMS to say, "I'm here! It's me, a real adapter, I promise! Thanks for the juice! Everything looks good! What next boss? I can stay awake for another X seconds before I'll need some more juice."
If done really well, this could be pulled off without any contactors inside the adapter itself, although it would require that the adapter perform the CCS handshaking and such with very little power to work with, which would be tricky. I figure such an adapter could be made a similar size/style as the CHAdeMO adapter, maybe a little chunkier, though, if it needed a set of contactors.
(Edit: I'll note, that if this adapter didn't have contactors, the car would likely be deprived of HV auxilary power for a somewhat extended period... like 20-90 seconds, I'd venture, without things like HVAC possible. So, an adapter with its own contactors probably makes the most sense overall.)
@tesla - I do contract work.
Long story short, existing Model S/X folks are NOT getting a passive CCS adapter like the one we've seen photos of for the Model 3.
The little bits I've seen on the EU CCS adapter suggested it is a dumb adapter with all of the signal management and any conversion done by hardware on the car side.
I'm not sure if legacy S and X cars have the physical capacity to read the PLC based CCS signals, though, which might be why they'd need a hardware update...
Then he'd be under an NDA, and we'd lose a lot insight into how the car works.
But I'm sure he could contribute a lot of useful things to the cars, too.
RTPEV
Active Member
I'm not seeing how this setup helps here (and I'm definitely not seeing it if I can presume that you can always reverse into a spot if needed, which is pretty much how we have to use Superchargers ALL the time, for most Superchargers anyway)
I think what you're saying is that if you pull into one of the spots and your charge port is near the rear of the vehicle, but the charger facing the spot has the charger located in towards the front of the spot, that you can just use the other charger (facing the adjacent spot) because it's physically located near the rear of the spot (if you pulled in forward). I'd have to go back to this site and see if that really buys you anything.
I will say that I have also seen an EA installation where the two charging station pedestals were back to back in the exact middle of the parking spot (equally reaching both front and rear of the vehicle), but otherwise the same as I've shown above, and that even takes away the above theory.
Eno Deb
Active Member
Not questioning your technical analysis, but the leaked pictures we saw clearly show the European CCS adapter in a Model S (Model 3 obviously wouldn't make sense in Europe).
The European S & X have new charger-related option codes so they are most likely being built with the necessary internal CCS hardware. Tesla already stated that existing European S & X would require a hardware upgrade (before being able to use the passive adapter).
Eno Deb
Active Member
@MP3Mike is correct. The EA site says this:
"The dual charging cables are not designed to charge two vehicles at the same time, but rather to easily reach your car’s charging port—no matter where it’s located."
I think it's not just about reach but to avoid having to loop the stiff cable around the corner of the car in case the charge port is on the "wrong" side.
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