Non Telsa EVs using Telsa Charger

rocketspocket

Apologies if it been asked before - why can non telsa cars not use telsa chargers - Telsa motors can use the standard type-2 chargers so the connector must be the same?

shanec1928

they can, i believe that there is a switch inside the charger that has to be flicked to allow non teslas to use the charger assuming that you are on about destination chargers

Gumbo

rocketspocket wrote: »

Apologies if it been asked before - why can non telsa cars not use telsa chargers - Telsa motors can use the standard type-2 chargers so the connector must be the same?

Do you mean the super chargers?
If so then these are chargers installed and paid for by Tesla. Some
Of us have free charging for life on them.

If your talking about the small destination chargers then there’s 2 types. Red and silver. One colour is for Tesla alone as real give the owner (hotel) grants etc to have them Listed on the Tesla network and another colour that all type 2 cars can use.

slave1

When you see red that's Tesla only, so the superchargers are white/red, destination chargers with red sign are Tesla only, destination chargers with white or grey sign are any Type 2 e.g.

rocketspocket

Gumbo wrote: »

Do you mean the super chargers?

Yep - the ones that you see in the applegreen motorway services.. Never saw the destination ones yet.. Didn't know you get free electric for life - that is pretty impressive..

Gumbo

rocketspocket wrote: »

Yep - the ones that you see in the applegreen motorway services.. Never saw the destination ones yet.. Didn't know you get free electric for life - that is pretty impressive..

They are Tesla only as Tesla paid for the infrastructure etc
They can charge some of the range at 150kw/h.

Free charging is nice and it transfers to the next owner too which may help if selling down the line.

rocketspocket

Gumbo wrote: »

They are Tesla only as Tesla paid for the infrastructure etc
They can charge some of the range at 150kw/h.

Are they technically unable to charge a non-telsa EV or is it simply down to the commercial side (i.e. do teslas have the same connectors as standard-evs- Type-2???)

unkel

rocketspocket wrote: »

Are they technically unable to charge a non-telsa EV or is it simply down to the commercial side (i.e. do teslas have the same connectors as standard-evs- Type-2???)

Nope, all new superchargers are CCS and can technically be used by any car that can CCS charge (which is every single EV for sale in this country except the Nissan Leaf)

It's just a matter of flicking a switch. This was done a month or two ago by Tesla to coincide with the meeting of the CEOs of the two biggest EV manufacturers in the western world, Tesla and VW. Bit of a covert publicity stunt, plenty of coverage of it on the internet with Volkswagens and Renaults charging at the Tesla supercharger. For free too

redcup342

Other cars can Technically use Tesla CCS Superchargers,

There was a bug (or not really clear what happened) last month where you could plug any car into a Tesla SC and it just worked.

Taycan, ID3, Konas all worked.
Even saw a few e-Golfs, they've fixed the bug now though.

unkel

redcup342 wrote: »

There was a bug (or not really clear what happened)

Not a bug

See my point above.

GubbinsIE

unkel wrote: »

Nope, all new superchargers are CCS and can technically be used by any car that can CCS charge (which is every single EV for sale in this country except the Nissan Leaf)

It's just a matter of flicking a switch. This was done a month or two ago by Tesla to coincide with the meeting of the CEOs of the two biggest EV manufacturers in the western world, Tesla and VW. Bit of a covert publicity stunt, plenty of coverage of it on the internet with Volkswagens and Renaults charging at the Tesla supercharger. For free too

As a non-Tesla owner, this is really cool. Do you have any links to more information about this? I can't find any press releases or anything, but I'm probably looking in all the wrong places. I'd like to read a bit more before I put any plans in place to rely on this (not that we're travelling anywhere these days).

unkel

GubbinsIE wrote: »

As a non-Tesla owner, this is really cool. Do you have any links to more information about this? I can't find any press releases or anything, but I'm probably looking in all the wrong places. I'd like to read a bit more before I put any plans in place to rely on this (not that we're travelling anywhere these days).

Oh no, I think I gave you the completely wrong idea. There was no press release. Not before, not at the time and not after. It is generally thought that Tesla just disabled the handshake between the charge point and the Tesla EV that is normally required for a charging session to start.

Some non-Tesla owner tried a Tesla supercharger out of chance or by mistake and it charged their car. Free of charge! Lots of (video) evidence about this on YouTube

And a few days later it no longer worked. Lots of people thought at the time this was a bug in the supercharger network, but if you think about it for a bit, it wasn't really, was it? Coincided with Musk meeting Diess

It is not likely your non-Tesla will be able to charge on the supercharger network any time soon. So DO NOT rely on this. But never say never.

innrain

It also coincided with Tesla and Fastned opening jointly a hub in Germany. Maybe they wanted to test the interoperability.
Today I charged at a Tesla destination charger as non-Tesla car for the first time . It trew an error initially but seconds later it stared charging.

unkel

innrain wrote: »

Today I charged at a Tesla destination charger as non-Tesla car for the first time . It trew an error initially but seconds later it stared charging.

There are usually 2 of them at each location. They have an internal switch that you can set to Tesla only or any type 2. Typically one of them is set to Tesla only and marked on the outside as such.

the_amazing_raisin

To give a bit more information regarding the destination chargers, there's a switch inside the enable 'legacy' more charging. This will allow any EV with a type 2 plug to charge.

There have been reports that newer EVs which support the newer standard can use a Tesla destination charger without needing legacy mode because they support the newer standard.

Basically there's no specific Tesla only setting in the destination chargers. Typically when they install multiple chargers they set at least one to legacy mode to support all EVs.

If you're willing to risk electrocution and possibly criminal charges, you can use a torx head screwdriver to pop off the cover and flip the switch inside to enable legacy mode.

Regarding the Superchargers you see in service stations, they're Tesla only. They CAN technically charge other vehicles, but Tesla have not enabled this and don't show any sign of doing it. Essentially Tesla have added an extra security layer on top of the normal charging protocols where it checks if the vehicle is a Tesla before it'll allow charging.

This is how Tesla can do the whole plug and charge thing while other chargers need to swipe an RFID card and hope the internet connection hasn't died (or in the case of ESB, the entire system hasn't catastrophically failed).

There were reports of the v3 superchargers allowing other vehicles to charge, but there are none of those in Ireland and they stopped that after a few days. Tesla haven't acknowledged that it happened so there's a lot a speculation over whether it was a bug, a publicity stunt or trying to comply with some EU directive.

Long story short, you can't use the superchargers for non tesla's

liamog

cruisey1987 wrote: »

here's a switch inside the enable 'legacy' more charging..

You've spelt "standards compliant" mode really oddly :P

redcup342

unkel wrote: »

There are usually 2 of them at each location. They have an internal switch that you can set to Tesla only or any type 2. Typically one of them is set to Tesla only and marked on the outside as such.

I have seen a guy using some weird adapter to use the Tesla only charging spot with his BMW i3:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Tesla-Destination-Charger-Adapter-fur-Nicht-Tesla-Fahrzeuge-IEC62196-Type-2/254659154235?hash=item3b4ade513b:g:ThMAAOSwZk9fFKZ7

Any idea whats inside this that makes it work ?

JohnC.

I don’t know what’s in it, but it seems like a lot of money just to be able to use the occasional Tesla-only destination charger.

the_amazing_raisin

liamog wrote: »

You've spelt "standards compliant" mode really oddly :P

Hey that's what it says in the manual, file a bug with Tesla