Likelihood of a CHAdeMO adapter for the Model S

[Ingineer]

I haven't yet had the time or a loaner Model-S to reverse engineer the Supercharger protocol, which is needed to build a CHAdeMO to S converter. If anyone in the Bay Area wants to loan me their S to take a trip to the Folsom Supercharger, that would be very helpful!

Yes, there are some awfully expensive connectors involved, though it does look like it might be possible to use one off a UMC for the S side. Tesla also will sell one in the form of a Roadster HPC adapter. Unfortunately the CHAdeMO inlet is pricey.

It's correct that there would be no need for power conversion, and most CHAdeMO stations can handle about 50kW.

-Phil

 

[saprolf]

A few month ago I had contact with an engineer at Tesla that is responsible for the construction of all car connectors. Due to the fact that now Tesla does not support the J1772e combo plug anymore they intended to support the CHAdeMo for the Japan roll-out.
The point is that he is now busy with the Mennekes EU IEC 62196-2 plug construction. This plug will be supported in EU as standard. Elon also said this at a meeting in Norway.
For the engineer I pointed out that we had 120 CHAdeMOs already in the US (at this time might be more today) and these Japanese stations are keep coming. I would wish to have this adapter earlier that later, because 50KW is 150% faster than my on board twin chargers. If someone gets better know please post here.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Well, did he say he was building a US adapter?

 

[ChadS]

A Tesla engineer said they intended to build one (as well as an SAE adapter) for Supercharger-capable vehicles about a year ago. I followed up with Tesla corporate to get confirmation; at the time they said Lars was not supposed to be talking about it and they couldn't comment, but they did confirm that they intended for the Model S to be "omnivorous" when it came to charging sources.

A few days later I was talking to a Tesla employee that said he had seen a CHAdeMO adapter, although it obviously wasn't ready for market and he didn't know when it would be.

Charging for hours at 30A next to a free CHAdeMO station is starting to lose its charm.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Stories like this and also another story I heard that the Model X development team was pulled off the Model X for about 3 months to fix Model S faults (I have no idea how accurate this story is), makes me realize just how much of a startup Tesla still is.

 

[highfalutintodd]

Stories like this and also another story I heard that the Model X development team was pulled off the Model X for about 3 months to fix Model S faults (I have no idea how accurate this story is), makes me realize just how much of a startup Tesla still is.

Screwups, lack of communication, priority shifts, product delays, strategy changes, and resource reallocation are hardly the sole domain of a startup. Ask just about anyone at any company ever. The seemingly better ones just do a better job of hiding it from the public.

 

[brianman]

Charging for hours at 30A next to a free CHAdeMO station is starting to lose its charm.

It never had charm to lose.

 

[stopcrazypp]

AA few days later I was talking to a Tesla employee that said he had seen a CHAdeMO adapter, although it obviously wasn't ready for market and he didn't know when it would be.

Well, the Japan Model S launch is in the second half of this year so they should at least have it in prototype stage if they want to release one anytime soon.

As for the other comments, given a year has passed, it's not likely to be accurate for the current plans.

 

[ChadS]

As for the other comments, given a year has passed, it's not likely to be accurate for the current plans.

My only other comment was that they said they were intending to give us an adapter. So if I am not misreading something, your take is that Tesla used to want to give us an adapter - but now even though they are building one they have likely changed their minds.

I didn't expect the adapter right away - but I very definitely do expect one. Not having one is why so few of my friends are considering the car - they see how ridiculously long my trips take, and they want to wait for the DC standards issue to "get settled" (an adapter would settle it). I love Superchargers and I am willing to wait for them to arrive on the routes they cover - but there are many trips I will never be able to take using only Superchargers, so the CHAdeMO adapter will always be a critical component to allow us owners to get around.

UPDATE: Us talking about it on these forums can never resolve this (at least, it hasn't after 600 posts in this thread :wink . Only Tesla can say whether they will build the adapter or not, so I am sending a message to corporate. I had been hoping that one of the last two announcements would give us some hints, but no luck.

 

[Cosmacelf]

FWIW, a Tesla employee, not in engineering, but who talks to engineering, told me recently that there are plans to make a US CHAdeMO adapter for DC fast charge. Plans can change, of course, and the info might not be reliable. But at least there's hope

 

[stopcrazypp]

My only other comment was that they said they were intending to give us an adapter. So if I am not misreading something, your take is that Tesla used to want to give us an adapter - but now even though they are building one they have likely changed their minds.

