Tesla cars in North America are equipped with the company’s proprietary charging port – not compatible with the CCS Combo 1 plugs (the adapter is coming). Imagine our surprise the when we saw a report about an owner who is successfully using Electrify America chargers with CCS1 plugs.
In a Reddit topic titled “I drove a Plaid 2000 miles using mostly Electrify America stations…,” Ryan Huber describes details of how his Tesla Model S Plaid was charging using CCS1 chargers.
Please note that Ryan Huber previously conducted an advanced modification of his Plaid, by switching the yoke steering with a round steering wheel.
According to the highlights, the charging power exceeds 200 kW (between 8% and about 45% SOC) and might be considered as “Supercharging 2.5” (the V2 Superchargers allow 150 kW, while V3 as much as 250 kW). The peak was 217 kW (499 A at 435 V).
“The charge curve is great. I’d call this “Supercharger 2.5” if you want to get a feel for the speed. At 500 amps, you can get a lot of juice into the car, relatively quickly.
The car charges at more than 200kW from 8% to about 45%. It peaks at 39% SoC which is approx 499A at 435V, which is about 217kW. At that point the car begins ramping down the amperage at the same rate as a V3 supercharger.”
The results were so good that the owner was able to skip Tesla Superchargers if needed (some were full or older/slower V2) and even “paid dirt cheap prices in states where they are forced to charge per minute.”
Ryan Huber has shared with InsideEVs‘ the charging curve at CCS chargers – it’s quite impressive (enlarge here):
Ryan Huber also points out that he is going to miss having exclusive CCS1 charging capability, as the manufacturer soon will start shipping the adapters. We assume that the adapters will be compatible with all newer Model 3/Y (probably produced from mid-2020 or so) and refreshed Model S/X.
“One of these things is not like the others.”
Interesting is also the comment about the bad experience with Electrify America chargers – according to Ryan Huber, the cause is probably related mostly to the implementation on the EV side rather than chargers, as his Tesla had no issues.
“I’m rather convinced the bad experiences people have with EA have more to do with car manufacturer CCS implementations than the stations themselves. I had exactly one failure and it was a bad pedestal that I didn’t notice was marked as unavailable in the app.”
Tesla charging adapter (DC): CCS Combo 1 to Tesla proprietary standard
But how does it all work? Well, to charge with CCS1 on a Tesla Model S Plaid ahead of its official US release, Huber used an adapter from South Korea (where it’s on sale) but the adapter had to be heavily modified. Details were not shared.
“I had to heavily modify an adapter to make this work and am not going to link to it, because there is too much room for error. The adapter is functionally identical to the official one that is currently only available in South Korea. I just wanted to make people aware of how awesome CCS will be, especially on routes with old superchargers.”
Here is the round steering wheel presentation:
