Supercharger to CCS adaptors

[Wivenhoe]

I read that about 50% of superchargers are available to non Tesla’s in the UK. Tesla went down the road of providing the unique infrastructure to not only make money but also to lock in owners to use it and encourage them to stay in the ‘brand’.

For once Europe (including the UK) agreed to use the CCS as the primary connector to avoid the fiasco years ago of VHS vs Betamax. Looks like the US didn’t.

The European manufacturers saw the success that owning and marketing a charging brand would provide. They collaborated not only on the connector but importantly are shareholders in IONITY. Porsche has gone one stage further by having agreements with other charging companies so that costs / kw are about 50% of normal prices. They normally charge £ 14 / month for this but for new Macan owners this is free for 3 years.

They have gone even further by agreeing with the other companies that they are plug & charge and Porsche bill you once a month for all charges using plug & charge. This brings significant cost savings for ‘road warriors’ but also a little known major advantage over other charging companies. In the UK, when you plug in at say a Shell charger they take £40 from your credit card and it can take over a week before the balance is repaid. A recent review confirmed that they plugged in and presented the card but no charge, plugged in a different charger so plugged in another charger plugged in and got a charge.. Amount of charging was £ 10 (it was a trial) and it took more than a week for Shell to credit the card with the 3 x £ 40 = £ 120 - £ 10 = £ 110 that they earn interest on whilst the user gets charged extortionate interest.

I’ve gone on a bit here to show the differences in approach and that Porsche UK fully realise the benefit of offering a charging network as Tesla did.

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[PrudentOcean]

I respectfully disagree. You can put 100+ L2 chargers for the price of 1 L3 charger. You arrive at the end of the day, plug it in and forget about it until checkout the next day. Otherwise, what? Are you going to get up at 2am to unplug and is the next guy going to be sitting in the parking at 2am to plug in for an hour? Then use-case heavily favours having several L2 chargers instead of a couple L3s at a fraction of the cost.

I think you would be correct if hotels had a large number of L2 chargers — they generally don’t, at least not in my area.

For example, the nearby Ritz-Carlton has a Porsche Destination Charger with four 11 KW plugs. They are always in use, even during the day.

Out Of Spec used these chargers as the starting point for an unofficial Macan range test before the car was released. I suspect Porsche reserved / commandeered one or more of the plugs.

 

[rcomeau]

I think a lot of people, including hotels are still trying to figure how all this will work out. It would be a lot cheaper for the hotel to put in, say 20 chargers (costing, what, $50k when all is said and done) that allow 20 guests to plug in their cars overnight. They could easily add a reservation option on the booking page so it is predictable and convenient to the guest and even pay on the hotel bill rather than standing in the parking downloading yet another obscure charging company app and set up yet another account. It completely fits the typical use-case. It is also easily scalable as demand scales (start with 5, then 10 etc…).

On the other hand, they can spend $200k+++ and put in 2 L3 chargers (that seem to break all the time) and have 20 guests play musical chairs all night each trying to get their 1hr on the plug all the while complaining to the front desk every time someone jumps the queue.

we’ll see how it evolves, but I think the path for the hotel is a no brainer.

 

[PrudentOcean]

California has a zero-emissions (ZE) mandate requiring such vehicles to make up 35% of new vehicle sales by 2026, 68% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. The only realistic option for ZE vehicles at this point are battery-electric ones due to a lack of vehicle options and infrastructure for other technologies like hydrogen.

So the demand for L2 chargers is going to increase dramatically in the next couple of years, and soon a significant number of hotel guests is going to expect a L2 charger for overnight charging.

Having a handful of L2 chargers at a hotel isn’t going to cut it.

 

[rcomeau]

California has a zero-emissions (ZE) mandate requiring such vehicles to make up 35% of new vehicle sales by 2026, 68% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. The only realistic option for ZE vehicles at this point are battery-electric ones due to a lack of vehicle options and infrastructure for other technologies like hydrogen.

So the demand for L2 chargers is going to increase dramatically in the next couple of years, and soon a significant number of hotel guests is going to expect a L2 charger for overnight charging.

Having a handful of L2 chargers at a hotel isn’t going to cut it.

Agreed. I already preferentially choose hotels with a charger (when travelling by car) and L2 chargers are easily scaleable as they don't necessarily require huge upgrades to their electrical setup and can easily become either an incentive for EV drivers to pick them over the competition, or a driver of additional revenue for the hotel. They need to be careful though, I've seen some hotels use 3rd party providers (one in particular) that charge insultingly obscene prices for L2 access. I've made it clear to the managers that I will go out of my way to pick another hotel. I think they are not aware of what their 3rd parties are even charging so being clumsy might cost you.

 

[USMA81]

Per my previous post, I went to a Hampton Inn, which had two L2 Tesla chargers installed. I thought I might be able to use one (with NACS adapter), since charging was free. Didn’t work for me.
Secondarily, both spaces were occupied by ICE vehicles overnight. I’d have been pissed if I was a late-arriving Tesla looking to charge.

 

[sor]

there are a limited number of Tesla sites in North America with MagicDock adapters - these few and far between Tesla Sites are open to _ALL_ CCS1 EV's with no agreement required for your vehicle/vendor…but these are far from the majority of Tesla V3/V4 sites…

Might want to check on that, here’s a current map of magic dock superchargers. I know, I was surprised as well!

 

[daveo4EV]

Might want to check on that, here’s a current map of magic dock superchargers. I know, I was surprised as well!

yeah I know - more and more every month - but still a fraction of the "entire" network…but yeah in some regions Magicdocks effectively make supercharging "agreement free" and you don't even need an adapter - they provide it for you!!

but for example there was not a single MagicDock supercharger on my 2700 mile route from PECATL to Santa Cruz, CA (event he Scotts Valley, CA MagicDock Supercharger was not on my route because I attacked Santa Cruz from the south)

so yeah MagicDocks are out there, but YMMV in terms of them being useful for your road trip needs.

 

[makeevmacangreatagain]

I bought the one by Lectron over the more expensive from Tesla and is working just fine.

Are you in North America ?
You were able to supercharge using an adapter ?

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