Setec CCS to Tesla Adapter

[SageBrush]

If you accept that basic premise

Not in a million years. Companies define the scope of their responsibility or they would never get a product out the door. Unauthorized use is outside the scope of Tesla's responsibility. Otherwise every drunk driver would be submitting a warranty claim after an accident.

I appreciate your post, and in particular the clear writing. But your basic premise does not even pass the sniff test.

 

[Earl]

network protocol design and implementation. One of the most basic principles is that

Tesla has never claimed that their Supercharger is an interoperable network protocol. Quite the opposite, with the exception of using a Tesla adapter for CHAdeMO or J-1772, or NEMA plugs, they've always claimed that only Tesla products should be used.
Having professional experience making interoperable wireless network equipment, we always assumed it took 10% of your time and $ to make your product work. The remaining 90% of the time and $ went to making it interoperable with other products from other vendors.
Tesla has (wisely, IMHO) chosen not to invest in the interoperability work with CCS at this point. It also sounds like SETAC hasn't either but, instead chose to quickly deploy their products even though they can do harm.
Contrary to the monday morning armchair athletes, brain scientists, and rocket surgeons second guessing them, my experience is that most of what Tesla does is done for a good reason.
As far as suggestions of any evil intentions by Tesla to prevent you from using particular charging infrastructure:

Tesla decided that they don't want people using 3rd party adapters, either because they are imminently going to release their own version for sale

There is no incentive at all for Tesla if Tesla is making their own adapter anyways

This is a bit ridiculous as, since their beginning (and I've been a Tesla customer since 2006), Tesla has always made every attempt to enable their customers to use as many charging sources as possible. Name any other EV manufacturer that supports nearly every NEMA adapter or dedicated charging standard. The only standard they don't support is CCS.
Therefore, we can reasonably assume that Tesla would support CCS if there wasn't some good reason for not doing so. After all, it would benefit their customers greatly and take some pressure off of them by opening up so many more fast chargers to us.
Tesla used to tell us their reasons more. However, I guess they can't now that they're mainstream with so many of the aforementioned Monday Morning Armchair Athletes, Brain Scientists, and Rocket Surgeons, who selfishly grouse about every little thing that they don't like and often sue or blackmail with Social Media bullying.

 

[SageBrush]

As another pointed out, the demand for this adapter was driven anyways because Tesla dragged their feet on releasing a CCS1 adapter

I hope you are not excusing fraud due to consumer demand.

 

[holgerkruse]

Not in a million years. Companies define the scope of their responsibility or they would never get a product out the door. Unauthorized use is outside the scope of Tesla's responsibility. Otherwise every drunk driver would be submitting a warranty claim after an accident.

I appreciate your post, and in particular the clear writing. But your basic premise does not even pass the sniff test.

I was not talking about strict legal liability. That can indeed often be limited with legal trickery (forcing people into arbitration etc.), although keep in mind that Tesla does not just operate in the U.S., where this trickery is easier. Other countries, especially EU countries, tend to have much stronger consumer protection and do not take kindly to billion dollar U.S. corporations limiting the legal recourse of their citizens. You can expect very quick legislative or regulatory action in those countries if U.S. companies even so much as try to make the kind of argument you made.

Anyway, the real issue is who gets blamed by the public, and what the consequences are, in reputation, bad reviews, social media story lines and ultimately lost sales for the company. Companies simply cannot reject responsibility for problems occurring in their products any more by shifting blame onto others and hiding behind legal wording. If Microsoft servers all over the Internet crash because some hacker has reverse-engineered the protocol, found a flaw, and connects to the servers triggering a bug then nobody cares if the connections the hacker made were "unauthorized use" or if the protocol was "documented" or "intended to be interoperable". Microsoft gets blamed, and Microsoft is expected to do everything they can to fix the issue and assist in repair/recovery. Many companies were hit by this in the 90s and early 2000s. Most have learned their lessons. If Tesla really wanted the Supercharger protocol to be completely unusable by third parties then they could easily have done so by technical means. Just put a $1 crypto chip into each Supercharger with a hardware-based private key that responds to a PKI signing challenge from the car during protocol setup. Problem solved. Other proprietary protocols do this sort of thing.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I hope you are not excusing fraud due to consumer demand.

