East Coast Tesla chargers on I95 for example, adapter?

Hello everybody, about to take delivery of a 2013 Leaf SL, very excited.

Plan is to use stock L1 charger at exterior 110v outlet until my Juicebox kit arrives and gets its own 220v outlet installed.

For travel on the I95 corridor I'm wondering if the Tesla-branded charging stations at the newly remodeled rest areas have J plugs or Tesla Supercharger plugs... or CHAdeMO?

Is there a Tesla>J1772 adapter yet?

I don't need any more projects but...

- David

tzed250 said:

Hello everybody, about to take delivery of a 2013 Leaf SL, very excited.

Plan is to use stock L1 charger at exterior 110v outlet until my Juicebox kit arrives and gets its own 220v outlet installed.

For travel on the I95 corridor I'm wondering if the Tesla-branded charging stations at the newly remodeled rest areas have J plugs or Tesla Supercharger plugs... or CHAdeMO?

Is there a Tesla>J1772 adapter yet?

I don't need any more projects but...

- David

Click to expand...

teslas come with a j1772 adaptor to use on chargers with those connections.
sorry, LEAFs cannot charge at those TESLA superchargers, you'll need to get a telsa to use those.

tzed250 said:

Hello everybody, about to take delivery of a 2013 Leaf SL, very excited.

Plan is to use stock L1 charger at exterior 110v outlet until my Juicebox kit arrives and gets its own 220v outlet installed.

For travel on the I95 corridor I'm wondering if the Tesla-branded charging stations at the newly remodeled rest areas have J plugs or Tesla Supercharger plugs... or CHAdeMO?

Is there a Tesla>J1772 adapter yet?

I don't need any more projects but...

- David

Click to expand...

Tesla has offered to license their chargers to other manufacturers, so far no one has taken them up on in. So no, at this time there is no adapter to allow any vehicle other then Model S to use the Tesla chargers.
From what I have heard, many of these locations along the east coast also have other chargers, j1772 or CHAdeMO, nearby.

There is a j1772>Tesla adapter. Nothing, to my knowledge, that would let another car charge off a Tesla supercharger.

Look at http://www.plugshare.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and you'll see where all the plugs are.

Only The Darien Southbound service plaza in CT has CHAdeMO units, right next to the Tesla SCs, but both CT and MA are working on more, but we don't know where yet. Hopefully RI will join in.

Congrats on the car, and welcome to the future.

Thanks for all the replies!

Of course the charging apps and web-sites will have info on what type a station is, I didn't think of that.

Too bad there's no Tesla>J1772 adapter.
Is it because of the high amperage that the Tesla Supercharger outs out?
(I thought the car's on-board charger negotiated with the power source how many amps to draw)

Or is it because the Tesla plug is proprietary?

Just curious.

- David

The Tesla superchargers fall into the category of a type III charger (the CHAdeMO is also a type III).
These are DC chargers that bypass the car's onboard chargers.
The rate at which the superchargers can send power into the batteries would do serious damage to the Leaf pack. Max rate would be about 5C (five times the battery size).

As such, it would have to slow down to a safer level (generally about 2C is considered safe as I recall). For the Leaf that is about 50kWh which happens to be the charge rate of a CHAdeMO.

Your efforts would be best aimed at convincing Nissan to speed up their roll out of CHAdeMO chargers.

tzed250 said:

Or is it because the Tesla plug is proprietary?

Click to expand...

This

Zythryn said:

As such, it would have to slow down to a safer level (generally about 2C is considered safe as I recall). For the Leaf that is about 50kWh which happens to be the charge rate of a CHAdeMO.

Your efforts would be best aimed at convincing Nissan to speed up their roll out of CHAdeMO chargers.

Click to expand...

I don't recall the safe C levels for charging a Leaf but yeah, seems that typical CHAdeMO DC FCs are 50 kW or less. Heck http://nissanqc.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (the only DC FCs I've used so far) are 44 kW at max.

IIRC, most of the Tesla Superchargers could originally go to 90 kW max but IIRC, some 125 kW Superchargers are operational now. Tesla experts, please correct me if I'm wrong.

As for the latter, yep.

J1772-2009 used for L1 and L2 charging is over AC and the charger is on-board the car. DC fast charging (e.g. CHAdeMO, Tesla Supercharger) is DC and yes, bypasses the car's on-board charger. Perhaps http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=262630#p262630" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14728&p=332668#p332668" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; will insightful to the OP.

Zythryn said:

The rate at which the superchargers can send power into the batteries would do serious damage to the Leaf pack. Max rate would be about 5C (five times the battery size).

As such, it would have to slow down to a safer level (generally about 2C is considered safe as I recall).

Click to expand...

No, a Supercharger (or any modern DC charger) is controlled by the car, so there won't be any damage. If the LEAF needs 395 volts at 120 amps, that is exactly what it will get from a Supercharger, or CHAdeMO (assuming either charger has at least a 120 amp capacity).

Right now, CHAdeMO is specified to 125 amps, with a maximum design of 200 amps. The Tesla chargers are already over 300 amp capability.

cwerdna said:

IIRC, most of the Tesla Superchargers could originally go to 90 kW max but IIRC, some 125 kW Superchargers are operational now. Tesla experts, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Click to expand...

