should I not get the South Korean CCS1 combo adapter?

[mbianchi]

I was referring to some as-yet-unreleased Chinese-made clones of Tesla's CCS1 adapter, as described by @Chrushev. The A2Z adapter is entirely different.

That said, the A2Z adapter, like the Ukrainian-made CCS1 adapter that's now impossible to obtain new because of the war, lacks a means to lock the CCS1 plug to the adapter. My understanding is that this is a violation of the CCS1 specification, and it's similar in that respect to the Setec CCS1 adapter, which Tesla has been in a whack-a-mole game with to disable the adapter; Tesla has done so two or three times, and Setec has updated their firmware to get around Tesla's blocking it. (Setec's adapter is active and spoof's Tesla's CHAdeMO adapter, which makes it vulnerable to Tesla disabling it. In the last round, Tesla didn't fully disable the adapter, just displayed a warning message on the car's screen, so the two companies may have settled into a sort of detente.) The ability to lock the adapter to the CCS1 plug is a safety feature, but I've seen differing opinions as to how important it is, since there are other safety features that should prevent problems even if the locking feature is broken or absent. As we're talking about very high voltages and currents, though, it's disappointing that A2Z didn't implement such a lock in their design. I can't speak to the quality of the design in terms of the build quality, conductor sizes, etc. Those are the hidden characteristics I'd be concerned with in the case of Chinese clones of Tesla's adapter. Based on @Chrushev's description, it sounds like the Chinese clone he's seen at least includes a Tesla-esque locking tab.

Good points but I have some arguments as well. I spent the whole weekend studying my Tesla original adapter, watching some videos and studying what A2Z came with. The safety pin on the Tesla adapter is not essential for the charging process. It adds a layer of safety to prevent the CCS plug from being removed from the adapter. That saying, I’ve went to a couple charging stations and all of them have the same safety measure. When pressing the release button on the CCS handle it stops the charging. That being said, if you have an oem adapter and your pin is broken, you can still use the adapter. This is mostly a reflexion for me because at first and like many others, I thought that there was some kind of switch related to the pin and when depressed it stopped the charging process. But no. I think the safety pin is not really required since the charging stations have their own security measures.

I know this is not comparable, but at least A2Z has the ability to lock into the handle. You can clearly hear the click. Also it locks into the vehicle when it’s charging, you adapter can’t be removed unless you have stopped putting juice into your car. Of course, there is place for some improvement and us as a community can help them. They have a great product, I tested it and been in contact with another member here, Julia. She shared with me some feedbacks, I think it’s going to be a real success. I told them about the safety pin and people talking about it, they said they will come up with improvements.

And as you said, I’d be more concerned on the Chinese clone as it looks like the original and they may cheap out on internals without people being concerned since some owners may simply think it’s the original

 

[Talmen]

I think there are three issues at play with this in the US:
1) parts and supply chain issues for having the adapter available with the likelihood of quite a few customers wanting it,
2) that US consumers tend to not read, and since some cars will require a retrofit kit to use it (and the parts and availability issue of those parts for the kit) leads to upset customers - invariably many will not read they can’t use it or be upset they have to get the whole retrofit, and
3) most service centers are already swamped with repairs and they just are not ready to handle any influx of cars that would want a retrofit.

Just my guesswork, so who knows.

I think your right. My thought is that on the online store during checkout, Tesla will do a VIN check and will query the car through its API to see if its CCS enabled. If not, the store will either 1) setup a service appointment for the charge port ECU retrofit and you'll get the adapter after the service is completed or 2) just not allow you to buy it until you have the correct ECU installed.

While that would be annoying for those owners that got non-CCS enabled cars during the part shortage, it would prevent them from getting an adapter they can't use and are surprised by that fact at a most inopportune time.

I think Tesla will have to do a bit of handholding with the CCS adapter roll out due to the fact most people don't read things. I nearly memorized the owner's manual before I even took delivery! It's surprising to me how many questions I see about aspects of these cars that are easily answered by just looking in that manual.