I'm just saying if the situation was instead someone using a third party CHAdeMO adapter and the same thing happened, there would be a lot more "the owner deserved it for not buying first party" reactions, rather than in this situation where so far this adapter (and its rebranded versions) remains the sole option if you want to charge a Tesla on CCS.

 

[Boeingpilot]

Bad news, Setec blocked since Tesla firmware 2021.24.4:

Only M3 or has anyone seen this on a MS?

 

[SageBrush]

I'm just saying if the situation was instead someone using a third party CHAdeMO adapter and the same thing happened, there would be a lot more "the owner deserved it for not buying first party" reactions

That is not the issue I am raising. I was talking about the response to fraud. This is a strange country, where entitlement is so engrained that it excuses fraud. Texas style affluenza is a lot more pervasive than I imagined.

 

[Earl]

Just put a $1 crypto chip into each Supercharger

Sure, adding that and about a thousand other things, then making them work reliably, are what costs the remaining 90% of the costs to make something interoperable. Have you tried to use an interoperable EV charger (EA, Chargepoint, EVgo, Tritium, EV Connect, etc) recently and had much luck?
How about other, cheaper options (with my TSLA investment $):
1) Remind all that it is "Buyer Beware" with 3rd party, extremely high power equipment; and that if they are caught using junk, it will void their warranty - -
2) If you find signs that they are using it, block it - -
3) After a few folks' cars get damaged, you quit playing Mr. Nice Guy and fixing charge ports for free. - -
4) Ignore the whining and let your wiser, faithful customers deal with the whiners on the forums. - -
I guess Tesla's already taken the other options. How intelligent. I guess I should buy more TSLA.
Besides, the crypto stuff is a bit overkill since cheap junk won't hurt Tesla's equipment any way. It is also a bit late to put that stuff into millions of cars and tens of thousands of superchargers that are already deployed. Maybe such measures will be added to future cars and superchargers.

 

[ccdisce]

Only M3 or has anyone seen this on a MS?

The Setec Adapter worked fine 2 hrs ago on my 2020 MS LR+ built Dec2020 delivered 23rd Dec2020.
SW was updated 2 days ago to 2021.24.4
Charged at EA Target and LaVista

 

[ccdisce]

Sure, adding that and about a thousand other things, then making them work reliably, are what costs the remaining 90% of the costs to make something interoperable. Have you tried to use an interoperable EV charger (EA, Chargepoint, EVgo, Tritium, EV Connect, etc) recently and had much luck?
How about other, cheaper options (with my TSLA investment $):
1) Remind all that it is "Buyer Beware" with 3rd party, extremely high power equipment; and that if they are caught using junk, it will void their warranty - -
2) If you find signs that they are using it, block it - -
3) After a few folks' cars get damaged, you quit playing Mr. Nice Guy and fixing charge ports for free. - -
4) Ignore the whining and let your wiser, faithful customers deal with the whiners on the forums. - -
I guess Tesla's already taken the other options. How intelligent. I guess I should buy more TSLA.
Besides, the crypto stuff is a bit overkill since cheap junk won't hurt Tesla's equipment any way. It is also a bit late to put that stuff into millions of cars and tens of thousands of superchargers that are already deployed. Maybe such measures will be added to future cars and superchargers.

Crypto SW can be added quite easily.
The Key-Code method of encryption is SW driven and has been in use for about 20 yrs.
Codes have been successfully hacked in the past , so new allgos could be required.

 

[AlexUA]

Here is how CCS1 looks like

https://imgur.com/a/2tVMsed

Here in Ukraine, we do charge US spec (mostly salvage) cars with CCS1 or CCS2 adapter, it works fine on fresh MS/MX manuf date from 02/2020 or M3/MYwith ECU replacement, rest MS/MX needs CCS retrofit (same as EU spec cars does)
CCS2 works fine with Tesla Supercharger (v3)
Can be a nice alternative to Setec

 

[ccdisce]

Here is how CCS1 looks like

https://imgur.com/a/2tVMsed

Here in Ukraine, we do charge US spec (mostly salvage) cars with CCS1 or CCS2 adapter, it works fine on fresh MS/MX manuf date from 02/2020 or M3/MYwith ECU replacement, rest MS/MX needs CCS retrofit (same as EU spec cars does)
CCS2 works fine with Tesla Supercharger (v3)
Can be a nice alternative to Setec

Care to share a link to where I could buy one?

