Charged Mach-E at Tesla Supercharger via Adapter

[Mach-Lee]

Searched the thread for anything on theft of the adapter, do you have to stick around and make sure no one absconds with your adapter?

i have never used it but from what I read you can end a DCFC session with the charge button which should allow anyone to walk away with an NACS adapter. Do I have this right or will this not be a concern?

As others have said, anyone can walk up and unlock the adapter. So yes theft is a risk. You should plan on staying in the car while using it. Also because a bunch of Teslas will keep backing into the stall next to you until they realize you're using it, they could try to steal the cord back from you.

Which car scanner app do you use? Are you using Apple or Android?

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[Nolanbro]

I just took a trip from Buffalo to Poughkeepsie NY and then down to Arlington VA almost exclusively using the supercharger network. I've noticed the car seems to charge slightly faster on the supercharger compared to EA as for the same SOC the times were about 2 minutes faster, but there may be other variables contributing to that. Supercharger pricing was also WAY less than EA so for cost saving it was worth it. One of the SC I had to park sideways as the curb came up to high on the bumper for me to get close to it. (I don't have a picture of that sadly). One of the stations was magic dock but I just used my adapter as I didn't want to fiddle with the tesla app.

Some leaf owner came up and asked me about the adapter but I explained Chademo won't work but he said he's had EV's for over 12 years and that he knew more than me (clearly he didn't!).

 

[jpblincoln]

I used the Tesla Supercharger in Gettysburg with the adapter.

 

[ChasingCoral]

great writeup. I'm curious tho, the not being able to pre-condition en route to superchargers, is that only tesla superchargers?

The only way to precondition en route to a Supercharger is to have the Ford Nav navigate you to a CCS1 DC Fast Charger near the Supercharger. That tricks it into preconditioning.

From what I understand, Tesla will be making their super charger cables longer to accommodate non teslas at the chargers.

v4 Superchargers have longer cables. However, there are almost none of these around (and they are really v4 - 1/2 as they are v4 dispensers on v3 cabinets).

There is no indication yet that Tesla will put longer cables on the v3s.

I just took a trip from Buffalo to Poughkeepsie NY and then down to Arlington VA almost exclusively using the supercharger network. I've noticed the car seems to charge slightly faster on the supercharger compared to EA as for the same SOC the times were about 2 minutes faster, but there may be other variables contributing to that. Supercharger pricing was also WAY less than EA so for cost saving it was worth it. One of the SC I had to park sideways as the curb came up to high on the bumper for me to get close to it. (I don't have a picture of that sadly). One of the stations was magic dock but I just used my adapter as I didn't want to fiddle with the tesla app.

We've been pulling our travel trailer behind our Lightning an using almost exclusively Superchargers. Maryland down the east coast and across the Gulf Coast, now in Galveston, TX. The Superchargers work much better than any of the non-Tesla providers. The charger basically provides whatever the truck has asked for, making it a quicker charge. The handshake is also very fast, whether using Plug & Charge or using the Tesla app.

We have mostly used the Tesla app to get the discount.

There was an initial problem that after installation of the Tesla P&C certificate, EA stations would not P&C. However, Ford and EA worked out the problem within the first week. Now P&C works fine on Tesla and EA.

We've only had one charging failure at a Supercharger. The charge session initiated then failed after about one minute. Unplugged from the truck, didn't unplug the adapter from the Tesla cord, plugged back in, and it charged fine.

 

[zvez]

The only way to precondition en route to a Supercharger is to have the Ford Nav navigate you to a CCS1 DC Fast Charger near the Supercharger. That tricks it into preconditioning.


v4 Superchargers have longer cables. However, there are almost none of these around (and they are really v4 - 1/2 as they are v4 dispensers on v3 cabinets).

There is no indication yet that Tesla will put longer cables on the v3s.



We've been pulling our travel trailer behind our Lightning an using almost exclusively Superchargers. Maryland down the east coast and across the Gulf Coast, now in Galveston, TX. The Superchargers work much better than any of the non-Tesla providers. The charger basically provides whatever the truck has asked for, making it a quicker charge. The handshake is also very fast, whether using Plug & Charge or using the Tesla app.

We have mostly used the Tesla app to get the discount.

There was an initial problem that after installation of the Tesla P&C certificate, EA stations would not P&C. However, Ford and EA worked out the problem within the first week. Now P&C works fine on Tesla and EA.

