Europe: Future Charging for Model S 1-phase or 3-phase? (Part 2)

[stopcrazypp]

By the way, this link indicates that the Chameleon charger also supports single phase up to 32 A - quite good and good enough in its home market, but less than half of the reductive charger. It's just a personal blog, though, so it might be incorrect. *edit* Rereading it, it looks likely to be just speculation. Is there any definitive info on the maximum single phase power of the Chameleon charger yet?

That was also what I was wondering. Single phase charging power might be the Achilles heel of the Chameleon charger. From the following thread, it seems the fastest single phase EVSE they offer is 7kW, but it's not clear if the charger can handle more. It might be able to since the max 3 phase charging current is 63A and if you convert that over to 230V single phase that's about 15kW.
http://www.renaultzeforum.com/forums/Thread-Charging-Options

I don't think motor winding overheating should be a problem for a liquid cooled motor. If so, the system is too inefficient anyway.

It's not a necessarily a real problem (although in the Roadster maybe it is, since that was an air cooled motor, plus even with a liquid cooled system there is much less air flow when the car is stationary), it's likely less efficient to have to use motor cooling. A dedicated charger would have a cooling circuit designed specifically for stationary usage and sized appropriately for the application.

 

[dpeilow]

It's not really an achilles heel as anything over 32A really should be three phase. Only Tesla's HPCs go above that here.

 

[widodh]

stopcrazypp: Thanks for that link, there are multiple good links in that thread.

A patent has to be fairly specific, so there might be ways to get around them, particularly as one is three phase and the other is single phase.

One big difference between ACP's and Renault's situations is that three phase is very widespread in Renaults home market and does not require anywhere near as large inductors in the rectifier. So reusing the motor as an inductor is less important in Renault's case. If Renault also uses the motor as an inductor, then the current through it is likely to be much smaller per kW output when charging from three phase. ACP didn't have that advantage.

By the way, this link indicates that the Chameleon charger also supports single phase up to 32 A - quite good and good enough in its home market, but less than half of the reductive charger. It's just a personal blog, though, so it might be incorrect. *edit* Rereading it, it looks likely to be just speculation. Is there any definitive info on the maximum single phase power of the Chameleon charger yet?

I don't think motor winding overheating should be a problem for a liquid cooled motor. If so, the system is too inefficient anyway.

I think the ZOE does 16A single-phase, that's what I understand.

But other news. My rep told me that during the test drives in Antwerp (7 - 10 Feb) we should be driving in cars with 3-phase charging. So we might see the connector and all.

He told me the test drives dates about 4 weeks ago and he was spot on, so I'm assuming he's also right when it comes to the 3-phase charging. Let's wait and see!

 

[stopcrazypp]

It's not really an achilles heel as anything over 32A really should be three phase. Only Tesla's HPCs go above that here.

The Clipper creek charger and the J1772 spec in general goes to 20kW. But I guess it's kind of OT since I'm referring mostly to the US application (where 3-phase isn't really an option). As I understand 3-phase is widespread in the UK and Europe, so slow single phase charging isn't really an issue (as long as your house has 3-phase available and most higher power public charging stations are 3-phase).

 

[suxxer]

Model S Europe Chariging Port Confirmed

TM UK just confirmed, that the charging port for European Model S will be "Stecker-Typ2" (Mennekes).

That's good news - Typ2 is widely accepted in Europe and it offers 3-phase-charging! :love::love::love:

 

[LuckyLuke]

Very nice indeed. I am very curious how they plan to do 90kW supercharging with this plug though.

 

[Johan]

Very nice indeed. I am very curious how they plan to do 90kW supercharging with this plug though.

+1. I can't think for a minute they would sacrifice the 90kW since that's one of the real outstanding features of the Model S package. They must be using a 2x2 config with 45kW of DC over each pair of pins... Or as suggested by others extra deep inserts with extra long pins (only 2) for the supercharger.

 

[widodh]

Very nice indeed. I am very curious how they plan to do 90kW supercharging with this plug though.

Me too!

I just merged the thread from suxxer into this one.

How happy I am with this information, I'd suggest we wait with Part 3 of this topic until all the details are known. Like how SuperCharging is done and if it does 3x63A.

But still, great news! In a couple of years we'll be able to buy Type 2 cables at any DIY-store and that makes life easier. No stupid adapters (sorry guys!) or anything, just a normal cable which you can buy anywhere.

 

[jkirkebo]

How happy I am with this information, I'd suggest we wait with Part 3 of this topic until all the details are known. Like how SuperCharging is done and if it does 3x63A.

