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[Булгаков]

Hello all,
I have a Tesla charge adaptor, with a separate switch to toggle between "vehicle present" and "enable charge" states. It has worked for me well at the 3 (public) places with Tesla plugs that I normally frequent.
I know at some point Tesla changed their chargers to start requiring a 10 or 11 second delay before enabling charging, and so I am accustomed already to counting to 11 seconds before flipping the switch.

On my recent road trip, I found that I could not enable 50% of the Tesla chargers I tried to use at all. These were all stations with high ratings and recent check-ins on Plugshare, so I doubt the chargers were faulty. On several additional stations, I could enable charging, but after either a few seconds or a few minutes the station would reset, even if I was testing using a very low charge rate of 3kW. At many of these same locations, their J1772 plugs would work without any problems.

For what it's worth, it appears that the La Quinta Inn Tesla/J1772 charging stations in central and east Texas all work well.

Anyone have any thoughts what could cause this?
Possibly some new test to verify that an actual Tesla car is connected?  Maybe some more sensitive ground-fault detection?

[clockfort]

I imagine it's because a bunch of newer destination chargers shipped from Tesla at some point that started requiring a handshake on startup that makes most adapters not work / become 'tesla only' chargers.

The people on the Tesla Roadster forums were also annoyed because it kicked them off of a bunch of the chargers as well, with their 3rd party adapter ( https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/1905613/ ), but Tesla eventually changed the firmware to at least allow these older Teslas to charge with that adapter, and flashed it to at least all of the North American destination chargers. As to what they did to make it compatible, really only Tesla and 3rd-party adapter maker HC Sharp would know, and they're probably not going to say anything.

[Булгаков]

I see. I didn't realize that they had made additional changes beyond just requiring the 10 second delay.

Damn.

[Richard230]

I think I read that owners of Model 3 cars (but not the S and the SUV gull-wing-thing that got free lifetime charging privileges) are now going to be charged for charging at Tesla stations.  Perhaps Tesla is getting their stations upgraded to accommodate a flood of Model 3 owners and that is why you are experiencing charging difficulties at times.    (You know how those firmware upgrades are.  )

[Erasmo]

That's only for the Superchargers.

[Richard230]

That's only for the Superchargers.

Oh, I see.  We are talking about using a "J" level 2 charging station, with an adapter that connects to the Tesla charging cord and the public station?  Just goes to show my lack of knowledge of Teslas.  About all I am hearing now in the news is how they crash into medians, fire trucks and random other things on their own when you take your hands off of the wheel and start checking your smart phone for the latest celebrity drama news story. 

[Erasmo]

Overhyped by the news because Tesla is a hot topic, when an ICE'er flips his gas car because the driver is a texting twat there is barely any coverage.
Why they have their own connector in the US is a riddle for me.

[Булгаков]

Oh, I see.  We are talking about using a "J" level 2 charging station, with an adapter that connects to the Tesla charging cord and the public station?  J

My chargers have have Anderson Powerpole PP-45 connectors on them, so that I can receive power from different power plugs, or a J1772 inlet, or a Tesla inlet depending on what I have plugged into my chargers' PP45 connector. I have been using Tesla charging stations successfully in places that have either no J1772 plug, or only one 6.6kW J1772 plug, when i want to be able to charge at 8 or 9 kW. My question was about some new Tesla charging stations not working when a non-Tesla car is plugged into the outlet.

[Richard230]

Oh, I see.  We are talking about using a "J" level 2 charging station, with an adapter that connects to the Tesla charging cord and the public station?  J

My chargers have have Anderson Powerpole PP-45 connectors on them, so that I can receive power from different power plugs, or a J1772 inlet, or a Tesla inlet depending on what I have plugged into my chargers' PP45 connector. I have been using Tesla charging stations successfully in places that have either no J1772 plug, or only one 6.6kW J1772 plug, when i want to be able to charge at 8 or 9 kW. My question was about some new Tesla charging stations not working when a non-Tesla car is plugged into the outlet.

I wasn't even aware that non-Tesla vehicles could use Tesla Superchargers.  Which goes to show you what I know, I guess.

[Ashveratu]

He is not using using Superchargers, he is using the "destination" chargers which are AC, not DC.

[Richard230]

He is not using using Superchargers, he is using the "destination" chargers which are AC, not DC.

And of course, I had never heard of Tesla "destination" chargers, since I get all of my news from my morning newspaper and they have never mentioned these chargers in their articles about Tesla cars - just their production problems and their worker burnout and injury issues at the factory.

[Ashveratu]

The majority of that "news" is greatly inflated, exaggerated or imaginary. Take what you ready with a few grains of salt. Hell, don't believe anything I type here either. I may have an agenda too...

[Булгаков]

yes, destination chargers -- AC 208V or 240V in USA. (tho technically up to 277V is possible). Tesla of course only wants tesla cars to charge at them, but if the owner of the station says it is ok for me to charge at them then I am happy to have 10-20kW of power available for free/cheap, especially in small towns between big cities, versus lame 6.6kW chargers only available sometimes.

[Richard230]

yes, destination chargers -- AC 208V or 240V in USA. (tho technically up to 277V is possible). Tesla of course only wants tesla cars to charge at them, but if the owner of the station says it is ok for me to charge at them then I am happy to have 10-20kW of power available for free/cheap, especially in small towns between big cities, versus lame 6.6kW chargers only available sometimes.

That is interesting and was news to me.  In other news: I just heard that Tesla will by laying off 9%, or 3,800, of their employees to save money.  Supposedly these people will be not be factory workers who are assembling the Model 3 cars, but instead will be mostly salaried workers.  I wonder what they are doing and why they are no longer needed?  I hope they are just marketing staff and not engineers.

[2014ZeroSR]

Булгаков, Good question on why some won't work. I have also experienced the same here in California (Sonoma and Lake Counties). I'm thinking - unless someone from Telsa submits a post saying why, we'll never know for sure. The only other person that might have a clue is Brandon as he offers the SCv2's with Telsa inputs. For now, enjoy that some do work, but I'm pretty sure Telsa is working to correct all their destination chargers to allow only Telsa's use of them.