Setec 30kW Tesla charger

[srs5694]

I recently noticed the following product listing on the Setec Power Web site:

20kW DC Wall Box Charger - SETEC POWER

Most popular DC Wall Box Charger offers 20kW power. A typical electric car with 24kWh battery pack may be charged less than 45 minutes.

www.setec-power.com

It's a 30kW DC fast charger with a Tesla (North American) plug. I suspect that internally it's a CCS charger with Setec's CCS-to-Tesla adapter built into the unit (with the circuitry moved to the main box to make for a more manageable plug), since Setec already sells similar CCS (and CHAdeMO) chargers. Obviously, at less than half the power of a Tesla Urban Supercharger, this won't be competing with Superchargers any time soon; but I can imagine some locations where its in-between speed might be reasonable, like at parks or movie theaters. It's also noteworthy because it is, AFAIK, the first third-party Tesla-specific charge station (EVSE or DC fast charger).

 

[Sophias_dad]

It looks good, but while they say its for charging at 'home', they also list the input voltage requirements:

Input voltage range 305-520 VAC (3 phase)

Might be just as well, since feeding 30kw via a 240 volt line would be 125A, and that's a really significant load even if you have 300 amp service.

 

[srs5694]

It looks good, but while they say its for charging at 'home', they also list the input voltage requirements:

Input voltage range 305-520 VAC (3 phase)

Might be just as well, since feeding 30kw via a 240 volt line would be 125A, and that's a really significant load even if you have 300 amp service.

Yeah, I noticed that, too; but their "applications" list looks more reasonable. Setec's site is clearly not written by a native speaker of English, and I think their marketing is a bit confused. That's par for the course for products from Chinese companies, in my experience.

 

[srs5694]

Poking around a little more, I see that Setec is listing a Tesla plug as an option for all their other DC fast chargers, which range from low-powered portable units up to 300kW models. It's unclear if the Tesla plug would support the full power output on the bigger units.

More broadly, given what cars are actually out there, it seems to me that most new public DC fast chargers with two cables in North America should provide CCS and Tesla plugs at this point. In practice, there may be technical and legal obstacles to this, but I hope those can be overcome.

 

[e of pi]

Poking around a little more, I see that Setec is listing a Tesla plug as an option for all their other DC fast chargers, which range from low-powered portable units up to 300kW models. It's unclear if the Tesla plug would support the full power output on the bigger units.

More broadly, given what cars are actually out there, it seems to me that most new public DC fast chargers with two cables in North America should provide CCS and Tesla plugs at this point. In practice, there may be technical and legal obstacles to this, but I hope those can be overcome.

AIUI, all are providing CCS, but Tesla's unwillingness to release their charging specs without a lot of strings attached (as opposed to patents--the dimensional and communications standards) is a major limit on others their chargers. If they'd made it more possible for companies like Signet, ABB, or others to have native >100 kW Tesla plugs on their stations as options, I think companies like EVGo, ChargePoint, or FLO would have been and would be installing them as split stations (1 Chademo, 2 Tesla, 1 CCS for a two-pedestal, 4-plug station?), even if EA might not, but since they can only get Tesla adaptors by things like hard-mounting a Tesla Chademo adapter, there hasn't been much interest in it. It's an interesting counterfactual, and will be even more interesting to see what happens as Tesla maybe does begin opening up their network, offering two-way adapters, and the possible national EV charging subsidies.