Will the new CCS enabled superchargers have long cables?

We've seen the announcement that Tesla will open 3,500 supercharger stalls (probably new ones) to use by CCS cars and, announcing this in concert with the White House, will presumably receive federal money to do this. The question is, just how big an opening of the network is this?

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Standards and Major Progress for a Made-in-America National Network of Electric Vehicle Chargers | The White House

Made in America Policies and New Technical Standards Support the Future of the Electric Vehicle Charging Industry, Public and Private Actions Accelerate Buildout of National Network and Catalyze Manufacturing Boom Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced its latest set of actions aimed...

www.whitehouse.gov

In particular, none of the supposedly "leaked" diagrams of Tesla's "magic dock" -- sometimes depicted as a NACS to CCS adapter built into the stall which can be unlocked and used by CCS cars, and sometimes shown as a dual-cord stall -- show an ordinary length charging cord. All Tesla drivers know it can be fairly hard to get the Tesla cord into their car's port which is right at the rear corner of the car. No other car has the port exactly at that corner (or the opposite front) though the Lexus and Mitsubishi have it somewhat close, and maybe an e-Tron could pull it off with a slightly longer cord. Hyunda/Kias could use it if they parked half a parking space over which we don't want.

Tesla could, to be sneaky, keep their cord and say "we support CCS" but for very few cars. They don't care that much about the bad press this would bring. Tesla cords now use liquid cooling and you can't just stick an extension cord on them.

The expansion is not that much. Tesla has 17,000 chargers now and says it will have double that (34,000) in the same timeframe, so only 10% of their stalls will support CCS. These will presumably be only new installations, and possibly not all the stalls at a station to boot. There are some places like Oregon where getting grants requires having a 350kW station, which Tesla can presumably support with their new V4 supercharger which handles up to 1,000v.

The WH announcement talks of even more money beyond the $5B NEVI program being administered by the states. That program puts a lot of rules on stations which don't match the way Tesla designs stations -- and usually stupid rules, though a few of them, like support for plug-and-charge and exporting stall availability status to appear in other apps, make sense. Screens, credit cards and 150kW minimums at all times on 4 ports are mistakes that come from the government and lobbyists designing your charging station.

Tesla has many other avenues to discourage non-Tesla use of these 10% of their chargers. They will charge CCS drivers more, but they are also offering a $1/month membership according to reports which will bring the price down. Nothing would forbid them from giving power priority to Teslas (or members) except at the 4 NEVI stalls. And they could make only a few stalls support CCS, making the stations less attractive to CCS drivers. (If a station has 32 stalls and only 4 support your car, you may feel less inclined to use it.)

Or will they, as they have said they want to do, embrace the CCS cars -- give them good prices, make all stalls support CCS and put longer cords on all stalls, at least for a CCS cord?

"Tesla Supercharger" by Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine is marked with CC0 1.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail

 

[RubberToe]

The first site that opens and supports CCS will likely answer every question posed in this thread. Could be a short wait.

RT

 

[Darmie]

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Standards and Major Progress for a Made-in-America National Network of Electric Vehicle Chargers | The White House

Made in America Policies and New Technical Standards Support the Future of the Electric Vehicle Charging Industry, Public and Private Actions Accelerate Buildout of National Network and Catalyze Manufacturing Boom Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced its latest set of actions aimed...

www.whitehouse.gov

I don't care how they do it or even if it is done. What I do know is that's way to much of our d**n tax dollars being thrown around. 24.5 billion dollars is a lot of our money. Anyone else see this as being wrong? 24,500,000,000 is lot of zeros.

 

[Rocky_H]

or said all when I mean almost all.

As a frequent prolific writer, you should know that it is reckless and sloppy practice to be in the habit of using iron-clad, nuclear, absolute words like "all" or "every". Your habit and common practice should be to avoid using those words as much as possible, unless you make damn sure you are correct to use an absolute no-exceptions word like that. My dad was a published author of a few books and a university English teacher, so he taught me this early. The best habit is to use what are called "weasel words", like "almost always" or "most" or "generally". Then you can go ahead and say what you want without setting yourself up for people to have to correct your misstatements.