We've only had one charging failure at a Supercharger. The charge session initiated then failed after about one minute. Unplugged from the truck, didn't unplug the adapter from the Tesla cord, plugged back in, and it charged fine.

thanks for the excellent update!!

 

[Nolanbro]

The only way to precondition en route to a Supercharger is to have the Ford Nav navigate you to a CCS1 DC Fast Charger near the Supercharger. That tricks it into preconditioning.


v4 Superchargers have longer cables. However, there are almost none of these around (and they are really v4 - 1/2 as they are v4 dispensers on v3 cabinets).

There is no indication yet that Tesla will put longer cables on the v3s.



We've been pulling our travel trailer behind our Lightning an using almost exclusively Superchargers. Maryland down the east coast and across the Gulf Coast, now in Galveston, TX. The Superchargers work much better than any of the non-Tesla providers. The charger basically provides whatever the truck has asked for, making it a quicker charge. The handshake is also very fast, whether using Plug & Charge or using the Tesla app.

We have mostly used the Tesla app to get the discount.

There was an initial problem that after installation of the Tesla P&C certificate, EA stations would not P&C. However, Ford and EA worked out the problem within the first week. Now P&C works fine on Tesla and EA.

We've only had one charging failure at a Supercharger. The charge session initiated then failed after about one minute. Unplugged from the truck, didn't unplug the adapter from the Tesla cord, plugged back in, and it charged fine.

That was something I noticed. In PA a lot of the chargers are 300A nominal cables with a "boost" to 350A which doesn't allow for the full 400A boost of the MME, however, Tesla can do 500A all the time. The no preconditioning was only an issue for the first stop, but I charged at an EV Connect station (Freewire hardware) so it preheated for that charger, but the charger only has 350A boost, so no peak speeds. The temps were around 40 so the battery was holding heat fine if I was only charging to around 55% and plugging in around 10%. If I went up to 80% it may have gotten too cold to take peak speeds right off the bat.

Does anyone have information of when the Ford NAV will have the Tesla stations in route planning? It has Magic Dock but not NACS stations.

I know Tesla is working on an extension cable but I honestly think the performance will be so throttled as there is no cooling measures, either air or water, so it may be limited to under 100kW is my guess-if not less.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Does anyone have information of when the Ford NAV will have the Tesla stations in route planning? It has Magic Dock but not NACS stations.

Ford is working on this but I don't know when we can expect it to arrive. Remember that there are two parts to adding them. The location and static details are the easy part. The realtime information requires Tesla opening a port into their station status. I suspect that's the holdup.

 

[bbulkow]

I know Tesla is working on an extension cable but I honestly think the performance will be so throttled as there is no cooling measures, either air or water, so it may be limited to under 100kW is my guess-if not less.

I have been wondering how either the car, or the charger, would sense there is an extra cable in the middle, and throttle? I didn't think there was enough smarts in these connectors? I can *imagine* the extension cable having a temp sensor, or even just a simple indication that it exists, but I think there'd be a lot of problems.

These connectors don't have a separate data path for connectors / cables, there's the data path from charger to car. The cable would have to insert into this path. ( The charger sensing its own cable is different and a lot easier, obviously - they can run whatever sensors and data through the cable, they don't have to deal with integrating with the CCS standard ).

I don't know much about the physical layer of the CCS data standard that NACS uses, but wikipedia says "power line", where Tesla (pre NACS) uses CANBUS. The CANBUS standard supports multiple transmitters on the same bus, but what about power line protocols? They do have to be multi-transmitter also? It's not a historically common set of protocols so I don't have intuition about them.

This all comes down to - if I'm right that an extension cable can't signal, then the cable will just have to be built burly enough to support our car's draw, which will be a challenge but not impossible - the cable will end up stiff and expensive, perhaps.

 

[johnmark]

I tried my new A2Z adapter at a super charger in Reston VA and couldn’t get it to latch to the Tesla cable so I moved to another stall and then it worked. So if it doesn’t latch you will have to move your car.

I had this same issue. I kept trying to fiddle with it and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. Finally I gave up and went to the next stall and it worked perfectly lol

But not before I injured myself :'(

 

[hartmms]

This all comes down to - if I'm right that an extension cable can't signal, then the cable will just have to be built burly enough to support our car's draw, which will be a challenge but not impossible - the cable will end up stiff and expensive, perhaps.

There is a whole thread about the Tesla and the A2ZEV extension cables. Our best guess is that it won't support full charging rates. Probably something reduced due to the lack of active cooling of the extension cable.

And if people were worried about theft of the simple NACS to CCS adapter, this extension cable would be definitely be a high target for theft due to the value of the copper in the cord.