I'm not really saying they are changing their minds, just that whatever was specifically said back then likely doesn't apply after a whole year with no movement. Plus the message was never consistent. Early on, engineers had a negative opinion about CHAdeMO, but then you also had the corporate line that the car can charge anywhere. And then throughout this thread there's some reps that say there definitely will be a US market CHAdeMO adapter, but some that say there will not be.

UPDATE: Us talking about it on these forums can never resolve this (at least, it hasn't after 600 posts in this thread :wink . Only Tesla can say whether they will build the adapter or not, so I am sending a message to corporate. I had been hoping that one of the last two announcements would give us some hints, but no luck.

Definitely only Tesla can say. I'm actually not sure how effective repeat individual communication is (outside of the first contact just so Tesla has statistics on demand) esp. for a feature that never was a hard promise (CHAdeMO support was never advertised on the website nor to the press directly).

The way people got movement on 3-phase support was to have a joint letter that they made sure corporate got. And they made it abundantly clear it was a deal breaker (as in they will cancel reservations) and also cited examples why. Might be a bit late for that now as it looks like Tesla won't really be able to move the time frame any quicker than the Japanese launch. I guess the current thing is to wait for the Japanese version to come out (which seems fairly certain) and if Tesla doesn't release a US version then more energy can be focused then to get one here.

 

[brianman]

Definitely only Tesla can say.

And even that doesn't provide certainty. Sunshade? Rear console?

 

[PhilBa]

+1 brian. Fast growing companies often have selective amnesia about past promises.

 

[TonyWilliams]

With the impending Japan release of Model S, at some point they need to check to make sure their equipment works, right?

A little birdie told me that a certain DC CHAdeMO charger in SoCal pulled 35kWh from 6pm to about 8:30pm Friday.

Discuss.

 

[brianman]

With the impending Japan release of Model S, at some point they need to check to make sure their equipment works, right?

We have no data suggesting the Japan solution for CHAdeMO will work with North American vehicles.

 

[qwk]

With the impending Japan release of Model S, at some point they need to check to make sure their equipment works, right?

A little birdie told me that a certain DC CHAdeMO charger in SoCal pulled 35kWh from 6pm to about 8:30pm Friday.

Discuss.

Good news! Hopefully Tesla puts it up for sale soon, that should pretty much kill the frankenplug dream.

 

[cwerdna]

With the impending Japan release of Model S, at some point they need to check to make sure their equipment works, right?

A little birdie told me that a certain DC CHAdeMO charger in SoCal pulled 35kWh from 6pm to about 8:30pm Friday.

Discuss.

I sure hope that it was one vehicle that pulled that. Tesla releasing a CHadeMO adapter in Japan, the US and Europe would help put a nail in the coffin of Frankenplug.

 

[jerry33]

We have no data suggesting the Japan solution for CHAdeMO will work with North American vehicles.

Of course, we also have no evidence that it won't.

 

[jkirkebo]

I sure hope that it was one vehicle that pulled that. Tesla releasing a CHadeMO adapter in Japan, the US and Europe would help put a nail in the coffin of Frankenplug.

Well, 35kWh in 2,5 hours sure won't entice me to buy such an adapter...

 

[TonyWilliams]

Well, 35kWh in 2,5 hours sure won't entice me to buy such an adapter...

That was the total connect time. For any power source, you can simply multiply the rate of delivery over time to get the total kWh delivered. There's always going to be some losses, so for easy figuring, lets say 95% efficient (delivered to car versus stored in car).

CHAdeMO is currently spec'd for 62.5kW, or about two thirds of 90kW and half of the 120kW Superchargers. It's design spec is 100kW.

You can expect to typically pull 48kW from most CHAdeMO currently deployed. To "fill up / top off" would be just under two hours. A fill up at 90kW is about an hour, and obviously quicker at 120kW.

There's no rocket science here (even if the adaptor came from a rocket science lab).

You're absolute fastest "plan C" is 80 amp AC in the USA / Canada, at under 20kW with 90% efficiency, and there are virtually ZERO of those in the wild. Yes, I'm painfully aware of the more robust three phase options in Norway and the rest of Europe, however I don't expect the charger to output anything more than 10kW each, whatever the AC power source.

Just like any charging resource in the wild, you're generally only going to sit there long enough to get home (or the next spot).