Tesla Charging Adapter & the BMW i3

[TonyWilliams]

A plug is a plug when you are talking about NEMA standards. There is only one correct way to wire it. Now if you are talking about making a Tesla specific EVSE work on an i3 there is no adapter for that (or any other car).

Well, not quite.

The JESLA 40 amp J1772 portable charging cable works at up to full power on every known J1772 equipped vehicle in the world, including the BMW i3. It is based solely on the Tesla mobile connector (née UMC).

http://shop.quickchargepower.com/JESLA-is-THE-40-amp-J1772-portable-charging-solution-JESLA.htm

JELSA ships with NEMA 14-50 and NEMA 5-15 plugs. Additionally, you may want to buy the correct plug for your dryer (handy for visiting friends or relatives at their house) or for motel air conditioners:

......................................................VOLTS / AMPS.......kW
*NEMA 5-15 .......Standard Outlet.. 120 V / 12 A...... 1.4 kW
NEMA 5-20 ...... Motel air conditioner 120/16A....... 1.9 kW
NEMA 10-30......Older Dryers...... 240 V / 24 A...... 5.8 kW
NEMA 14-30......Newer Dryers..... 240 V / 24 A...... 5.8 kW
*NEMA 14-50......RV Parks ........... 240 V / 40 A...... 9.6 kW

http://shop.quickchargepower.com/searchquick-submit.sc?keywords=adapter



Be sure to get a 50 amp circuit installed at your charging location with a NEMA 14-50R receptacle. We sell the receptacle here for just $5.99:

http://shop.quickchargepower.com/14-50R-Outlet-14-50R.htm


Finally, make sure you get a JLong with your purchase. It is the perfect compliment for JESLA, which can extend the length of JESLA by 20 or more feet. Plus, it helps when you're at a public charge station and it's blocked, and also for charge stations where the cord won't easily reach the back of the car to plug in.

http://shop.quickchargepower.com/JLONG-40-Amp-J1772-extension-cable-JL40A.htm

Tony Williams
R&D Manager
Quick Charge Power LLC
TonyWilliams (@) QuickChargePower.com
www.QuickChargePower.com
1-844-EVPARTS
1-844-387-2787 ext 701

 

[ted99]

Thanks, all for the explanation. I see why I was using the two terms interchangeably, and also why they are different.

It brings up a question that I would like to have advice on. My ESVE is wired into my Condo's electric circuit. Primary distribution is 2-wire 480v to a 10Kw 480 to a center-tapped 240v transformer. The breaker box has a 40a input breaker, dividing into two 120v legs with the transformer neutral going to the building ground bus. Two 120v breakers feed two dedicated christmas lights circuits. I have added a 40a 240v. breaker to the panel and have permission to draw power when the photo circuit-controlled Christmas lights are not on (very low load in any event--less than 5a.). I've run a #8 pair of 240v. hot leads and a #12 green from the panel ground bus 20' to my EVSE location. At that point, I've got a 4" square box with a hospital-grade 120v./20amp outlet fed from the red hot side and the transformer neutral wire (which is also the ground bus). This is to give me a 120v. outlet for the 120v. convenience charger in the event the EVSE isn't working. I feed the red hot lead, the black hot lead, and the green ground/transformer neutral on to the EVSE. The green lead is #12 because that is sufficient for the 20 amp 120v. convenience outlet, as the ground for the EVSE is there for GFI trip purposes and should not be carrying any current during ESVE usage. The 120v. outlet and the EVSE would never be used concurrently.

I am wondering about my tapping off the 120v.prior to the EVSE. Anyone see any problems with this?

 

[kwind]

I'd be surprised if any car non Tesla brand could be charged at a Tesla station. As far as I know, Tesla owners can charge their cars for free for as long as they own their Tesla vehicle. I don't think Tesla will allow or make it easy to have the entire EV community stop by their charging stations. Am I wrong?

As for the neutral and ground discussion above: the i3 will not charge without any of them: I tried it and the display panel lights up wih all kind of warnings that you may feel as if you have just made the last trip in your i3. However, when you switch START on and off again: all is normal.

I experimented with the emotorwerks.com JuiceBox Premium; a kit which sells for $350, including WiFi, and supposedly charges a number of vehicles, including the i3. I can assure you: it does NOT work on an (EU version) of the i3. Never got it to work and the company stopped communicating with me. Any US i3 owners who got this working?
FYI: we all talk about (wall) chargers: there are none! All the conversion and charging equipment resides inside the EV, all brands. All the (wall) box is: a simple relay: 240 V in (in Europe) and 240 V out, plus a tiny 5 V electronic circuit to make sure the connection between the (wall) "charger" and car is safe and a regulator (one single resistor built into the plug) to limit the maximum charging power to the limit of the charger and/or the connecting cable. So called wall chargers are nothing more than overpriced switches. Nevertheless, I could no get my homebuilt "switch" to work due to continuous GFCI (Ground Fault) shut-off's on my i3. Robert, Netherlands, born electric on May 1, 2014.

 

[wraithnot]

I'd be surprised if any car non Tesla brand could be charged at a Tesla station. As far as I know, Tesla owners can charge their cars for free for as long as they own their Tesla vehicle. I don't think Tesla will allow or make it easy to have the entire EV community stop by their charging stations. Am I wrong?

Tesla has stated that they would be willing to let other EVs use their superchargers as long as 1) the cars can utilize the full power output of the superchargers, 2) the other automakers would "contribute to the capital costs proportional to their fleet's usage of the network.", and 3) the other automakers would have to "agree with the business model, which is, we don't charge people on a per-charge basis."