 

[srs5694]

Good points but I have some arguments as well. I spent the whole weekend studying my Tesla original adapter, watching some videos and studying what A2Z came with. The safety pin on the Tesla adapter is not essential for the charging process. It adds a layer of safety to prevent the CCS plug from being removed from the adapter. That saying, I’ve went to a couple charging stations and all of them have the same safety measure. When pressing the release button on the CCS handle it stops the charging. That being said, if you have an oem adapter and your pin is broken, you can still use the adapter. This is mostly a reflexion for me because at first and like many others, I thought that there was some kind of switch related to the pin and when depressed it stopped the charging process. But no. I think the safety pin is not really required since the charging stations have their own security measures.

AFAIK, this is all true. The issue is that, if a connector had no safety interlocks, pulling a DC fast charging plug out of its socket could produce a DC arc flash, which is potentially quite dangerous to the user, the car, and the charge station. As I understand it, CCS1 provides three safety features to prevent this from happening:

1. The car (or adapter) is supposed to lock the CCS1 charge cable to the vehicle so as to prevent it from being unplugged. This is typically done by providing a mechanism that restricts the latch from releasing when current is flowing.
2. When the release button on the CCS1 handle is pressed, a signal should be sent back to the charge station that will cause it to stop charging.
3. The signal pins on the CCS1 plug are shorter than the pins that carry the DC charging current. Thus, when pulling the handle out, if the previous two features fail, the signal pins will be broken first, and the charger should stop charging, much as in the case of #2.

Note, however, that I'm not an expert on the CCS1 protocol, so this description may not be 100% correct or complete.

The flaw that's shared by the Setec, A2Z, and Ukrainian adapters is that safety feature #1 is missing; the adapter does not lock itself to the CCS1 plug. Ideally, safety features #2 and #3 should work and prevent injuries or damage to cars or equipment; but of course we're talking about public charging equipment that gets abused on a daily basis, so it's entirely believable that safety feature #2 might not work as intended in some cases. I expect that #3 would be more likely to continue working as intended even if the CCS1 plug was damaged or failed in some way -- but as I say, I'm not an expert on this. Of course, knowledge of this issue adds another safety feature (#4) -- you as a user know not to try unplugging the CCS1 plug from the adapter until charging has stopped in another way.

Tesla's CCS1 adapter includes a locking pin that prevents the removal of the CCS1 plug from the adapter when it's in use; it is (theoretically) necessary to unplug the adapter from the car before the CCS1 plug can be removed from the adapter. Note the "theoretically"; I've seen some suggestions that this mechanism isn't 100% effective. It should work most of the time, though. According to @Chrushev, the not-yet-released Chinese-made clone uses a similar mechanism, which is good; but based on my personal experience with cheaply-made Chinese electronics, I'd want to see evidence that it's well made before I'd be willing to risk buying one, as I noted in an earlier post to this thread.

My own personal nightmare scenario is that I might plug in with one of these flawed adapters, walk off to eat lunch or whatever, and come back to discover that some unsupervised kid had been playing with the CCS1 handle on my car and been badly injured. The risk of that may be small, but if I'm trying to decide what product to buy, that small risk pushes me strongly toward Tesla's CCS1 adapter, or something else with a similar locking feature, provided I'm convinced that it's otherwise safe and well-made (with sufficiently thick internal conductors, etc.).

 

[spokey]

I think your right. My thought is that on the online store during checkout, Tesla will do a VIN check and will query the car through its API to see if its CCS enabled. If not, the store will either 1) setup a service appointment for the charge port ECU retrofit and you'll get the adapter after the service is completed or 2) just not allow you to buy it until you have the correct ECU installed.

While that would be annoying for those owners that got non-CCS enabled cars during the part shortage, it would prevent them from getting an adapter they can't use and are surprised by that fact at a most inopportune time.

I think Tesla will have to do a bit of handholding with the CCS adapter roll out due to the fact most people don't read things. I nearly memorized the owner's manual before I even took delivery! It's surprising to me how many questions I see about aspects of these cars that are easily answered by just looking in that manual.

I also read the entire manual prior to delivery. BUT, how much did I retain?

