Official Tesla Model S thread

[derkraut]

A Horse?!! My grand daughter has a horse. The operating cost/maintenance on a horse is higher than a Hummer or Suburban. Pollution? Well----at leqast you can fertilize the garden if you equip the horse with a "catch bag". :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[TomT]

"Tesla Motors has maintained that the most recent fire involving one of its Model S electric vehicles isn't the result of a vehicle or battery malfunction, but the company is still addressing the situation with a software fix, according to Green Car Reports. The California-based automaker has added a software function that automatically reduces the charge current by about 25 percent when power from the charging source fluctuates outside of a certain range, Green Car Reports says, citing the Twitter feed from an Apple employee, @ddenboer, who owns a Model S."

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/12/26/tesla-updates-model-s-software-precaution-unsafe-charging/#continued" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[DaveEV]

There's 3 cases of melted UMC adapters in the latest thread on the topic over on TMC started 3 days ago:

Melted Charging Adapter/Cord

The latest one claims to only charge at 30A on it - still melted.

This may not be the failure mode which caused the recent garage fire - but it still does not look good. And if it still melts at 30A, Tesla's recent firmware change to dial down current 25% if the car detects "voltage fluctuations" may not be enough.

I have no idea how they would identify abnormal voltage fluctuations unless they are able to do arc-fault detection, though. Lots of normal grid conditions may cause grid voltage to fluctuate.

 

[Zythryn]

There's 3 cases of melted UMC adapters in the latest thread on the topic over on TMC started 3 days ago:
...

Yep, this is caused when the contacts aren't solid.
If you bend a pin on the 220V adapter or don't firmly seat it you can have trouble.
I am not sure, but I would guess the voltage would drop if poor connections or wiring. The car detects the voltage level, thus when detected it can drop the amperage.

 

[GeekEV]

The formula for power dissipation is P=(I^2)*R. Since I is the current, cutting that by 25% would cause a significant reduction in the heat generated. I imagine, though don't know for sure, that if the software continued to detect fluctuations at the reduced level it would cut another 25% until things stabilized. Why wouldn't it?

 

[donald]

I can't say I have ever been filled with confidence on the current capacity of Tesla's plugs and leads. At one EV show I asked the guy attending with a model S how they could get anything more than 40A charging (from the 6mm^2 lead and 6mm (?) pins they were using) and he just shrugged and said 'yeah, fine, we run 180A through these'. :shock: Such cable has a 10s fusing current of 380A.

I think they work fine when they are fine. Once worn from normal use for a while, I think their plugs and cables may be under-rated for the application.

 

[Zythryn]

...
I think they work fine when they are fine. Once worn from normal use for a while, I think their plugs and cables may be under-rated for the application.

So far we have seen no evidence of that.
When it has happened it was either early on with a batch of adapters Tesla has since replaced, or loose connections.
None of the couple dozen Tesla owners I know have had this problem, and with 30k miles of personal charging it has not been an issue for us.

Sure, there is a failure rate, anything made by humans will fail. However, outside bad wiring and incorrect use I don't think it is any higher than other charge systems.

 

[DaveEV]

Sure, there is a failure rate, anything made by humans will fail. However, outside bad wiring and incorrect use I don't think it is any higher than other charge systems.

The incidence of melting UMC adapters is WAY higher.

How many times have we seen melted J1772 plugs? A few? And there are way more of those around than UMC adapters.

 

[DaveEV]

I have no idea how they would identify abnormal voltage fluctuations unless they are able to do arc-fault detection, though. Lots of normal grid conditions may cause grid voltage to fluctuate.

So someone posted on slashdot a good way to figure this out.

If you are able to accurately measure grid voltage while you vary charging current, you can easily distinguish the difference between grid voltage fluctuations and changes in line impedance that would likely be due to a poor connection.

For example, lets say you start out with a no load condition of 240V and then pull 40A and find that voltage sags to 235V. That gets you a baseline line impedance.

Now saw voltage drops to 230V. Temporarily reduce current draw to 30A and measure how much voltage rises.

Using Ohms law you can figure out if the circuit impedance changed or not. If impedance went up then you might want to make the reduction in current draw permanent.

Of course, the trick is to figure out what kind of circuit impedance change is OK and what is not, and there's still lots of potential for error.

 

[qwk]

Sure, there is a failure rate, anything made by humans will fail. However, outside bad wiring and incorrect use I don't think it is any higher than other charge systems.

The incidence of melting UMC adapters is WAY higher.

How many times have we seen melted J1772 plugs? A few? And there are way more of those around than UMC adapters.

To be fair, Tesla's plug that would be considered a competitor to the J1772, isn't melting. It's the underengineered adapter end of the UMC(and only when you allow a gap). I guarantee you that once there are more than a few thousand J1772 vehicles that can charge anywhere close to 80A, it will be meltdown city.

 

[Zythryn]

GM had lots of issues with their level 1 cord. They replaced them.
We know what happened to Blink and their rep for the quality of their hardware.

I'm glad to see improvements. But I also have to say, after charging with Tesla gear for two and a half years, I am more confident charging with it than I am with public charging equipment.

 

[GeekEV]

To be fair, Tesla's plug that would be considered a competitor to the J1772, isn't melting. It's the underengineered adapter end of the UMC(and only when you allow a gap). I guarantee you that once there are more than a few thousand J1772 vehicles that can charge anywhere close to 80A, it will be meltdown city.

