I just encountered charging incompatibility between my 2020 S and a gen 1 destination charger. I found an old thread from 2019 that addressed this but can’t find anything more recent (sorry, I’m new to the Forum and probably ignorant of optimal searching technique). Total ignorance from Tesla “charging experts” in customer service. Is it possible that Tesla has never solved this problem, and all “newer” S and X owners will be at risk of incompatibility at older destination chargers? Thanks.
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Destination charging incompatibility
- Thread starter Drlctrx
- Start date
Um. This is called waving one's hands, so don't trust it.
The Tesla/NACS connector on newer vehicles and superchargers speaks a protocol associated with the CCS1 connector. The protocol spoken is dead-on and matches standards.
Very early SCs (and Teslas) speak that same protocol but with some modifications. At the time the SC's and cars were built, there likely weren't any public CCS1 charging stations, anyway.
So, it's barely possible, I guess, that your 2020 S doesn't know the older standard. But my understanding was that any Tesla could plug into any SC and just work. The incompatibilities that are supposed to show up is when third parties, like Fords, GMs, Kias, and so on with spanking new NACS adapters/connectors try to plug into an older, modified CCS1 SC, but then can't talk, since those cars wouldn't know the variant.
Anybody got a different answer?
The Tesla/NACS connector on newer vehicles and superchargers speaks a protocol associated with the CCS1 connector. The protocol spoken is dead-on and matches standards.
Very early SCs (and Teslas) speak that same protocol but with some modifications. At the time the SC's and cars were built, there likely weren't any public CCS1 charging stations, anyway.
So, it's barely possible, I guess, that your 2020 S doesn't know the older standard. But my understanding was that any Tesla could plug into any SC and just work. The incompatibilities that are supposed to show up is when third parties, like Fords, GMs, Kias, and so on with spanking new NACS adapters/connectors try to plug into an older, modified CCS1 SC, but then can't talk, since those cars wouldn't know the variant.
Anybody got a different answer?
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Thanks, but this was a destination charger, not a supercharger - the same as a home wall charger. Tesla apparently replaced owners’ gen 1 home wall chargers when the owners acquired a newer S (or X, apparently) that was incompatible with their old charger. However, they have not done the same with businesses that still have gen 1 destination chargers. Someone posted in 2020 that they were actually stranded and had to be towed after reaching an incompatible Tesla destination charger on which they had been depending. It’s hard to believe there hasn’t been a solution since then, and this problem isn’t even acknowledged by Tesla. This is actually a legitimate source of range anxiety - not knowing if a Tesla destination charger in a relatively remote area will work with your car. Or not anxiety but disaster if one is not even aware of the possibility, like the poor guy who posted in 2020.
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ucmndd
Well-Known Member
Yes, it's not that. It has nothing to do with CCS - early Teslas don't speak CCS at all, which is why a hardware ECU upgrade is required to retrofit CCS capability on to old cars. Plus CCS is a fast charging standard, which has nothing to do with a level 2 wall connector.
It's an undefined and unresolved incompatibility with Gen 1 wall connectors and the MCU2 infotainment computer that was introduced in March 2018. I don't think anyone has ever figured it out, and Tesla never bothered to. But they don't play well together.
FWIW, I've never had a problem and I don't think this is a particular source of anxiety. I've driven 200,000 miles all over the western US - pretty rare to come across a Gen 1 WC these days.
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