 

[Nolanbro]

I have been wondering how either the car, or the charger, would sense there is an extra cable in the middle, and throttle? I didn't think there was enough smarts in these connectors? I can *imagine* the extension cable having a temp sensor, or even just a simple indication that it exists, but I think there'd be a lot of problems.

These connectors don't have a separate data path for connectors / cables, there's the data path from charger to car. The cable would have to insert into this path. ( The charger sensing its own cable is different and a lot easier, obviously - they can run whatever sensors and data through the cable, they don't have to deal with integrating with the CCS standard ).

I don't know much about the physical layer of the CCS data standard that NACS uses, but wikipedia says "power line", where Tesla (pre NACS) uses CANBUS. The CANBUS standard supports multiple transmitters on the same bus, but what about power line protocols? They do have to be multi-transmitter also? It's not a historically common set of protocols so I don't have intuition about them.

This all comes down to - if I'm right that an extension cable can't signal, then the cable will just have to be built burly enough to support our car's draw, which will be a challenge but not impossible - the cable will end up stiff and expensive, perhaps.

I almost wonder if tesla will have to do something similar to the chademo to ccs adapter where it's battery powered to "translate" the signal, but instead of signal conversion just have a hard amperage limit. We shall see!

 

[kodiakng]

I have been wondering how either the car, or the charger, would sense there is an extra cable in the middle, and throttle? I didn't think there was enough smarts in these connectors? I can *imagine* the extension cable having a temp sensor, or even just a simple indication that it exists, but I think there'd be a lot of problems.

These connectors don't have a separate data path for connectors / cables, there's the data path from charger to car. The cable would have to insert into this path. ( The charger sensing its own cable is different and a lot easier, obviously - they can run whatever sensors and data through the cable, they don't have to deal with integrating with the CCS standard ).

I don't know much about the physical layer of the CCS data standard that NACS uses, but wikipedia says "power line", where Tesla (pre NACS) uses CANBUS. The CANBUS standard supports multiple transmitters on the same bus, but what about power line protocols? They do have to be multi-transmitter also? It's not a historically common set of protocols so I don't have intuition about them.

This all comes down to - if I'm right that an extension cable can't signal, then the cable will just have to be built burly enough to support our car's draw, which will be a challenge but not impossible - the cable will end up stiff and expensive, perhaps.

the cable and adapters would be passive from a communications/signaling perspective. as long as there is continuity between the car and the charger on the Control Pilot both tesla's SW-CAN protocol and the PLC used by CCS and now NACS (aka HomePlug Green PHY PLC specified in ISO 15118) the signaling will work.

the major concerns are outside of the signaling with heat and temperature management in any extension cable.

 

[hack-e]

Ford is working on this but I don't know when we can expect it to arrive. Remember that there are two parts to adding them. The location and static details are the easy part. The realtime information requires Tesla opening a port into their station status. I suspect that's the holdup.

This was the perfect opportunity for Ford to add a manual pre-condition button to hold us over until they fully integrate it into nav.

 

[hack-e]

I have been wondering how either the car, or the charger, would sense there is an extra cable in the middle, and throttle? I didn't think there was enough smarts in these connectors? I can *imagine* the extension cable having a temp sensor, or even just a simple indication that it exists, but I think there'd be a lot of problems.

There doesn't need to be anything in the extension cable. If the extension cable starts to heat up, the Tesla Superchargers NACS handle will sense it. They will be interconnected metal to metal and connection points themselves tend to heat up quicker than the main cable part. Those handles are well known to be sensitive to heat and then derate the power from the dispenser.

Have you ever watched a Kyle Conner/Out of Spec cannonball video where he wraps a wet rag on the NACS handle? It was a common trick on V2 Superchargers and now he's been having to use it with the Cybertruck on V3 to prevent the disepener from derating.

 

[kindofblue]

There doesn't need to be anything in the extension cable. If the extension cable starts to heat up, the Tesla Superchargers NACS handle will sense it. They will be interconnected metal to metal and connection points themselves tend to heat up quicker than the main cable part. Those handles are well known to be sensitive to heat and then derate the power from the dispenser.

Have you ever watched a Kyle Conner/Out of Spec cannonball video where he wraps a wet rag on the NACS handle? It was a common trick on V2 Superchargers and now he's been having to use it with the Cybertruck on V3 to prevent the disepener from derating.

A bag of frozen peas draped over the handle would also work if you've got a cooler with you on your trip.

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