90kW
120kW
135kW
150kW - future

TonyWilliams said:

Zythryn said:

The rate at which the superchargers can send power into the batteries would do serious damage to the Leaf pack. Max rate would be about 5C (five times the battery size).

As such, it would have to slow down to a safer level (generally about 2C is considered safe as I recall).

Click to expand...

No, a Supercharger (or any modern DC charger) is controlled by the car, so there won't be any damage. If the LEAF needs 395 volts at 120 amps, that is exactly what it will get from a Supercharger, or CHAdeMO (assuming either charger has at least a 120 amp capacity).
...

Click to expand...

Absolutely! The cars will ramp the rate of charge to a safe level, but the DC charge does bypass the car's onboard chargers.

What I was trying to say is that the Leaf would be damaged by the full capability of the Tesla chargers.
The CHAdeMO chargers are the Max the current Leaf battery can take. So even if there was an adapter, the Leaf couldn't charge any faster at a Tesla charger than a CHAdeMO.

This would be a bad thing. Why take up a faster charger slot when you can't use the capacity of it.

This may well change with the new 'hot battery' chemistry. I hope so, I'd love to see Nissan license the superchargers and help speed up the rollout.

Does this mean that a Leaf could use the Tesla Super-Charger network if we could find an adapter that would connect to the Leaf Quick-Charge port? Even if it only charges at the same speed of the Nissan QC's, it is better than having nothing, or 110v L1 if no DCQC L3 is available.

Graffi said:

Does this mean that a Leaf could use the Tesla Super-Charger network if we could find an adapter that would connect to the Leaf Quick-Charge port? Even if it only charges at the same speed of the Nissan QC's, it is better than having nothing, or 110v L1 if no DCQC L3 is available.

Click to expand...

No, it is not better than having nothing.
How would you feel if Volts could plug into CHAdeMO yet not charge any faster than a L2 charger?
Would you appreciate Volts filling CHAdeMO spots?

If Nissan licenses the tech from Tesla, great. Otherwise I would sooner push for Nissan expanding the CHAdeMO infrastructure.

tzed250 said:

Thanks for all the replies!

Of course the charging apps and web-sites will have info on what type a station is, I didn't think of that.

Too bad there's no Tesla>J1772 adapter.
Is it because of the high amperage that the Tesla Supercharger outs out?
(I thought the car's on-board charger negotiated with the power source how many amps to draw)

Or is it because the Tesla plug is proprietary?

Just curious.

- David

Click to expand...

Well . . . Tesla DOES make this adapter for the Japanese market:

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/tesla-unveils-chademo-adapter-50kw-model-s.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(however, with a good part of Japan being on 50htz - I'd be learly of klunking down a ton of money)
It can't be too long before an adapter is home brewed to work in the opposite direction.
.

It's proprietary to Tesla, and main issue is, you can't get the Model S "inlet connector", they only sell them with a Model S, do your adapter costs $80-100K , even as a spare part it would be costly.

if Nissan approached Tesla about partnering/licensing their SuperCharger technology, then it might happen, but almost no chance of that happening.

mitch672 said:

It's proprietary to Tesla, and main issue is, you can't get the Model S "inlet connector", they only sell them with a Model S, do your adapter costs $80-100K , even as a spare part it would be costly.

if Nissan approached Tesla about partnering/licensing their SuperCharger technology, then it might happen, but almost no chance of that happening.

Click to expand...

It seems... unfriendly of Tesla to make a CHAdeMO > Supercharger adapter while at the same time not allowing a Supercharger > CHAdeMO adapter. If the Superchargers are free to use, I guess I could see how Tesla might object to sharing....
But (I know, never start a sentence with a preposition) they could have planned ahead on this, collected fees from non-Tesla users, helped build infrastructure for all EV users, etc. Looks like a missed opportunity to me.

I can 3D print a Supercharger socket for short money, add some machined conductors and o-rings and junk (to over-simplify) if that becomes something worth doing. Assuming there's no patent issues?

PS Sorry I missed all these replies, I had my notifications turned off. Thanks for the warm welcome!

Thee superchargers also validate that the connected car is eligible to use the supercharger. Some Model S cars do not have access. Tesla has even been known to temporarily grant access to an owner who has an emergency need to use one, but did not pay for access. The only way to make a successful adapter would be to "spoof" whatever method Tesla uses to validate that the car is eligible. Even if that proved to be technically feasible, it would be morally wrong.

davewill said:

Thee superchargers also validate that the connected car is eligible to use the supercharger. Some Model S cars do not have access. Tesla has even been known to temporarily grant access to an owner who has an emergency need to use one, but did not pay for access. The only way to make a successful adapter would be to "spoof" whatever method Tesla uses to validate that the car is eligible. Even if that proved to be technically feasible, it would be morally wrong.

Click to expand...

Gotcha, stealing is wrong.
So it's a subscriber-based system with the Chargepoint RFID card equivalent built into the Tesla itself?

Interesting.
Then Tesla would have to make the adapter themselves, or agree to license it to someone else.

Too bad.

I'm planning on getting by with "just" 6.6 KW Level 2 charging for now anyway.