 

[srs5694]

1) Remind all that it is "Buyer Beware" with 3rd party, extremely high power equipment; and that if they are caught using junk, it will void their warranty - -

I just searched the Tesla Model 3 manual PDF and I could find no such statement. The only mentions of things that could void the warranty were:

• "Do not use the Battery as astationary power source. Doing so voids
  the warranty." (p. 156)
  
• "Caution: Using Model 3 for towing before
  Tesla-approved towing components and
  accessories are available may void the
  warranty." (p. 185)

That said, I didn't read the entire manual; I just searched for keywords such as "void" and "unauthorized," so it's possible I've missed something that used different words. I also did not search any other references -- but I'd expect such a warning to appear in the owner's manual, not placed on a Web site with a link that reads "beware of the leopard." If you can provide a reference to where Tesla has warned that using third-party charging equipment or adapters will void the warranty, please do so.

 

[MP3Mike]

but I'd expect such a warning to appear in the owner's manual,

Actually I wound expect it to be in the warranty document. (Which is separate from the manual.)

 

[Xelloss99]

Another thought as to a possible reason this is breaking:

From the east European "passive" CCS adapter (NOT the Setec adapter), a few things are known:
-Model S/X manufactured after the European CCS2 adapter came out (with the new onboard charging that has both CAN/Tesla and PLC/CCS protocols) works with the passive adapter
-Model S/X manufactured before the European CCS2 adapter came out (only has CAN/Tesla and CAN/CHAdeMO) need the PLC/CCS2 charging retrofit
-All North American Model 3 (CAN/Tesla and CAN/CHAdeMO protocols) do not work with the adapter until the European (PLC/CCS2) charging circuit is retrofitted
-North American Model 3 with the European retrofit NO LONGER work with CHAdeMO adapters (only use CAN/Tesla and PLC/CCS)

Particularly regarding the Model 3, because North American Model 3 does not support CCS, and European Model 3 does not support CHAdeMO, Tesla will have to do something different than the current North American Model 3 and the European Model 3 do to support both the CCS adapter and CHAdeMO since they would get a lot of blowback if new cars can't use existing CHAdeMO adapters, or if old cars abandon CHAdeMO capability if retrofitted with CCS.
So likely they will have to do firmware modifications to detect a CHAdeMO adapter and switch protocols appropriately, either based on North American charging hardware (if it can be made to support PLC/CCS) - this would allow them to offer the adapter without a retrofit, or on a modification based on European charging hardware (detecting CHAdeMO and switching to CAN/CHAdeMO when detected) - in which case this will need a retrofit for all Model 3 and Y sold to date.

So now they have to explicitly detect if a charger is specifically CHAdeMO and switch appropriately. So what we might be seeing is that the new revised firmware detects something that isn't a Supercharger or CCS, yet isn't quite what they are looking for in the CHAdeMO adapter either, and they are playing it safe, hence the "incompatible charging adapter" message.
That it does this with current North American charging hardware "might" mean that current 3/Y charging hardware could possibly support CCS without a retrofit.

 

[wws]

Another thought as to a possible reason this is breaking:

From the east European "passive" CCS adapter (NOT the Setec adapter), a few things are known:
-Model S/X manufactured after the European CCS2 adapter came out (with the new onboard charging that has both CAN/Tesla and PLC/CCS protocols) works with the passive adapter
-Model S/X manufactured before the European CCS2 adapter came out (only has CAN/Tesla and CAN/CHAdeMO) need the PLC/CCS2 charging retrofit
-All North American Model 3 (CAN/Tesla and CAN/CHAdeMO protocols) do not work with the adapter until the European (PLC/CCS2) charging circuit is retrofitted
-North American Model 3 with the European retrofit NO LONGER work with CHAdeMO adapters (only use CAN/Tesla and PLC/CCS)