 

[avs007]

Not that it matters, but the pin by itself doesn't solve everything either. I was at an EA station, where the clip on the CCS handle itself was broken, such that it would not click onto my adapter. I still used it anyways, since it was the only working handle for the 350kw stalls, as the other ones would not work at all... So I just stayed nearby... From what I read, the clip breaking on the CCS handle, is actually a common problem. I noticed some charger brands, (I forget if it was ABB or signet), where the holster for the handle is garbage, such that most of the time the handle falls outs and bangs on the ground)

 

[Chrushev]

Chinese companies sometimes cut corners when cloning OEM products. For instance, in the 3D printer world, there are a series of 3D printer control boards from a UK company called Duet3D. These boards are expensive but very capable. As is common (but not universal) in the 3D printer world, designs were made available for free. Naturally, Chinese companies swooped in and began cloning them. These clones were very close to the originals; it'd be hard to tell them apart by visual inspection, except for text identifying who the manufacturer was. The Chinese clones, though, often used thinner conducting traces on the boards. This helped them keep costs down, but it also made the clones a bit less reliable than the original UK-made boards.

Of course, if you can buy a clone 3D printer board for $100 rather than $170 and the clone lasts three years rather than five years, you might consider that an acceptable trade-off; but if a Chinese manufacturer did something similar with a DC fast charging adapter and the result was that the thing overheated and turned into a melted hunk of plastic and metal that was fused with the car and/or the DC fast charging station, you probably wouldn't be too happy. I don't actually think this is a very likely outcome, since there are temperature sensors that should prevent it; but even if cost-cutting simply resulted in failed charging sessions (because of overheating, poor tolerances causing flaky data connections, etc.), that could be quite annoying.

Personally, I'd be willing to consider buying a Chinese clone of Tesla's CCS1 adapter, but only if I had some confidence that it was well-made. This confidence might come from knowing that the company selling it has experience making such products and a reputation for doing a good job; because of a tear-down review where a sample was sacrificed to determine that it was well-made; or by seeing multiple reviews by end-users who'd been using the product regularly for a long enough time that I'd expect problems would have emerged if the product was junk. A warranty would help, too; but all too often, buying stuff direct from China means you effectively have no warranty. If it's being sold through a well-established US distributor, then there might be a better warranty.

I agree with you, but I think in this case all the important sensing stuff is in the car and cabinet. Adapter is just a few inches of copper/aluminum wire. So if things go south either car or cabinet should detect it. For example if gauge of the wire used is not big enough that will translate to heat or voltage drop, both of which should be detected by both car and cabinet.

 

[ferventcoder]

Note you can buy the US adapter from Tesla now. Got mine today after ordering last week. They do make you sign in to ensure your car does not need a retrofit first before they let you purchase.

Thread for followups:

CCS1 Combo Adapter on Tesla USA Website

My buddy kindly shared this today: Tesla CCS1 Combo Adapter http://shop.tesla.com/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[3Volts2aTes]

I think your right. My thought is that on the online store during checkout, Tesla will do a VIN check and will query the car through its API to see if its CCS enabled. If not, the store will either 1) setup a service appointment for the charge port ECU retrofit and you'll get the adapter after the service is completed or 2) just not allow you to buy it until you have the correct ECU installed.

While that would be annoying for those owners that got non-CCS enabled cars during the part shortage, it would prevent them from getting an adapter they can't use and are surprised by that fact at a most inopportune time.

I think Tesla will have to do a bit of handholding with the CCS adapter roll out due to the fact most people don't read things. I nearly memorized the owner's manual before I even took delivery! It's surprising to me how many questions I see about aspects of these cars that are easily answered by just looking in that manual.

You called it…almost exactly.

 

[djec65fb]

Just got my US-spec CCS1 adaptor yesterday, the supercharger network has never failed me but its nice to have options.

 

[Talmen]

You called it…almost exactly.

I was thinking that too last week when I was looking at how the store page worked. I knew they would have to do something since most old cars and smaller quantities of newer ones didn't have the CCS enabled charge port ECU. I like that they strait up tell you if you have it or not in the store. If you don't have the CCS enabled ECU, you get a dummy button in the service section of the app called "CCS Retrofit" which I assume will become enabled once they start offering it in 2023. I bet that button, once enabled, is kind of a "shortcut" for scheduling service to do the ECU retrofit.

I ordered CCS adapter and it got here Tues. Haven't tested it yet.

 

[3Volts2aTes]

Wife will hit that button as soon as it appears… she is good at that. In the meantime I have a Setec in the trunk as an option.