But still, great news! In a couple of years we'll be able to buy Type 2 cables at any DIY-store and that makes life easier. No stupid adapters (sorry guys!) or anything, just a normal cable which you can buy anywhere.

I don't see the advantage over a special Tesla plug. With a Tesla plug you'd get the Tesla-Mennekes cable with the car anyway. With a Mennekes port you get a Mennekes-Mennekes cable. What's the difference ?

 

[widodh]

I don't see the advantage over a special Tesla plug. With a Tesla plug you'd get the Tesla-Mennekes cable with the car anyway. With a Mennekes port you get a Mennekes-Mennekes cable. What's the difference ?

I doubt you get the Tesla<>Mennekes cable with the car.

But what if your cable gets stolen in the weekend? or gets cut in half? If they are at the DIY-store (in a couple of years) then you can get them there.

 

[jkirkebo]

I doubt you get the Tesla<>Mennekes cable with the car.

But what if your cable gets stolen in the weekend? or gets cut in half? If they are at the DIY-store (in a couple of years) then you can get them there.

You get the UMC with the car so I can't imagine them not also delivering the cable for the new European-wide charging standard with the car. Everybody would want one anyway. And if it wasn't delivered with the car I'd have to buy one regardless of the plug type on the car side so no difference there.

If my cable got stolen (it locks to the car so little chance of that happening), I'd just use the UMC instead on a regular socket until Tesla could overnight me a new one or I could pick one up at one of the stores.

The only reason I can find for putting the Mennekes connector on the car side is if they support 43kW AC charging. I find it very unlikely that that will happen, 20kW seems to be the target.

 

[Johan]

The only reason I can find for putting the Mennekes connector on the car side is if they support 43kW AC charging. I find it very unlikely that that will happen, 20kW seems to be the target.

... Unless of course they had to redesign the chargers from scratch to support 3-phase, in which case they may support 43kW, especially seeing how Renault and perhaps others will be competetion here in the EU. The trade-off may be that they go with the Type 2 connector as it stands today, with what Mennekes them selves call "DC mid charging" which uses two pairs of pins, for a total of 70kW DC. (All from Mennekes.de homepage). So perhaps in the EU you would get 43kW AC while only 70kW supercharging?

 

[jkirkebo]

... Unless of course they had to redesign the chargers from scratch to support 3-phase, in which case they may support 43kW, especially seeing how Renault and perhaps others will be competetion here in the EU. The trade-off may be that they go with the Type 2 connector as it stands today, with what Mennekes them selves call "DC mid charging" which uses two pairs of pins, for a total of 70kW DC. (All from Mennekes.de homepage). So perhaps in the EU you would get 43kW AC while only 70kW supercharging?

Renault uses reductive charging for the 43kW support, Tesla does not use that system (which would require an extensive reengineering of the motor electronics and paying patent fees).

Supporting 43kW would thus require a couple of Brusa NLG6 or equivalent chargers and I doubt they could fit a 22kW charger into the space now occupied by a 10kW charger. Also the EU specs currectly displays 10kW standard and 20kW for twin chargers so my money is on us getting just that.

Personally I'd much prefer to have 90kW DC and 20kW AC rather than 70kW DC and 43kW AC, if they build out an extensive SC network.

If Tesla bases their SC network on Mennekes plugs, how will they control access ? Tesla customers are promised free charging for life, but the stations would also work on other cars. With a Tesla-spesific plug it's a non-issue.

 

[widodh]

That's why we should just wait until they release the specs! I know it's hard, but I really hope they'll release them before the weekend.

 

[Johan]

Renault uses reductive charging for the 43kW support, Tesla does not use that system (which would require an extensive reengineering of the motor electronics and paying patent fees).

Supporting 43kW would thus require a couple of Brusa NLG6 or equivalent chargers and I doubt they could fit a 22kW charger into the space now occupied by a 10kW charger. Also the EU specs currectly displays 10kW standard and 20kW for twin chargers so my money is on us getting just that.

Personally I'd much prefer to have 90kW DC and 20kW AC rather than 70kW DC and 43kW AC, if they build out an extensive SC network.

If Tesla bases their SC network on Mennekes plugs, how will they control access ? Tesla customers are promised free charging for life, but the stations would also work on other cars. With a Tesla-spesific plug it's a non-issue.

Agreed, my preference as well would be as high a DC charging rate as possible. AC charging will be more for home/overnight charging where you have time. But 43kW AC would be a nice bonus, perhaps the engineers at Tesla have found a clever way to solve this within the physical restraints of the car?