Particularly regarding the Model 3, because North American Model 3 does not support CCS, and European Model 3 does not support CHAdeMO, Tesla will have to do something different than the current North American Model 3 and the European Model 3 do to support both the CCS adapter and CHAdeMO since they would get a lot of blowback if new cars can't use existing CHAdeMO adapters, or if old cars abandon CHAdeMO capability if retrofitted with CCS.
So likely they will have to do firmware modifications to detect a CHAdeMO adapter and switch protocols appropriately, either based on North American charging hardware (if it can be made to support PLC/CCS) - this would allow them to offer the adapter without a retrofit, or on a modification based on European charging hardware (detecting CHAdeMO and switching to CAN/CHAdeMO when detected) - in which case this will need a retrofit for all Model 3 and Y sold to date.

So now they have to explicitly detect if a charger is specifically CHAdeMO and switch appropriately. So what we might be seeing is that the new revised firmware detects something that isn't a Supercharger or CCS, yet isn't quite what they are looking for in the CHAdeMO adapter either, and they are playing it safe, hence the "incompatible charging adapter" message.
That it does this with current North American charging hardware "might" mean that current 3/Y charging hardware could possibly support CCS without a retrofit.

Good summary - except that Euro Model 3s, and no doubt Ys, don't support the CHAdeMO adapter: CHAdeMO Adapter

 

[MP3Mike]

Tesla will have to do something different than the current North American Model 3 and the European Model 3 do to support both the CCS adapter and CHAdeMO since they would get a lot of blowback if new cars can't use existing CHAdeMO adapters, or if old cars abandon CHAdeMO capability if retrofitted with CCS.

I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, NA Model 3/Y owners would happily give up their CHAdeMO adapter capability if they could get a retrofit and CCS adapter for a reasonable fee. (Lighter, smaller, more charging stalls, higher max kW, etc.)

 

[Xelloss99]

I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, NA Model 3/Y owners would happily give up their CHAdeMO adapter capability if they could get a retrofit and CCS adapter for a reasonable fee. (Lighter, smaller, more charging stalls, higher max kW, etc.)

I would disagree with this opinion for people who already own the CHAdeMO adapter. People who bought the $400 USD/$530 CAD (or more depending on when it was purchased) CHAdeMO adapter for DC charging, and had it disabled with a software update would NOT be happy that their expensive adapter just became a doorstop, particularly if the only nearby charger is CHAdeMO only with no CCS connector. And it's not just the adapter owners, there are many club loaner or rental programs to lend CHAdeMO adapters for temporary use that would be affected by this, affecting many more people who would have wanted to loan one of these.
.
And I doubt that Tesla will give anyone who bought the CHAdeMO adapter a refund or free CCS adapter replacement.
This is also exactly what the people who bought the Setec adapter are experiencing now and why this thread has a lot of activity right now.

But this is likely a moot point anyways, since the actual CHAdeMO adapter still works on cars that have reported the Setec adapter as an "incompatible adapter" so (assuming this is not intentionally disabled and my theory above is valid, which may or may not be) the CHAdeMO compatibility would still be kept in this case.

 

[Xelloss99]

Good summary - except that Euro Model 3s, and no doubt Ys, don't support the CHAdeMO adapter: CHAdeMO Adapter

That's the very reason and premise of the post.

Particularly regarding the Model 3, because North American Model 3 does not support CCS, and European Model 3 does not support CHAdeMO, Tesla will have to do something different than the current North American Model 3 and the European Model 3 do to support both the CCS adapter and CHAdeMO since they would get a lot of blowback if new cars can't use existing CHAdeMO adapters, or if old cars abandon CHAdeMO capability if retrofitted with CCS.

 

[MP3Mike]

I would disagree with this opinion for people who already own the CHAdeMO adapter. People who bought the $400 USD/$530 CAD (or more depending on when it was purchased) CHAdeMO adapter for DC charging, and had it disabled with a software update would NOT be happy that their expensive adapter just became a doorstop, particularly if the only nearby charger is CHAdeMO only with no CCS connector.

Those people wouldn't opt to pay for the CCS retrofit and could continue to use their CHAdeMO adapter. But if they want CCS they would have to give up CHAdeMO.