Chargepoint Express Plus: First true Tesla Supercharger competitor 400KW

[TonyWilliams]

Tesla has asked ChargePoint to remove the Tesla plug from their display in Las Vegas, and that was done.

 

[Saghost]

It is in ChargePoint's interest to have an option for Tesla cars as there is a lot of them on the road. It's up to Tesla to play ball and actually follow through with their 'everyone can use our patents' policy. If they are really open, they would provide the specs for the Supercharger system so others can make their charging stations compatible for Tesla cars. No one is going to risk coming out with a commercial product that is based on reverse-engineering and hacking an undocumented system that operates at 120 kW or more. Let's see how Tesla is cooperating. All other charging standards are open and documented.

I'm more than happy to pay for a fast charger that is making my trip more convenient. I have done so many times using CHADeMO stations where no Superchargers were available.

As for faster charging than current SuC, I believe the second generation Model S/X will have that first and exclusive, not the Model 3. As it is now the Model 3 will already have similar specs and range as the Model S at half the price. No one would buy a Model S any more if it didn't offer a few exclusive features.

On reflection, I don't see any downside to Tesla, as long as they don't have to devote significant resources to helping Chargepoint understand the specification or troubleshooting Chargepoint's hardware solution.

It's not like Tesla is trying to make a profit off of all the people Supercharging. If folks use paid Chargepoint charging instead, it lightens the load on Tesla and reduces their costs, while possibly giving drivers options that the Supercharger network doesn't offer currently.

If having Tesla cords as well becomes standard on some of the major DCFC networks beyond the Superchargers, it means less need for adapters and increases the chances of another company adopting Tesla's standard.

 

[miimura]

> Chargepoint wants to use the Tesla plug/handle. And has one rigged up.

So they got one out of a wrecked MS, and the results are: ??
--

To make the pictured ChargePoint station with the Tesla connector, all they had to do is cut the cable off a Mobile Connector.

 

[MP3Mike]

To make the pictured ChargePoint station with the Tesla connector, all they had to do is cut the cable off a Mobile Connector.

Or just disconnect one from a HPWC. Which is probably more likely since it already has connectors on it...

 

[miimura]

Or just disconnect one from a HPWC. Which is probably more likely since it already has connectors on it...

The pictured cable is not as fat as a HPWC and their 30A station only needs a cable the size of the one on the UMC.

 

[JoRey]

To make the pictured ChargePoint station with the Tesla connector, all they had to do is cut the cable off a Mobile Connector.

I dont think its that simple, you cant just splice in a cable from a Tesla UMC. You have to be able to communicate with the car and have the car close the DC-DC contacts in order to fast charge. In addition, Chargepoint has liquid cooled charge cables (like Tesla) and they could probably adopt the same cable from the supercharger.

 

[lundse50]

Having additional charging options available will only help the proliferation of electric cars. The company where I work has free ChargePoint stations. Looking forward to having one that can charge my Tesla at a decent rate.

 

[JoRey]

Dosen't the Tesla Supercharger communicate in a similar war to the Chadamo standard? If I remember right the Chademo adapter converts the signal from analog to digital among other things. Assuming Tesla does not share the required information, couldent chagepoint reverse engineer a Chademo adapter and incorporate it into the fast charger.

 

[Saghost]

Dosen't the Tesla Supercharger communicate in a similar war to the Chadamo standard? If I remember right the Chademo adapter converts the signal from analog to digital among other things. Assuming Tesla does not share the required information, couldent chagepoint reverse engineer a Chademo adapter and incorporate it into the fast charger.

All DCFC standards involve the car and charger communicating digitally. DCFC necessarily requires the exchange of far more information than AC charging - the car has to tell the charger what voltage it wants among other things.

 

[Saghost]

I dont think its that simple, you cant just splice in a cable from a Tesla UMC. You have to be able to communicate with the car and have the car close the DC-DC contacts in order to fast charge. In addition, Chargepoint has liquid cooled charge cables (like Tesla) and they could probably adopt the same cable from the supercharger.

But the unit shown I believe is a J1772 AC charging unit - and Tesla uses J1772 signaling, just with a physically different plug shape with the same number of connections which all do the same things. All they needed was to match the plug.

Turning a CHAdeMO or CCS DCFC station into a Supercharger would be a much more involved process.