It's just good writing technique.

 

[MP3Mike]

I said they were trending to doing larger stations and not doing many small ones and that is the truth.

No, you didn't. You said they weren't doing any smaller ones.

I'm sorry if I have accidentally written 3 instead of 4, or said all when I mean almost all.

But you doubled down on the all and provided a source to back it up. If you had meant almost you likely world have said that before doubling down with a source, that you were probably hoping nobody would check. You only claim to have meant "almost always" on the third time after proof your first two claims were false.

Maybe that is what you were thinking, but we have no way to know that, we can only see the words you have written, and assume that you have accurately portrayed what you meant to convey.

 

[bradtem]

As a frequent prolific writer, you should know that it is reckless and sloppy practice to be in the habit of using iron-clad, nuclear, absolute words like "all" or "every". Your habit and common practice should be to avoid using those words as much as possible, unless you make damn sure you are correct to use an absolute no-exceptions word like that. My dad was a published author of a few books and a university English teacher, so he taught me this early. The best habit is to use what are called "weasel words", like "almost always" or "most" or "generally". Then you can go ahead and say what you want without setting yourself up for people to have to correct your misstatements.

It's just good writing technique.

Yes, that's why I apologized for the small errors in quickly written material. TMC's web interface only allows post-editing of items for a limited time. However, the core facts remain the same -- only around 10% of Tesla SCs have fewer than 8 stalls. This is online discussion with a limited audience and I apologize again for giving it less diligence. It is the overwhelming norm for them to build stations much larger than the 4 stalls of NEVI. While it might make sense to make a NEVI complaint station in a low-demand rural area with only 4 stalls, I don't expect that is their normal plan, but we'll see. (While they would not necessarily provision a 4-stall station with 600kW, NEVI will pay the extra cost of this, obviously, so it's not a big burden.)

I do actually like NEVI's devotion to getting stations in places where there are no stations. Because that's not a great business (truth is, very few fast charge stations are run as a traditional business) one can understand that subsidy money might apply to it. The business case for these remote stations is to make people feel they can drive anywhere, and thus sell more cars. This is the case by which Tesla built the SC network. However, it's not clear that you need to provision these remote stations for 4 cars to draw 150kW at the same time, and I expect it will add a fair bit to the cost of those stations. For example, I would consider making use of the spare wattage available at RV parks most of, but not all of the day, to put in a few 50-100kW stations in rural locations. There are RV parks almost everywhere and they have lots of electricity already present, though they often don't have a lot else, but it's a cheap place to put things. If these parks all had this I would feel safe driving all sorts of rural places. Then, as EV adoption grew, you would grow this (and find better places as the business case now becomes real and that funds the stations, not subsidies.)

 

[beatle]

Would be nice if CCS >> NACS adapters could be sold with a unique chip that could be paired to your Tesla account. These adapters could be short or long depending on what vehicle you intend to charge and where its charging port was located. When using a supercharger with the adapter, the chip would identify you and enable you to plug and charge just like a Tesla via the onboard chip.

If the cord is especially long, perhaps the charging amps would be reduced to account for the lack of liquid cooling in an adapter and the additional connection point, but I think the idea is plausible. Right now just being able to reliably DCFC a non-Tesla can be sketchy. The adapter would solve "incompatible" port placement as it would let people pull into a stall in a consistent way as a Tesla and route the cable to the port. It would eliminate the need to retrofit existing chargers. It'd eliminate the need to use an app to charge, and cords would not be cut or stolen for their longer length as they would be the EV owner's property. True, the adapter would be an additional piece of charging equipment to carry with you and wrangle when charging, but if I had a non-Tesla EV, it's something I'd be interested in.

 

[galimpic]

The Ioniq is actually on the right side, not the left -- this diagram is in error or refers to an older one with J1772 there I think.

Hyundai Ioniq Electric has the charge port on the left side, as shown on the diagram. Ioniq 5 & 6 have it on the right, as also shown. So the diagram is correct in this regard.