Point of clarification, the UMC (the one with adapters) is only capable of 40A charging. Only the HPWC can do 80A (and even then only when you have the dual chargers in your car).

 

[qwk]

To be fair, Tesla's plug that would be considered a competitor to the J1772, isn't melting. It's the underengineered adapter end of the UMC(and only when you allow a gap). I guarantee you that once there are more than a few thousand J1772 vehicles that can charge anywhere close to 80A, it will be meltdown city.

Point of clarification, the UMC (the one with adapters) is only capable of 40A charging. Only the HPWC can do 80A (and even then only when you have the dual chargers in your car).

I was talking about the J1772 standard which has had trouble melting the car side connection on a few rav4 EV's, which only have a 10kw charger. The J1772 spec goes up to 20kw, at which melting will be almost guaranteed. Tesla's TSL02 connector has had no problems with 80A(20kw charging).

 

[JeremyW]

I was talking about the J1772 standard which has had trouble melting the car side connection on a few rav4 EV's, which only have a 10kw charger. The J1772 spec goes up to 20kw, at which melting will be almost guaranteed. Tesla's TSL02 connector has had no problems with 80A(20kw charging).

The melting was happening with Rema handles that had bad crimps on the power pins. There's a few 80A J1772's in the wild (quite a few in eastern Washington and Canada) that are doing fine.

 

[qwk]

I was talking about the J1772 standard which has had trouble melting the car side connection on a few rav4 EV's, which only have a 10kw charger. The J1772 spec goes up to 20kw, at which melting will be almost guaranteed. Tesla's TSL02 connector has had no problems with 80A(20kw charging).

The melting was happening with Rema handles that had bad crimps on the power pins. There's a few 80A J1772's in the wild (quite a few in eastern Washington and Canada) that are doing fine.

Most are Rema handles, but not all(go to the rav4 ev forum). This melting is happening at 40A. Please point me to an EV that uses the J1772 standard @80A at this point in time.

 

[JeremyW]

Most are Rema handles, but not all(go to the rav4 ev forum). This melting is happening at 40A. Please point me to an EV that uses the J1772 standard @80A at this point in time.

Looks like a Schniter unit did as well

The Tesla HPWC and UMC are J1772 compliant as far as signaling goes, just uses the Tesla connector. You can use an 80A J1772 EVSE with the adapter that comes with the Model S. So yes, the Model S would be "that EV"

 

[qwk]

Most are Rema handles, but not all(go to the rav4 ev forum). This melting is happening at 40A. Please point me to an EV that uses the J1772 standard @80A at this point in time.

Looks like a Schniter unit did as well

The Tesla HPWC and UMC are J1772 compliant as far as signaling goes, just uses the Tesla connector. You can use an 80A J1772 EVSE with the adapter that comes with the Model S. So yes, the Model S would be "that EV"

I would venture to say that there are very few people charging their Model S cars with the J1772 adapter at more than 30A. In 15k miles, I have used in 0 times. Just wait, time will tell who is right.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

Most are Rema handles, but not all(go to the rav4 ev forum). This melting is happening at 40A. Please point me to an EV that uses the J1772 standard @80A at this point in time.

Looks like a Schniter unit did as well

The Tesla HPWC and UMC are J1772 compliant as far as signaling goes, just uses the Tesla connector. You can use an 80A J1772 EVSE with the adapter that comes with the Model S. So yes, the Model S would be "that EV"

I would venture to say that there are very few people charging their Model S cars with the J1772 adapter at more than 30A. In 15k miles, I have used in 0 times. Just wait, time will tell who is right.

The HAL2 charger I put in is 80A and J1772 Clipeer Creek CS100. I also had a NEMA 14/50 put in on the same circuit which is what I use most of the time, but any time I want a faster charge I use the adapter. my thinking was to not box myself or anyone else in who may either own my house down the line or pull up through plug share. J1772 is the most common and most universal plug at this time so I went with it rather than going with Tesla's propriatary HPWC, which at the time was having considerable trouble with blowing fuses. I have not had any issues with the adapter.

 

[edatoakrun]

I can’t follow this long (20 page) thread very closely using the Google translation (OP below) but it seems the problems Norwegian Ss have with charging, particularly when using the UMC, are causing S owners some irritation, as indicated by the title...

Topic: Charging **** (Read 18702 times)

frskby
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Charging ****

« on: Sunday 12 January 2014, at 13:30 »



Reaches out to "Road Trip" and the car has not been charged in the night. Charged fine when I put it in last night and when I check now it has not charged one kilometer page.
Additional time I experience problems with charging in the cold. The cable is not green at all. Contacted Road Service who had no other suggestions than to go to the Food Hall (Vulcan) to charge. Must be Hønefoss (Lillestrom) before 15:30 and running out of time. Right now I think j **** møkkabil ... Charging just gonna work otherwise this is not a car for me at least. Possible only it's the cable that's the problem here, but then Tesla invent something else soon.

http://elbilforum.no/forum/index.php/topic,11728.0.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[TonyWilliams]

I can’t follow this long (20 page) thread very closely using the Google translation (OP below) but it seems the problems Norwegian Ss have with charging, particularly when using the UMC, are causing S owners some irritation...

This is the three phase Euro specification UMC: