A Supercharger in proper use.
A Supercharger in proper use that had a problem.
Posted on 05/01/2024 9:58:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ford, Chevy, and other major new entrants into the (formerly) lucrative electric vehicle business have — or perhaps had — a secret weapon in their arsenal for making EVs more attractive to buyers.
If you want to know what that secret weapon is, I can tell you with just one word: Tesla.
The Austin-based EV maker was first and fastest in building out the charging infrastructure necessary to make EVs anything more than urban curiosities. Tesla has more than 6,000 Supercharger stations with nearly 55,000 chargers in the U.S. alone, and exclusive access to them was one of the perks of owning a Tesla.
There are four different standard versions of chargers, plus a mobile version (a massive luggable battery that can charge 100 Teslas) and an urban version (smaller). They work at different speeds, have various connectors, app or no app for non-Tesla models, etc. If it all sounds so much more complicated than sticking any old company's Regular nozzle into any old car or truck... yeah, I got a headache just doing research.
Earlier this year, thanks to a doohicky called a NACS adapter, Tesla opened up its Supercharger stations to owners of its competitors' EVs. CEO Elon Musk didn't exactly do that out of the goodness of his heart:
In order to qualify for a slice of the $7.5 billion earmarked for EV charging network expansion in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law [cough, cough], which was designed to address climate change, healthcare, and taxes, Tesla has said it will open up 7,500 chargers from its Supercharger and Destination Charger network to non-Tesla vehicles by the end of 2024, a project that is already in progress. Tesla also benefits when other vehicles pay to use its Superchargers, and experts say charging could become an important source of income
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
But what happens when demand begins to plateau at a level much lower and sooner than expected?
This: "Tesla eliminated almost its entire Supercharger organisation, which has built a vast network of public charging stations that virtually every major automaker is in the process of tapping into in the U.S."
Tesla won't be rolling out Supercharger stations as quickly as thought, and that means fewer of the universal chargers that any EV can use. Ford — Tesla's closest American-based rival — already loses money on every EV they make, and with today's news, they'll have an even harder time selling them.
experts say charging could become an important source of income
No doubt that part of the new income is the government issuing more carbon credits to Tesla (not just for making EVs, but providing charging for more EVs). Those are fake credits that Tesla can sell to oil refineries cheaper than the refineries pay carbon taxes (the RIN's that refineries have to pay).
I can't stand that mess, and I'm an EV owner.
All of this criticism of Tesla has escalated exponentially every since Musk has spoken out against the democrats. It’s also not a coincidence that at the same time, China is getting set to put out a “cheap” electric vehicle.
China and the democrat party are purposefully attacking Tesla.
Same thing for "X".
If too many people actually started using these things then the grid would go down.
I thought I read a story that most major auto makers are switching over to the Tesla “nozzle” design connector. It makes sense. Any car can use an unleaded pump. why would the market benefit from dozens of different connector types? Heck even the EU had to force Apple to switch to a universal charger.
But if you are in a Ford or BMW or whatever, the Tesla supercharger may throttle your charging speed. It may be deliberate, or maybe it has to do with technical specs. Tesla knows their cars and software so their chargers are designed to be as efficient as possible. Tesla may not know how another EV car’s design can handle the voltage. It seems like it should be as simple as plugging in a lamp but it’s not. There’s a lot of sensitive equipment, battery designs, and flux capacitors :-) 1.21 Gigawatts!?!
It seems like it should be as simple as plugging in a lamp but it’s not. “
There are so many ways this can go sideways. Disaster is just waiting to happen
The EV chargers will totally confuse a ton of people and they’ll rip them up by the roots
When you plug you EV into a charger I think it collects all the data everything you have done but where does it go after ?
Elon said never mind and fired everyone on the charging wing oh well sucks to be a battery humper
Tesla Is Pulling Back From EV Charging, and People Are Freaking Out
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/tesla-is-pulling-back-from-ev-charging-and-people-are-freaking-out-ee8e490c
The flames are from the excess Nitro fuel, it is used to cool also. Nighttime races are wild with the massive flames!
The slow charging issue appears to be related to the type of battery technology in the car. Teslas are 400 volt while others are 800v. According to the article 800V cars are throttled to about 50kwh. Cars that have 400V architecture don’t have the issue..
My Hyundai Ioniq 5 can take 350kW at CCS chargers. But with the Tesla Supercharging stations now offering CCS too (as well as their older standard for Tesla cars), the charger limits CCS to only 50kW or so.
is that Daddy?
It appears Tesla has sort of locked in the 400V charging technology for their cars. If they switch to 800V EVs, their current charging stations will be an aggravation to those car owners.
The chargers do all the AC to DC work the V4 standard for NACS has 400-1200V certs with rates up to a megawatt. There is never any voltage or current on the cord or plug until it’s fully seated and the guard pin which cannot be touched makes contact with the guard sleeve. This can only mechanically occur when the plug is fully seated into the receptical. Then the CANBUS architecture is used to send coded data over the signal pins to establish a handshake. That handshake tells the charger what voltage and what current to send down the HVDC pins and also establishes billing information if its a Tesla. Then and only then will the charger send the requested voltage down the cable. Since Tesla SC are part of the NACS standard all of them will have the DC/DC at the V4 at the V4 standard it’s software to up the voltages in most of the chargers already installed and the very old ones will need a new DC/DC transformer stack with more turns to get to 800+V the revenue a SC generates is in the $100,000+ per year each stall so a thousand dollar transformer in the very old ones is just a statistical O&M expense and fully deductible at that.
You have it.backwards CCS is the old standard in North America now the Tesla standard is now known as NACS aka the Nor the American Charge Standard. All high voltage DC stalls installed from this point forward will By law have to have the NACS plug if they want to include CCS for older cars that’s up to the individual installer. Any charger getting federal funding also must use NACS and every American car maker with EVs also must use NACS receptacles it’s call the NACS for a reason Tesla won that battle in the usa CCS is the betamax , NACS is VHS. For the EU CCS won because it’s plug can use and deliver three phase high voltage AC which unlike the archaic 120v/240 volt 1800s based grid the EU built out a modern 240/400V triple phase grid down to the individual house and dryer plugs. Triple phase 400V is ubiquitous in Europe. At best in the USA you get 240V at residential and 277V in condos or or offices. The NACS only gas two live pins so it’s impossible to send the third phase over that cable even with a floating ground and that’s scary bad EE work. So for the steampunk era grid the USA is.stuck with NACS is only for high voltage DC.
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