With regards to the possible use of Superchargers by other cars than Tesla I think this wouldn't be a problem since DC charging over Mennekes isn't just plugging in and the DC starts flowing, there is quite some communication going on first between car and charger, and here the Supercharger would be able to determine whether it's a Tesla or other car connected, yes? Until someone hacks the protocol I guess.

 

[suxxer]

I doubt you get the Tesla<>Mennekes cable with the car.

Keep in mind:
Tesla plug is ONE PHASE only
Mennekes is THREE PHASE

This means there is no Tesla plug on the EURO MODEL S. There must be a MENNEKES PLUG on the car itself (i wonder if it fit inside the rear light).

Furthermore this means a MENNEKES-to-TESLA SUPERCHARGER is possible. Mennekes supports DC-Mid charge up to 140AMPS (Supercharger has 120AMPS)

 

[charliestyr]

Mennekes supports DC-Mid charge up to 140AMPS (Supercharger has 120AMPS)

I think the supercharger works at ~360V, and 225A, before it reduces as the battery fills up of course. Even 140A would be a lot less than this, no? In which case supercharging times would be doubled, which really reduces the practicality in my mind...

In order to get the full SC experience it would appear that a Tesla connector would also be required.. but that entails all sorts of problems of course. As has been said, I guess waiting for official word on the specs is only way to do this and remain sane! I have faith that their solution will be good, although I am somewhat concerned with this revelation re: typ2 with regards to the superchargers...

 

[widodh]

Keep in mind:
Tesla plug is ONE PHASE only
Mennekes is THREE PHASE

This means there is no Tesla plug on the EURO MODEL S. There must be a MENNEKES PLUG on the car itself (i wonder if it fit inside the rear light).

Yes, but there was discussion if there would be a "EU Tesla plug"

They have to re-design the rear light anyway for the EU (foglight), so they might have changed something there.

Furthermore this means a MENNEKES-to-TESLA SUPERCHARGER is possible. Mennekes supports DC-Mid charge up to 140AMPS (Supercharger has 120AMPS)

The SuperCharger goes up to 220A at 350V or something. 140A at 500V isn't enough to reach 90kW.

 

[jkirkebo]

Keep in mind:
Tesla plug is ONE PHASE only
Mennekes is THREE PHASE

This means there is no Tesla plug on the EURO MODEL S. There must be a MENNEKES PLUG on the car itself (i wonder if it fit inside the rear light).

Furthermore this means a MENNEKES-to-TESLA SUPERCHARGER is possible. Mennekes supports DC-Mid charge up to 140AMPS (Supercharger has 120AMPS)

When referencing a Tesla plug I'm thinking of an adapted three-phase version of the US plug, not the actual single phase US plug.

And the SuperChargers are 250A (not 120A, that's CHAdeMO) so with Mennekes DC-Mid you'd get (140/250)*90=~50kW or nearly the same as CHAdeMO. Way too slow. The theoretical 70kW comes from having a 500V battery which the Model S does not have.

- - - Updated - - -

The SuperCharger goes up to 220A at 350V or something. 140A at 500V isn't enough to reach 90kW.

Actually it goes to 250A@360V or so. Max battery voltage is around 385V but at that voltage current will have ramped down.

 

[arg]

Furthermore this means a MENNEKES-to-TESLA SUPERCHARGER is possible. Mennekes supports DC-Mid charge up to 140AMPS (Supercharger has 120AMPS)

No, the Tesla connector supports at least 210A for supercharging - see http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showwiki.php?title=Supercharger and the images linked from there.

The exact spec of the connector is uncertain - it has been stated that superchargers support up to 120kW for future cars, but current cars are limited to 90kW (and 90kW may be the power at the input of the charger rather than actually delivered to the car). However, whatever the ultimate limit, current cars have been seen charging at over 210A - 50% more than Mennenkes "DC-Mid" and even marginally more than 'DC-High".

For people comparing kW rather than Amps, it's not accurate to represent DC-Mid as '70kW' (nor DC-High as '100kW') by multiplying the max current by the max voltage. In actual usage, the voltage will be determined by the battery (around 360V for Model S), so a Model S won't be able to draw more than about 50kW through a Mennekes DC-Mid (or 75kW through a DC-High).

Even if you built a car with the battery specially optimised to fit the parameters of the Mennenkes connector you still won't manage that theoretical maximum, since the battery can only be charged at max current when it is less than 100% charged - hence the voltage will be less when charging at peak current, or the current will be less when charging close to 100% full.