Tesla in the News

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

No, Tesla needs to start putting CCS heads on the superchargers and get off their ivory tower.

Ivory tower?

Tesla's installation of Supercharger stations is intended to support driving Tesla cars long distances. That has always been the intent of the network, despite a lot of misconceptions over the years.

Tesla's Supercharger network was never intended as a profit center for them, and there's no way Tesla could afford to build a CCS network to support every plug-in EV made by every auto maker. That will become more and more true as the years pass, with more and more other auto makers selling plug-in EVs.

Furthermore, Tesla has from the very beginning had an open invitation to other auto makers to join the Supercharger network, if they are willing to help fund building and maintaining the network. Any claim that Tesla has deliberately chosen an "ivory tower" approach, or that Tesla intended the Supercharger network to be a "walled garden", ignores that reality and that history.

Those who say Tesla should start charging enough for Supercharger use to make a profit at it, and open the network to use by anybody, fail to understand two things:

1. The "Tragedy of the Commons" problem, and how that would make the Supercharger network much less useful for everyone

2. The fact that Tesla doesn't have unlimited funds and can't afford to build Superchargers for everybody

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[Pushmi-Pullyu]

Teslas should be the universal EV.

Tesla's charging protocol to be the universal, true standard? That would be nice, but it's not gonna happen.

Let's not forget that Tesla was originally a member of the auto makers' consortium which developed CCS. Tesla only withdrew when it needed to "lock down" the design for the Model S; the consortium was dragging its feet and hadn't yet come up with the higher power protocol Tesla needed for Model S charging.

How different things would be today if Tesla had been able to use the CCS charging protocol for the Model S and every model it has made since then! If they had, there would be no question today about which charging protocol will become the true standard, at least for the U.S. and Europe.

I don't know if the CCS consortium, in dragging its feet on developing the protocol Tesla needed in 2011, intended to thwart Tesla's advancement, or if the delay was just a result of indifference; but certainly no legacy auto maker has shown any interest at all in using Tesla's charging protocol once it was developed.

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[bwilson4web]

No, Tesla needs to start putting CCS heads on the superchargers and get
off their ivory tower.

Tesla charges $450 for a Tesla-to-CHAdeMO adapter that is limited to 50 kW. I would have no problem with two, new Tesla certified adapters: CCS1-to-Supercharger adapter and a Tesla-to-CCS1 adapter:

1. Cost - EV owners who want to cross-network charge can buy access with a Tesla certified part. Tesla owners already have a $450 part to use CHAdeMO.
2. Safety - a properly design adapter should not 'smoke', damage the vehicle port, nor be a hazard in a worst-case, salt-water bath. For example, there is an EVgo charger on the first floor of a two story garage in Nashville and another subject to roadway splash. BTW, the Tesla-to-CHAdeMO adapter is so heavy it aborted one of my first attempts to use so I used a loading strap to take the weight off. Even at 50 kW, the adapter got warm.
3. Payment - Tesla has an integrated payment system keyed to the vehicle VIN and linked to the owner's account. Tesla adapters would provide the same service.
4. CCS1 has variants - Bjørn Nyland has documented incompatible CCS2 chargers and Plugshare has similar reports. I have not ruled out a CCS1 incompatibility with the high rates of BMW i3, charging session aborts even after payment is made.

The right answer are Tesla engineered parts that anyone can buy for those who want access. They can pay for the part and if there is a problem, send the part to the charger network provider for resolution.

Bob Wilson

 

[hobbit]

The CCS consortium wasn't necessarily dragging its feet, it was trying
to nail down a VERY broad-coverage design as the basis for their
golden V2G infrastructure vision. Which is still a long way off.
That's one reason CCS is so stupidly complex. If Tesla had gotten
on board with that promptly and considered their superchargers as an
INTERIM solution, the whole industry would be much farther ahead
by now. Instead, they pulled up the drawbridge and went on in
their insular fashion, and now here we are, where they'll argue that
it's too late to fund compatible development.

An adapter and a billing structure would be fine, someone just
needs to make the first move. Said adapter should probably
take the form of a box that sits on the ground, rather than hangs
off the inlet. Provide a loop to lock it to the car, etc etc.