 

[mjwojtukiewicz]

We've seen the announcement that Tesla will open 3,500 supercharger stalls (probably new ones) to use by CCS cars and, announcing this in concert with the White House, will presumably receive federal money to do this. The question is, just how big an opening of the network is this?

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Standards and Major Progress for a Made-in-America National Network of Electric Vehicle Chargers | The White House

Made in America Policies and New Technical Standards Support the Future of the Electric Vehicle Charging Industry, Public and Private Actions Accelerate Buildout of National Network and Catalyze Manufacturing Boom Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced its latest set of actions aimed...

www.whitehouse.gov

In particular, none of the supposedly "leaked" diagrams of Tesla's "magic dock" -- sometimes depicted as a NACS to CCS adapter built into the stall which can be unlocked and used by CCS cars, and sometimes shown as a dual-cord stall -- show an ordinary length charging cord. All Tesla drivers know it can be fairly hard to get the Tesla cord into their car's port which is right at the rear corner of the car. No other car has the port exactly at that corner (or the opposite front) though the Lexus and Mitsubishi have it somewhat close, and maybe an e-Tron could pull it off with a slightly longer cord. Hyunda/Kias could use it if they parked half a parking space over which we don't want.

Tesla could, to be sneaky, keep their cord and say "we support CCS" but for very few cars. They don't care that much about the bad press this would bring. Tesla cords now use liquid cooling and you can't just stick an extension cord on them.

The expansion is not that much. Tesla has 17,000 chargers now and says it will have double that (34,000) in the same timeframe, so only 10% of their stalls will support CCS. These will presumably be only new installations, and possibly not all the stalls at a station to boot. There are some places like Oregon where getting grants requires having a 350kW station, which Tesla can presumably support with their new V4 supercharger which handles up to 1,000v.

The WH announcement talks of even more money beyond the $5B NEVI program being administered by the states. That program puts a lot of rules on stations which don't match the way Tesla designs stations -- and usually stupid rules, though a few of them, like support for plug-and-charge and exporting stall availability status to appear in other apps, make sense. Screens, credit cards and 150kW minimums at all times on 4 ports are mistakes that come from the government and lobbyists designing your charging station.

Tesla has many other avenues to discourage non-Tesla use of these 10% of their chargers. They will charge CCS drivers more, but they are also offering a $1/month membership according to reports which will bring the price down. Nothing would forbid them from giving power priority to Teslas (or members) except at the 4 NEVI stalls. And they could make only a few stalls support CCS, making the stations less attractive to CCS drivers. (If a station has 32 stalls and only 4 support your car, you may feel less inclined to use it.)

Or will they, as they have said they want to do, embrace the CCS cars -- give them good prices, make all stalls support CCS and put longer cords on all stalls, at least for a CCS cord?

View attachment 909352
"Tesla Supercharger" by Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine is marked with CC0 1.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail

If I am not mistaken they said 7500 chargers Elon Musk’s Tesla to open EV charging stations to other electronic vehicles

 

[bradtem]

Would be nice if CCS >> NACS adapters could be sold with a unique chip that could be paired to your Tesla account. These adapters could be short or long depending on what vehicle you intend to charge and where its charging port was located. When using a supercharger with the adapter, the chip would identify you and enable you to plug and charge just like a Tesla via the onboard chip.

If the cord is especially long, perhaps the charging amps would be reduced to account for the lack of liquid cooling in an adapter and the additional connection point, but I think the idea is plausible. Right now just being able to reliably DCFC a non-Tesla can be sketchy. The adapter would solve "incompatible" port placement as it would let people pull into a stall in a consistent way as a Tesla and route the cable to the port. It would eliminate the need to retrofit existing chargers. It'd eliminate the need to use an app to charge, and cords would not be cut or stolen for their longer length as they would be the EV owner's property. True, the adapter would be an additional piece of charging equipment to carry with you and wrangle when charging, but if I had a non-Tesla EV, it's something I'd be interested in.