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1092607_tesla-to-offer-supercharger-as-fast-charging-standard-free-to-drivers-yes

 

[jadnashuanh]

FWIW, the 'free' recharging at Tesla superstations is only 'free' when you buy the bigger battery pack (about $20K US), otherwise, it's a fairly substantial option (something around $3k US). That's at least in the US, last time I checked their website.

Tesla uses a different plug and communications scheme verses the J1772 CCS standard, so they'd both need to install other cords and plugs, and install a new control board to allow those other cars to correctly communicate and hook up. As in a level 2 EVSE, it is my understanding that the car can throttle back the input to match its desire during the recharging, but it won't even start until it negotiates with the source. There is no Tesla DC fast (supercharger) to J1772 conversion box/cable set...Tesla includes a J1772-Tesla cable with their car, but it wont' work in reverse.

 

[wraithnot]

FWIW, the 'free' recharging at Tesla superstations is only 'free' when you buy the bigger battery pack (about $20K US), otherwise, it's a fairly substantial option (something around $3k US). That's at least in the US, last time I checked their website.

Tesla uses a different plug and communications scheme verses the J1772 CCS standard, so they'd both need to install other cords and plugs, and install a new control board to allow those other cars to correctly communicate and hook up. As in a level 2 EVSE, it is my understanding that the car can throttle back the input to match its desire during the recharging, but it won't even start until it negotiates with the source. There is no Tesla DC fast (supercharger) to J1772 conversion box/cable set...Tesla includes a J1772-Tesla cable with their car, but it wont' work in reverse.

Supercharger access for the 60 kWh Tesla Model S is a $2,000 option ($2,500 if enabled after delivery) and is included with the larger 85 kWh battery (base price of the 85 kWh car is $79,900 vs. $69,900 for the 60 kWh car): http://www.teslamotors.com/models/design - click the "cash" tab to get things itemized.

It also sounds the CCS and Tesla superchargers have similar communication protocols even if the physical plugs are different:

http://articles.sae.org/11923/ (see the response to the question : "What about the communication protocol of the Combo Connector?" )

I hope this makes it easier for Tesla to make an adapter for CCS than it has been for them to make an adapter for CHAdeMO. They've apparently had lots of trouble getting the CHAdeMO to work with chargers from different manufacturers.

 

[ultraturtle]

...Supercharger access for the 60 kWh Tesla Model S is a $2,000 option...

It should probably be noted that $2,000 is how much it would cost to drive an 85 kWh Tesla Model S 42,660 miles at the most recent national average residential electricity rate (rolling 12 month average) of 12.37 cents. There are probably a handful of Model S owners living close to a Supercharger that consider their own time of so little value that they will sit waiting for a charge on a regular basis to recoup this value, but the system was really designed to make the Tesla Model S and follow on vehicles more capable of traveling longer distances.

 

[wayne325]

A plug is a plug when you are talking about NEMA standards. There is only one correct way to wire it. Now if you are talking about making a Tesla specific EVSE work on an i3 there is no adapter for that (or any other car).

The question is about NEMA 6-50 and NEMA 14-50 plugs. Look them both up (a picture will do) and then you'll see that a plug is definitely not a plug.

 

[wayne325]

Sorry, but a neutral, or ground wire is required for a level 2 ESVE. You must be connected to a circuit that has 110v.--0--110v. that gives 220v. across the two hot leads. The ESVE logic searches for a grounded neutral during the handshake before it will allow the connection to the car charger. I found this out the hard way when I connected a hard wired Level 2 ESVE to my high rise garage 240v. circuit, which is a 0v.--240v. circuit (the building is a 480v. center-tapped wye distribution system to give single ended 240v. The distribution system then uses 240v to 120v.--0--120v. transformers to supply household electricity. Even though I connected the building electrical ground to the ground wire of the ESVE, the ESVE wouldn't recognize the connection. I had a long talk with Clipper Creek technical and they verified that US ESVE's require a ground between the two 110v. hot legs, from which the 220v. for the ESVE is derived. If you look at your home breaker boxes, you will see that your household electricity comes into your breaker box as 110v.--0--110v. down two alternating contacts in the breaker box. A 220v. twin breaker connects to the two sides with one hot wire each going to one of the twin breakers and the ground wire going to the neutral between the two sides.

This is not correct: "Sorry, but a neutral, or ground wire is required for a level 2 ESVE.". As proof, one can wire up an EVSE with a NEMA 6-50 plug that has 2 hot conductors 120 volts out of phase plus ground.

Firstly, neutral is NOT the same as ground. They are nominally the same potential, however they are certainly not interchangeable.

Also this is not correct: "You must be connected to a circuit that has 110v.--0--110v." Specifically the part that's not correct is the "0" part. You do need 2-phase power (which is the two different "120" numbers), but that does not imply there is a conductor needed for neutral (the "0").

As always you do require ground, but this is not part of the "power supply" in a pure sense; it's there specifically for protection and the only time current flows in the ground conductor is when something bad is happening.

 

[jadnashuanh]

IN the USA electrical wiring that is common, as said, the EVSE has no need for a neutral wire...that is only required on things like a dryer or stove or maybe some other big power hungry devices running of 240vac because they may have some internal things running off 120vac (like say a light-bulb or the timer circuit).

On an EVSE, the ground is only there for safety...it would function perfectly fine without it, at least all of those I've seen (except it wouldn't pass code and could be an issue if there was a fault). There MIGHT be a few that require a neutral if they have fancy extra electronics, but I'd doubt it since for low-power stuff, it's easy to use a 240vac supply to run them - not as easy to find a 240v light bulb to replace the blown out on in your oven, for example!