CHAdeMO adapter wait frustration

[Chipper]

Moving my post from elsewhere to this one per Mod:
'Seems like they are walking back the delivery date month by month.

I haven't followed the store website closely, but just noticed now that the CHADeMO adapter pictures are different that they used to be. Is that a recent change? Might be an indication that they have finalized design and will start production soon. '

What?? You thought "winter" meant some time between the end of December and the end of March?? No, you see, you got that all wrong. You have to compute "winter" in Tesla terms. :tongue: "Winter" just means the time of year when it is cold....in northern Alaska....or Norway. It's kinda like auto-lowering coming back in January (or BEFORE version 6???).
(Additional Note: All of this is written VERY tongue in cheek and with more than a modicum of sarcasm.) I absolutely LOVE Tesla, but their timelines...eh...not so much!

 

[tesltoronto]

It is June and no CHAdeMO in sight.

With the snail pace of SuperChargers, I cannot understand the delay. It is just an adapter, isn't it?

 

[markb1]

It is just an adapter, isn't it?

It's a very complicated adapter.

 

[ElSupreme]

It is June and no CHAdeMO in sight.

With the snail pace of SuperChargers, I cannot understand the delay. It is just an adapter, isn't it?

It isn't a 'dumb' adapter that is just a piece of copper that changes plug configuration.

It requires microcontrolers and other 'smarts' to read, adapt, and transmit complicated charge instructions. And with the amount of power we are dealing with they need to make sure it is right!

 

[dirkhh]

I agree, it's complicated. But the thread title is ironic, isn't it?
Tesla is just incapable of predicting launch dates.

 

[hiroshiy]

Even Japan launch is delayed (possibly) until August. So it should be available by then.

 

[PoweredByRain]

By the way, Tesla is already approaching 300 amps (400 volts * 300 amps = 120kW).

Approaching? The voltage is often under 400V, current significantly over 300 A, and that's at only 120 kW stations - the latest are 135 kW. Amusingly 135 000 is roughly 367 squared, i.e. 367 A @ 367 V is roughly 135 kW.

 

[3mp_kwh]

The guy launches rockets and we're making excuses for an adapter?

 

[iHenkka]

It's my first post. I'm getting my model s 85 (silver with creme leather) approx this week's Friday...man I'm excited! I live in Espoo Finland and we only have chademo and some 16A and 32A scattered around Finland. I have to drive often over 300km daily trips and I'm a bit afraid of the winter to come.. I'm so waiting for the adapter to arrive. Here's what I got from tesla as a reply a few days back:

"...Thank you for contacting Tesla Motors. The European CHAdeMO adapter is in the final stages of development and testing, however a delivery date has not yet been determined. Your name has been added to the waitlist and we will contact you as soon as it is available...."

 

[TexasEV]

The guy launches rockets and we're making excuses for an adapter?

I think the delay says more about Chademo than it does about Elon.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I think the delay says more about Chademo than it does about Elon.

Well, the poor implementation of CHAdeMO, with Blink being one of the worst. These units were all built thinking about a LEAF that will ramp down power fairly quickly, but the Model S could chug along for almost 2 hours at 47kW - 48kW.

 

[hiroshiy]

Japan delivery starts on September 8th with CHAdeMO adapter. So I guess US adapter will be ready very soon.

 

[Mayhemm]

Good luck, hiroshiy! Hopefully, you will soon be enjoying your car!

Fingers crossed against another delay...

 

[scottf200]

Japan delivery starts on September 8th with CHAdeMO adapter. So I guess US adapter will be ready very soon.

I suspect there will be a fair amount of user testing/verification before it is released world-wide. Only so much testing beta testers can do. With chademos all over Japan I suspect they will get used a lot and for long durations. Any problems with the chademo chargers will be identified and it being in Japan they will be very motivated to help fix them.

 

[hiroshiy]

@Mayhemm: thanks! Tesla reserved Grand Hyatt Tokyo Grand Ball room for the launch party so no more delays (>$50k).

@Scottf200: I'm willing to beta test but I heard Tesla charging engineer visited many CHAdeMO chargers in Japan to test, so maybe it just work flawlessly. Fingers crossed.

 

[kelvie]

I just got added to the wait list -- they had this to say:

Thank you for contacting Tesla Motors. The CHAdeMO adapter is in the final stages of development and testing, however a delivery date has not yet been determined. Your name has been added to the waitlist and we will contact you as soon as it is available. As for the price of the adapter, it will be $1000 for vehicles that are Supercharging enabled.

 

[wws]

Japan delivery starts on September 8th with CHAdeMO adapter. So I guess US adapter will be ready very soon.

It will be interesting to see how quickly Tesla rolls out some superchargers in Japan.

 

[mochouinard]

The problem of the delay is because of the 8 year warranty on the battery and no fault to the owner for damage. You can kill the Tesla battery in under 1 second. The car give you direct access to their battery pack. So if the external charger does something wrong, it might affect your battery ! So they are really worried at the current chademo implementation in the wild right now and they should be. Their adaptator is to make sure nothing wrong happen, but it a new world out there, so lot of testing is needed to make sure the fewest pack need to be replaced under warranty!

 

[Mayhemm]

Yes, there are apparently a ridiculous number of different CHAdeMO station types and station manufacturers (appropriate since CHAdeMO is a dinosaur of a DC charging standard)

Hopefully, Telsa is more thorough in its CHAdeMO testing that Volkswagen was with the CCS on their eGolf.

 

[tom66]

The problem of the delay is because of the 8 year warranty on the battery and no fault to the owner for damage. You can kill the Tesla battery in under 1 second. The car give you direct access to their battery pack. So if the external charger does something wrong, it might affect your battery ! So they are really worried at the current chademo implementation in the wild right now and they should be. Their adaptator is to make sure nothing wrong happen, but it a new world out there, so lot of testing is needed to make sure the fewest pack need to be replaced under warranty!

This isn't quite true. To destroy the battery you'd have to pump an incredible amount of power into it. You could short the Tesla battery pack and it would survive... the fuse would pop but the cells should survive that transient. Of course a continuous event could cause damage but the DC fast-charge contactors should open before the pack experiences damage. (Over-voltage, over-current, over-temperature, etc.)

Given the reports we've heard of Tesla's engineers testing CHAdeMO adapters in the field (one in Fleet, UK recently) then I'd guess they're just in the final stages of the testing to prove it will work on every CHAdeMO charger they can reasonably test.