Upgrade to Supercharger or just buy CHAdeMO?

[Wshowell]

Just read an old thread about someone selling an S40. The 40 battery didn't have Supercharger access I believe but could if: the owner paid to unleash the other 20Kwh making it a 60 and then paying again for Supercharger access. With CHAdeMO density growing wouldn't it be possible to just buy the CHAdeMO adapter and a cheap S40 and have a car capable of long distance travel? Granted, not as fast as Supercharging and not as convenient but a person could drink a lot of Starbucks on the money saved. I saw a 40 in S Cal a few months ago for under $40K pretty loaded but no one was touching it since it didn't have the 60 unleashed and Supercharging unlocked. For $500 that could've been an occasional long distance traveler IF the Chargers were 100 miles apart. Just curious if anyone knows if CHAdeMO has anything to do with Supercharger access?

 

[TexasEV]

The car has to be enabled for DC charging in order to use CHAdeMO. Not quite as expensive as enabling supercharging, but it wouldn't make any sense to pay to enable for CHAdeMO and not supercharging.

 

[Brass Guy]

You can see the cost on the Teslamotors website. $450 for the adapter, $1900 to activate DC charging. That may include the adapter, but is not the same as enabling SC. You probably still need to unlock the 60 first, I think the site used to say that.

 

[Wshowell]

Thanks for the responses. I didn't realize the upcharge existed for DC charging. Assumed it was just to offset cost of SC network and electricity usage. Interesting...

 

[grichard]

I suspect that part of the motivation is to discourage private-party sales of 40s. Because Tesla can change them to SC-enabled 60s for free if they wish, they have quite a bit of extra built-in profit when an owner trades in a 40 to them.