_H*

 

[marshall]

Looking at this from Tesla's perspective, I don't see any point in adding CCS to Tesla's superchargers.

From EVgo's perspective, I think adding the Tesla plug make a lot of sense if you want to grow quickly and install higher power chargers that will actually be used.

Frankly, EVgo is looking at the sales numbers for the model 3 and the projected numbers for the model Y and thinking they would have to be crazy not to include a Tesla plug on their charging stations.

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

Good grief, the proposal for CCS was published in Oct. 2011. It's now eight years later. How long does it take to come up with appropriate electrical standards? It's not like electrical power is anything new; the great cities of the world were being lit up in the 1880s, and Westinghouse started deploying residential AC power (using Nikola Tesla's patents) in 1891.

I don't think I'm being naive when I say that electrical engineering isn't anything new, and there's no valid reason why a true EV charging standard, allowing for future generations of greater and greater power, wasn't settled years ago.

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[bwilson4web]

TECHNICAL

• Tesla connector cross section similar to J1772.
• Tesla connector proven to handle 250 kW in the field by owners.
• Tesla connector handles both AC (up to 80 A in some Model S) and DC, ~625 A.
• Tesla connector is ~1/2 to ~1/3 weight of CCS-1
• Tesla network all read vehicle VIN for automatic payment and billing
• Tesla DC chargers rated ~72-250 kW, 120 kW most common but many at 150 kW
• Honda has announced V2G device

Speculation

I have long wondered if our hybrid and EVs could use their power inverters as a bi-directional charger. Some 'glue' buffering to handle the noisy grid and then have full inverter power for either charging or PWM generation of two, high-power, sine wave outputs either 240 VAC or split, 120 VAC.

For now, my Std. Rng. Plus Model 3 has a volume where a front motor would go that I could mount a 12 V, pure sine-wave inverter connected to the 12 V battery. Put one output in the cabin and the other available in the frunk and I'd have both travel 120 VAC as well as 1.5-2.0 kW emergency and camping power.

Bob Wilson

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

I have long wondered if our hybrid and EVs could use their power inverters as a bi-directional charger.

I've read, Bob, that bi-directional charging requires a PEV's (Plug-in EV's) onboard charger to be bi-directional, which is more expensive than the usual onboard charger, and that's why most PEVs don't do V2G or V2H discharging. Also, if my understanding is correct, the onboard charger is a separate thing from the inverter.

Of course you're the engineer and I'm not, but I've read that from more than one source and I presume it's true.

Interesting that you're suggesting the inverter itself can be used as a charger. If so, then why do EV manufacturers waste money with a separate charger?

Bob, you might find this article of interest; it's too technical for my comprehension: "Bi-directional charger inverter: Combining multiple functionalities into one box"

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[bwilson4web]

I've read, Bob, that bi-directional charging requires a PEV's (Plug-in EV's) onboard charger to be bi-directional, which is more expensive than the usual onboard charger, and that's why most PEVs don't do V2G or V2H discharging. Also, if my understanding is correct, the onboard charger is a separate thing from the inverter.

As a separate part, correct.

Interesting that you're suggesting the inverter itself can be used as a charger. If so, then why do EV manufacturers waste money with a separate charger?

Grid power is pretty noisy from ordinary loads and near-by lightning strikes. There are a lot of transients that play heck even with power electronics. At one time, I had a spare, Prius inverter and was thinking of putting it in a frame housing with some glue logic around it as a bi-directional charger and sine-wave inverter. But since then, I've gone with a dedicated, natural gas fed, emergency generator for the house and my interest has wained.

From memory, it was ~18 kW for the 'generator' side and ~48 kW on the motor side which is the bi-directional inverter. Note that the Tesla Powerwall already comes with a bi-directional inverter and battery pack.

Bob, you might find this article of interest; it's too technical for my comprehension: "Bi-directional charger inverter: Combining multiple functionalities into one box"

It is a good approach but at a lower power levels than I would prefer. They are advocating it be used for ordinary accessories, not traction power. It certainly makes more sense than those 48 V systems. Not mentioned, providing 3-phase, 120/240 VAC means ordinary household loads can be use in a vehicle. Upgrade their electronics to handle automotive temperature ranges and a whole new market opens up.

Bob Wilson