Tried the A2Z NACS to CCS adapter

[duncanmaio]

My A2Z adapter arrived yesterday. Hope to get to the nearest (Chargepoint) NACS DC charger early next week to try it out.

It seems to be every bit as robust and well-made as the other adapters in the frunk - 80 amp TeslaTap Mini and the Farley Special J-1772 to Tesla that came with the truck.

I will post pictures next week of the truck charging and not on fire, and then work on charging speed comparisons - temperature, tonneau cover open/closed, doors locked/unlocked, headwind or tailwind. I have aftermarket AT tires, but stock rims and no lift/level.

Sponsored

 

[queuewho]

I will post pictures next week of the truck charging and not on fire

now you jinxed it

 

[rio]

Maybe this has been brought up before, but I wonder if somebody would be able to make a right-angle adapter designed such that the charge cable can come in straight over the charge port door (which unfortunately opens in the least helpful direction). This would allow for the charge cable to have a much more straight path from stall to charge port and help a little with the limited reach with the V3 SC stations. Sounds far-fetched but maybe some out-of-the-box thinking can make things a little easier.

 

[duncanmaio]

Is it actually 125kW via the Tesla cable, though? The EVgo units by us are all converted Chademo units that have Tesla Chademo adapters hidden inside a metal box next to the main charger housing. The Tesla adapters are limited to 50kW and so are these units' "Tesla" cables. Also, Tesla cars using the Chademo adapter speak a control protocol which is neither CCS nor the legacy Tesla protocol. It seems extremely unlikely to me that Ford would implement this - Chademo is dying, after all.

If you think about it, the situation with NACS-connector charging is going to be pretty confusing for non Tesla owners. In addition to these wacky Chademo-on-NACS-connector lash ups, there are 3 types of actual Superchargers in the field (V1, V2, and the 85kW "urban" units) that won't speak CCS. The "urban" chargers in particular are deployed in a lot of locations that are otherwise DCFC deserts and may lead to a lot of frustrated drivers. We're not really hearing anything about how the parties involved expect to address this. Doesn't seem good.

Stopped by my local ChargePoint NACS station this morning. According to Plugshare, it was NACS and Chademo until a week or so ago, and is now CCS and NACS. In any event, as suggested above, the NACS connector did not work with my A2Z adapter - communication started, but then failed. CCS connector worked fine.

Edit: On the plus side, no flames!

 

[queuewho]

Hey so everyone who currently has an adapter... I wonder if some random day soon, you can try it in a V3 and it just works? I bet they enable plug and charge on Tesla V3s before they announce it fully, or get any Ford adapters to customers. You guys should try it every now and then and report back if it randomly works...

 

[Cbowe]

Stopped by my local ChargePoint NACS station this morning. According to Plugshare, it was NACS and Chademo until a week or so ago, and is now CCS and NACS. In any event, as suggested above, the NACS connector did not work with my A2Z adapter - communication started, but then failed. CCS connector worked fine.

Edit: On the plus side, no flames!

Yeah this charger from ChargePoint that I used is NACS so it worked well with the exception of not giving you the 10 minute initial boost up to 160kw-180kw. You're correct the ones that brach off a CHAdeMO will not work and only Tesla V3+ will. When using navigation V2 and below will be filtered out, but if people aren't using that and are unfamiliar with the this stuff it will be confusing at first. People will learn quickly though and hopefully Tesla will upgrade some over time as well. I don't think it will be chaotic in general but there will be some pain points. More positive than negative by far by doing this.

 

[duncanmaio]

You're correct the ones that brach off a CHAdeMO will not work and only Tesla V3+ will

Yup. This was a curiosity excercise, since there was a Plugshare report that these chargers had been switched to Chademo and NACS. Apparently that was a mistake, and they got switched to CCS and NACS. Unclear from the Plugshare posts whether they worked in the Chademo/NACS configuration, or if that was just a cabling mistake.

Soon it won't matter, as there are Superchargers nearby.

Sponsored