Yes, though I expect Tesla to put software for plug and charge in the SCs and then a dumb adapter can almost do it. The adapter needs a locking pin the SC can control. And of course it is recommended ccs drivers use the Tesla app so they can watch their charge, pay and get warnings about idle fees, number of available chargers etc. So a billing chip is only needed for people who do neither.

I suppose one could even make a ccs to ccs "adapter" which just does plug and charge for older cars too. Not sure if it's worth it but it might be.

Hyundai Ioniq Electric has the charge port on the left side, as shown on the diagram. Ioniq 5 & 6 have it on the right, as also shown. So the diagram is correct in this regard.

In my searching I found the old Ioniq electric (to 2019) was left side (though not left corner, and again, it matters at some SC, but if you get the wheelstop right up to the wheel you should be able to do it.) But I think they only sold about 45,000 of those and the newer ones are on the other side. Hard to tell exactly.

 

[bluefxstc]

Forget the magic dock. Hopefully Tesla will just keep the NACS and require drivers who want to use a Tesla Supercharger to buy and adaptor with a long enough cord so the can park in the correct stall. Tesla drivers have to buy and an adaptor to use CCS or CHAdeMO, so why not non Tesla drivers? As MP3Mike's pic shows, most non Tesla EVs have the charge port in a position that doesn't allow for appropriate parking for charging at a Tesla Supercharger. If other EVs start to use Superchargers, it will be a mess unless you figure out the cord length and parking issue.

 

[bradtem]

Forget the magic dock. Hopefully Tesla will just keep the NACS and require drivers who want to use a Tesla Supercharger to buy and adaptor with a long enough cord so the can park in the correct stall. Tesla drivers have to buy and an adaptor to use CCS or CHAdeMO, so why not non Tesla drivers? As MP3Mike's pic shows, most non Tesla EVs have the charge port in a position that doesn't allow for appropriate parking for charging at a Tesla Supercharger. If other EVs start to use Superchargers, it will be a mess unless you figure out the cord length and parking issue.

That would be a reasonable plan but does not fit with the federal and NEVI subsidy plans which require direct support of CCS cars.

A more interesting plan for Tesla which they seemed to be thinking of but may have abandoned is to get 1-2 other carmakers to adopt NACS. Aptera said they would adopt NACS but now may not make any cars - we'll see.

If a couple of other cars adopt NACS (which they might do if promised direct access to Tesla SC -- I would definitely prefer a NACS car with SC access and CCS adapter to a CCS car.) they might then petition the feds to say, "There are two competing standard, and NACS is on far more cars, so your subsidy rules must not demand the less-used CCS "standard" just to placate those manufacturers." Of course, when the rules were created, only CCS existed as a mutli-manufacturer standard, so getting it changed once there are two multi-manufacturer standards could be a challenge.

If they won that, then they could just continue building SC with NACS, though the subsidies would require any subsidized station be available to all cars, which is reasonable. So they could sell or provide an adapter for them.

 

[galimpic]

In my searching I found the old Ioniq electric (to 2019) was left side (though not left corner, and again, it matters at some SC, but if you get the wheelstop right up to the wheel you should be able to do it.) But I think they only sold about 45,000 of those and the newer ones are on the other side. Hard to tell exactly.

Did you click on the link I provided? There is a picture of it on the left side.

 

[MP3Mike]

Forget the magic dock. Hopefully Tesla will just keep the NACS and require drivers who want to use a Tesla Supercharger to buy and adaptor with a long enough cord so the can park in the correct stall. Tesla

As @bradtem said, requiring a user supplied adapter would preclude any NEVI funding for those stalls. (Assuming that Tesla even cares.) We don't even know if the MagicDock will qualify for NEVI funding, as it requires a permanently attached CCS Type 1 connector. I would argue that it does not.

If a couple of other cars adopt NACS (which they might do if promised direct access to Tesla SC -- I would definitely prefer a NACS car with SC access and CCS adapter to a CCS car.) they might then petition the feds to say, "There are two competing standard, and NACS is on far more cars, so your subsidy rules must not demand the less-used CCS "standard" just to placate those manufacturers." Of course, when the rules were created, only CCS existed as a mutli-manufacturer standard, so getting it changed once there are two multi-manufacturer standards could be a challenge.