 

[Twiglett]

The biggest issue with Chargepoint (and all the others) is that all they have is a whole bunch of chargers - EVSE's for the pedants.
Chargepoint probably have more chargers in the US than Tesla, but they do not have a NETWORK.
The locations are not based the capability of any EV, they just stick the box anyplace a business asks without an overall goal.
So when these super fast charging options arrive, it will be a happy accident if it is useful to you.
Of course if that happy accident is close by then I'd choose it

 

[Saghost]

The biggest issue with Chargepoint (and all the others) is that all they have is a whole bunch of chargers - EVSE's for the pedants.
Chargepoint probably have more chargers in the US than Tesla, but they do not have a NETWORK.
The locations are not based the capability of any EV, they just stick the box anyplace a business asks without an overall goal.
So when these super fast charging options arrive, it will be a happy accident if it is useful to you.
Of course if that happy accident is close by then I'd choose it

This is where the VW judgement money comes in. What you said is certainly true of the networks now. I think the money VW is having to spend will make the future picture somewhat different...

 

[David99]

Chargepoint probably have more chargers in the US than Tesla, but they do not have a NETWORK.
The locations are not based the capability of any EV, they just stick the box anyplace a business asks without an overall goal.
So when these super fast charging options arrive, it will be a happy accident if it is useful to you.
Of course if that happy accident is close by then I'd choose it

ChargePoint is happy to provide their chargers to anyone who wants to create a network including government agencies. If, for example, Ohio (or any other state) decides they want to have EV chargers every 20 miles on all their freeways, they can talk to ChargePoint and they will make it happen. I'm sure that's how ChargPoint will market this charger.

 

[thegruf]

more high power charging stations - good
more competition - good
future proofing - good
unnecessarily big chargers - pointless today?

anything with faster charging capability than current charging of Tesla battery packs (with superchargers) is somewhat pointless until new generation battery packs come along that will take the higher charge rates.

My understanding is that the cell charging rate that is the fundamental limitation (and is evidenced also by the charge taper) and then all other components cables etc are sized accordingly. You could charge the cells faster but this would reduce cell life.
Doesnt matter the supply voltage to the charger - this just affect cable sizes and charging electronics.

xxxKW/7100 cells is the same current per cell whatever the voltage the charger operates at.

(note also that smaller packs (as fitted by other manufacturers) with less cells will have even less chance of benefitting from excessively large chargers, unless upcoming battery tech really is about to move the game on by an order of magnitude). So a leaf will still charge in the same time as now irrespective of the size of charger feeding it.

Something that has slipped relatively unnoticed into the news is Tesla new superchargers at 350KW iirc.

This surely implies either more smaller cells in the pack - unlikely given the move to 2170 or that Tesla have upcoming battery tech that significantly reduces cell internal resistance. Lower resistance leading to lower heating during charging and potentially higher charge rates subject to a bunch of other chemical considerations.

This has even more interesting ramifications as lower cell IR would make higher discharge rates possible too - more power available - woohoo

 

[Saghost]

Something that has slipped relatively unnoticed into the news is Tesla new superchargers at 350KW iirc.

This surely implies either more smaller cells in the pack - unlikely given the move to 2170 or that Tesla have upcoming battery tech that significantly reduces cell internal resistance. Lower resistance leading to lower heating during charging and potentially higher charge rates subject to a bunch of other chemical considerations.

This has even more interesting ramifications as lower cell IR would make higher discharge rates possible too - more power available - woohoo

Interesting speculation. I was just reading this in another thread this evening...

The 2170 total production, assembly, deployment and QC should be on the order of 30% less than 18650 per kWh at maturity. (The 30% estimate may be too low).

The non-format-specific recent developments are also useful to think about:
1. The gradually increasing silicon content in anodes (began with 90 kWh power pack) has been extremely difficult to achieve due to the expansion habits of silicon, but Tesla/Panasonic made it work with some clever doping, et al, and by all reports has been able to expand the silicon content in the 2170s. BY how much, to what effect, they are not telling so far. We do know that that alone can make energy density more than double;
2. The advent of stable electrolytes, some actually 'solid' greatly improves charging stability so has many virtuous effects among them;
2.1 reduced risk of thermal inconsistency;
2.2 easier, cheaper manufacturing;
2.3 easier, cheaper and better cell management;
2.3 potentially reduced charging/discharging cell voltage imbalance, thus allowing tighter operating margins.
3. Then we can add myriad of small chemical, process and operating improvements that Tesla/Panasonic have already achieved.

That all makes me think we might be underestimating the benefits of all those things grouped under the single topic of 2170. We also probably are underestimating the potential impact of the megafactory.

Thus, I fully expect to see Tesla move to 2170 exclusively quite soon. After all, going to Powerpack/Powerwall with 2170 first only makes sense if they are much cheaper than 18650. The equipment used for 18650 can be used by Panasonic for other purposes anyway, since that format continues to be extremely useful for very space-sensitive applications, but, as JB says, certainly not optimal for a BEV.

