CCS slower than molasses?

[Gigaron]

My 2020 MY AWD LR says it supports CCS. There is a nearby Mercedes dealer with free Chargepoint CCS chargers @ 62 kW. I have tried it 3 times using the CCS adaptor from Tesla. The last two times I set my 2020 MY to go to a Supercharger to pre-condition the battery.

No matter what, the car charges about a mile a minute -- much slower than it does at home with my Wall Charger. Ambient temperature was 62 degrees. I am looking for troubleshooting / suggestions please.

UPDATE: I took the charger photo after I STOPPED charging, so ignore the 0.

 

[RandyS]

Seems about standard for a lower-powered DC Fast charger. But what doesn't sound correct to me is when you say that you're getting one mile per minute at the DC FC and that is "much slower" than what you get at home from a wall connector. So you're getting way more than 60 miles per hour from Level 2 charging at home?

 

[srs5694]

In your screen shots, the station is reporting 0kW and the car is reporting 27kW. I'd disregard the station's report of 0kW and put that down to a software bug in the station.

The 27kW figure is believable, albeit disappointing. This should be much faster than your Wall Connector at home, and in fact your phone screen shot shows the car is gaining 113 miles/hour. If that's inaccurate, then it's conceivable that the bulk of the power is going into battery conditioning. Even though you tried to trick the car into preconditioning by navigating to a Supercharger, it's possible that it wasn't finished by the time you arrived. I don't know what the weather conditions were like when you did your test, though. (I'm assuming that San Francisco was spared the sort of unusually cold temperatures that much of the Midwest got just before Christmas.)

You might want to try again at a 150kW or faster unit that's a bit further from home, preferably on a warm day. Unfortunately, CCS chargers vary a lot in their capabilities and upkeep; it's not uncommon to find one that self-throttles to 30kW or less because of failures in temperature sensors or whatnot.

 

[Gigaron]

Seems about standard for a lower-powered DC Fast charger. But what doesn't sound correct to me is when you say that you're getting one mile per minute at the DC FC and that is "much slower" than what you get at home from a wall connector. So you're getting way more than 60 miles per hour from Level 2 charging at home?

My charger at home takes about 2 hours to go from 30%-88%. My math could be way wrong.

 

[RandyS]

My charger at home takes about 2 hours to go from 30%-88%. My math could be way wrong.

So, using 300 miles as a rough measure of 100% charge/range, you're saying that going from approximately 90 to 264 miles (which adds about 174 miles) can be done in about 120 minutes with home charging (or about 87 miles per hour).

I don't think that's really possible with a standard Wall Connector. On Tesla's website, they say the Wall Connector will do up to 44 miles of range per hour (that depends on the car as well as the electrical connection), so even at the maximum rated speed the wall connector can do about half of what you're thinking. Still a great way to charge your EV (at night when you're sleeping, etc.)...Whether charging takes 2 hours or 4 hours, it can be done in the background so you have a full charge when you leave in the morning...

Charging Your Tesla

Learn more about the variety of Tesla charging options that can accommodate your lifestyle and driving needs.

www.tesla.com

 

[Grabthar]

I wouldn't be surprised that the dealer is throttling their charger to avoid excessive demand charges from the utility. I know a guy who put in two chargepoint chargers (150 kW) at his business and throttles it for that exact reason.

 

[Tronguy]

Just speaking on charging rates: There's a 2021 MY LR in the garage. With a 60A circuit and a Gen 2 Wall Connector, it charges at 48A at 240 VAC; charge rates are around 40-45 miles of charge per hour.

CCS is supposed to be DC fast charging.. but there are pins are on the connector that also support AC charging. I don't know much about a CCS charger, but would it have a fall-back to AC charging (possibly at 208 VAC) if (a) the algorithms get confused or (b) there was something broken?

I mean.. 208 VAC @ 48A = 9.98kW; for a 280 W-hr/mile MY, that would be 35 miles of charge per hour. If it's a SR MY, with a max current of 32A at 208 VAC, that would result in a charge rate of 24 miles of charge per hour. Excluding any battery heating follies.

 

[srs5694]

CCS is supposed to be DC fast charging.. but there are pins are on the connector that also support AC charging. I don't know much about a CCS charger, but would it have a fall-back to AC charging (possibly at 208 VAC) if (a) the algorithms get confused or (b) there was something broken?

No -- at least, not in a technical sense. Most CCS1 plugs I've seen omit the AC pins entirely, so falling back from CCS1 to J1772 is simply not physically possible. I don't know the details, but I know that the CCS communications protocol is more sophisticated than the J1772 protocol. I don't know what would happen if a station did have the AC pins connected, started communicating with CCS, and then dropped back from CCS to J1772 protocols. That is, I don't know if a car would begin "talking" J1772 and accept a Level 2 charge. I've never heard of this happening.

That said, a CCS station could certainly throttle the charge rate, or simply be designed to handle only very slow (by DC fast charging standards) charging rates. I've seen entries on PlugShare for CCS stations that support maximum charge rates in the 25kW range, which is barely more than double the 11.5kW maximum that a Wall Connector can provide on a 60A circuit. When a car charges to 100% on CCS (or CHAdeMO or Tesla's proprietary standard), the charge rate drops quite low towards the end -- slower than most Level 2 charge sessions, in fact. (A Level 2 charge to 100% also tapers near the end.) This is done at the behest of the car, to protect the battery. DC fast charging stations can also limit their charge rate from their end -- think of V2 Superchargers with two cars plugged into paired stations, for instance. I don't know what sort of granularity or minimums are built into the CCS protocol, so maybe dropping below Level 2 AC charging speeds is possible from the car's side but not from the charger's side, but I'd be a little surprised by that.

In fact, upon reviewing @Gigaron's post, I don't see mention of the car's SoC. If it was high enough, it's conceivable that this was what was limiting the charge rate to 27kW.

 

[Gigaron]

In fact, upon reviewing @Gigaron's post, I don't see mention of the car's SoC. If it was high enough, it's conceivable that this was what was limiting the charge rate to 27kW.

the screenshot showed it started at under 32%

 

[tengtengvn]

Look at the number of kWh added. Your car got 10kWh in 24m. The number of miles added is wrong on the display, ignore it. Those Chargepoint CCS stations can have up to 2 plugs. Were both being used? If yes then the 62,5 kW is splitted in half.
Is that MB CCS charger open to the public?
I regularly use the similar ChargePoint station with CCS adapter. Without preconditioning:

 

[Gigaron]

Only 1 plug in use.

Tesla ran diagnostics and says that my battery was at 20 degrees and suggested that I precondition next time. I was navigating to a supercharger for 30 minutes and the car says I was preconditioning, so not sure what’s really going on.