The FHWA has already declared NACS non-proprietary, and that it can be installed on NEVI funded stalls. But every stall has to have a permanently attached CCS Type 1 connector. Proprietary connectors appear to be completely banned from NEVI funded stalls with the current rules, not that I am aware of any. (Even CHAdeMO can only be installed in the first year.) Sure, Tesla could ask for the rules to be changed, but that would likely take a long time, and most funding would likely be spent before the change was made.

As it is, we likely won't see the fruits of the first year money until mid to late 2024. (Proposals accepted late this Fall, then the site selection starts, equipment is ordered, grid connections requested, transformers ordered, etc. It can take more than a year get a transformer and grid connection.) Tesla might be the exception, as they already have so many plans in process that they might be able to switch a site design to be NEVI compliant and use NEVI funding almost right away.

 

[sleepydoc]

As you know, it's work to get the Tesla to plug in.

just try it in the winter with poorly plowed stalls.

 

[bradtem]

Did you click on the link I provided? There is a picture of it on the left side.

Yup, I have seen a number of pictures of this model, but my review of them suggested it was discontinued, though I am not sure when. Anyway, maybe you can plug that in, maybe you can't, but are there enough of them?

If Tesla keeps their cable at the current length, the reality is a lot of CCS cars won't plug in. Especially not with an adapter reducing cable bend, I would fear. Maybe this one can, only testing will tell.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

If I am not mistaken they said 7500 chargers Elon Musk’s Tesla to open EV charging stations to other electronic vehicles

4000 are level 2 destination chargers.

 

[STS-134]

As @bradtem said, requiring a user supplied adapter would preclude any NEVI funding for those stalls. (Assuming that Tesla even cares.) We don't even know if the MagicDock will qualify for NEVI funding, as it requires a permanently attached CCS Type 1 connector. I would argue that it does not.

If the MagicDock is always attached to some part of the stall (either the end of the cable or the station itself such that it cannot be stolen) then it is permanently connected. Another way of permanently attaching a connector is what EVgo has done by basically permanently bolting a CHAdeMO adapter to the side of the stall and having a Tesla connector on the end of the adapter, and a port where you can plug in the CHAdeMO connector. The driver then plugs the CHAdeMO connector on the station into the adapter and then takes the Tesla connector and plugs it into his or her car. The entire assembly is permanently bolted to the side of the charging station so it cannot be stolen. But that works because the CHAdeMO chargers are relatively low power and do not require liquid cooled cables.

 

[pp61]

The first site that opens and supports CCS will likely answer every question posed in this thread. Could be a short wait.

RT

As you know they added CCS cables to superchargers in Europe and they were short versions. Many EV cars have difficulties to get connected or are parking on the "wrong" site blocking two charger stations (for Tesla cars).This was identified months ago when Elon opened up the superchargers. Newly installed systems still have the short cable. (Elon probably want all manufacturers to move the charge port to the same place as with the Tesla )

 

[jboy210]

Anybody got more details? Pictures I see show the cords in Europe as not much longer, so there's no way they can reach all the different locations on other cars that I can see. Do those cars just not use these Tesla chargers? Tesla had to open up due to European subsidy regs, but perhaps in the end few non-Teslas charge because the cord won't reach? Tesla can possibly argue it's not their problem, as I am not sure cord length is in the CCS spec, is it?

A number of the Superchargers in Northern Europe are the pull through variety which make it easier to accommodate front, back, left, right charge ports. Since people in Europe do not drive pickups, it is not uncommon to pull a trailer which is easier to accommodate with a pull through charger. Here is an image Bjorn Nyland posted of one such setup.

 

[MP3Mike]

A number of the Superchargers in Northern Europe are the pull through variety which make it easier to accommodate front, back, left, right charge ports.

Sure, but they normally still end up taking a cable that is intended for the other side, and as such they still end up taking 2 "Tesla" spots.