2nd Generation Volt to be Supercharger Capable?

8649 Views 30 Replies 22 Participants Last post by saghost, Oct 22, 2014

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Discussion Starter · Oct 21, 2014

Wouldn't it be great if GM partnered with Tesla to expand the use of Supercharger technology? Imagine charging in a few minutes using Superchargers with the next generation Chevrolet Volt that has a larger battery.

GM could use the Tesla Motors adapter too, and make a converter available for those with J1772 EVSEs at home like one of the ClipperCreek models.

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saghost

· #28 · Oct 21, 2014 (Edited)

DonC said:
There are really only two standards: CCS and CHAdeMO. Tesla uses the same signaling protocol as CCS. Just a different plug. So it would be easy to have an adapter. CHAdeMO is a different story. It's a totally different beast. It's also proprietary.

Careful. Tesla is using CCS signaling for A/C charging, and it switches to DCFC with the same 5% pilot signal. But once it switches it talks with CANBus signaling instead of the Homeplug greenphy that a CCS station would use.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...harger-protocol-for-diy-CHAdeMO-adapter/page3

And actually, there are four DCFC possibilities, because Tesla uses different plugs in the US and in Europe (3 phase power is more common over there, and EU rules may have required the Mennekes 2 port that they modified to take deeper plugs to handle the supercharger DC current.

In a lot of ways, the supercharger standard makes more sense from what I can tell - the common plug means it's always the same compact, simple outlet, the signaling is more flexible (full CANBus,) and the standard allows more power (at least 120 kW vs CHAdeMO's 50 kW and something similar for CCS I believe.)

But of course it's proprietary, and certainly having multiple standards is inconvenient and hurts growth for all EVs.

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saghost

· #31 · Oct 22, 2014

DonC said:
That's not what I've understood. Here is a Q&A with Straubel:

Q: What about the communication protocol of the Combo Connector? It’s considered essential for V2G.

A: That’s fine. We’re definitely commonizing with all of that. The only thing that’s up for debate in all of these standards is the physical geometries of the pins and sockets. Everything else is pretty easy to adapt to. The communication standards are pretty universal. We’re 100% compliant with all the J1772 communication levels, signaling, voltage, everything. (emphasis supplied).

I think both CCS and CHAdeMO will handle 100 kW.

And that's true. But J1772 is just the AC signaling - the only part of DCFC it covers is the signal a DCFC CCS box uses to tell the car that it does DCFC. If you read the thread I linked above, you'll see that curious Tesla owners discovered that when a Model S sees that 'I am a DCFC station' 5% pilot signal, it responds very differently from a CCS car.

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