<snip>

So, despite my long-winded ways, I think Tesla/Panasonic have solved several serious problems more or less simultaneously. I do not think most outsiders have much appreciation for what they have done. Thus I think they're about to go all-out for 2170 for the near future.

Finally, Tesla advances in manufacturing technology are underweighted, I think. Probably their dramatic overreach on the Model X ("hubris", Elon said) has caused many people to be sceptical, justifiably so. Now we have a different story, the tesla industrial quality control in batteries started the learning curve. The Model S design taught large scale robotic deployment skills. Model X taught the limits. Model 3 will be the result of a decade of high intensity learning and will not repeat past mistakes.

IMHO much of the Tesla success story is "all about the cells". If I am correct we'll see the decade of experimentation producing near-magic late next year.

If I am incorrect I'll probably go in "thermal runaway" myself.

The two of you might be on to something. And Tesla isn't about to let the recent challenges from Audi and Lucent and Faraday Future go unanswered.

I don't know the exact timing, but I absolutely expect to see a P120T show up later this year to answer any doubts (and make half the P100D buyers rebuy another, faster and longer ranged Tesla). If it's also capable of 350 kW charging, that's just gravy.

(The T would be Trimotor/Triple motor - like the FF91, put three of the current small motors in the car, driving each rear wheel with it's own motor, half shaft and reduction box for ultimate traction control and torque vectoring. A motor on each wheel car can get just a little bit faster because the wheel that still has grip doesn't lose any torque when you have to pull back power on the slipping wheel...)

 

[Chopr147]

anything with faster charging capability than current charging of Tesla battery packs (with superchargers) is somewhat pointless

I was thinking this same thing. What EV could handle a 400kwh charge other than Tesla? OK I guess the charging stations can be adjusted for the Bolt, i3 etc...........But until legacy automakers decide to build them, they will not come

 

[thegruf]

I don't know the exact timing, but I absolutely expect to see a P120T show up later this year ...

Oh how I would love that.
I do get frustrated with my 85D - is it a diseasel questions, a P120T for Turbo would be sooo much better

 

[TonyWilliams]

I was thinking this same thing. What EV could handle a 400kwh charge other than Tesla? OK I guess the charging stations can be adjusted for the Bolt, i3 etc...........But until legacy automakers decide to build them, they will not come

No car can handle 400kW... nor is one planned, that I'm aware of. Trucks, buses, ferry boats, sure, over 1MW. But not cars.

The fastest that ANY current production car will charge on this ChargePoint unit is 120kW... with a Tesla. The same speed as a Tesla at a Supercharger.

The fastest charging proposed production car would be the Porsche MissionE, which would be nearly the same 350-400 amps that a Tesla can accept today (Tesla is 330-365 amps max), but at double the voltage. That means realistically it might actually charge at 250kW, and maybe as high as 300kW (400a * 750v), however I find both those figures very unlikely. I guess we will see in a year or three.

 

[bhzmark]

Tesla has asked ChargePoint to remove the Tesla plug from their display in Las Vegas, and that was done.

Source? If true it seems pretty stupid on Tesla's part.

 

[jbcarioca]

No car can handle 400kW... nor is one planned, that I'm aware of. Trucks, buses, ferry boats, sure, over 1MW. But not cars.

The fastest that ANY current production car will charge on this ChargePoint unit is 120kW... with a Tesla. The same speed as a Tesla at a Supercharger.

The fastest charging proposed production car would be the Porsche MissionE, which would be nearly the same 350-400 amps that a Tesla can accept today (Tesla is 330-365 amps max), but at double the voltage. That means realistically it might actually charge at 250kW, and maybe as high as 300kW (400a * 750v), however I find both those figures very unlikely. I guess we will see in a year or three.

Of course you are correct today. There is some serious effort underway to achieve charge rates and charger support much faster than those of today. We all understand that neither the batteries nor the charging infrastructure are capable today. I have been around long enough to remember when there was no:
GPS- "cannot ever work, huge waste to taxpayer money."
Internet- the very idea was inconceivable as it is today. When I first knew it it was DARPANET and was used as limited worksharing. When ICANN happened I did reserve my name as a .com, but I never thought it would be useful.
Li-Ion commercial production- 1991 the very idea was regarded as odd. I think the odd part is that they dropped out in 2016 because they could not keep up competitively..

... And so it goes.
Serious advances in energy storage for vehicles will come with entirely new technologies in addition to those of the present day. Tesla already has patents for combining supercapacitors with now-conventional li-ion. Obviously chemistry will evolve, nano-technology will help increase energy density, supercapacitors will exist in lots of flavors including "supercabatteries". These and/or other developments will transform capabilities. The only reason all this has waited so long to happen is that it is only after tesla that the notion of practical BEV's suddenly spawned major investments in new technology.

Can you disagree with any of that?