This is the official retrofit of model 3 CCS been announced?

[nabiscoman]

I had the retrofit installed yesterday (confess I am still unaware of the part number of the ECU used in the replacement) without issue. The car will now charge from a CCS fast charger (with the supplied Tesla adapter), although this is not an easy experience. The car will also still happily charge at home from an NACS level-2 charger.

A significant problem that I've experienced, familiar from also having the powered trunk retrofit installed, is that the car apparently will no longer sleep (definitely no sentry mode, no checking going on) as it used to. I have not checked the log to see if any new alerts have popped up (as was the case with trunk retrofit), but will do so ASAP.

Anyone else experience this?

 

[nabiscoman]

I should add that this was on a 2020 (Sep 2019 build) M3LR.

 

[RMannino]

I thought I was the only one with this issue. I had the retrofit done March 30th. Didn’t notice issues with Sentry mode until I noticed a door ding on drivers side. I went into Sentry thru icon to look over videos and I could see the videos but couldn’t play or even select them. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t been seeing any Sentry alerts on my screen for some time. I should have tried to pull the SSD drive and plugged in to my computer but I spaced and tried to reformat the drive. It said it reformatted successfully but it still wouldn’t work as it gave me an alert that dashcam unavailable, check USB drive. I did everything suggested in other forum threads and nothing. I bought a 128 thumb drive from Amazon and tried to fix with that. Same issue. I was just about ready to message Tesla service when the latest update came through. 2024.3.25 so I updated. Got the thumb drive to capture some videos on a few drives and parks. The videos were very long, up to one hour of footage on one video that I never initiated. I got a couple 10 minute videos of people walking by with the event right at the dead end of the 10 minute clip. There was no notification on the screen of these events. Last but not least I went back to the SSD with added high speed data cable using a suggestion from the forum. Unpluged current drive, rebooted car, plugged in SSD. Went to bed. This morning I have the red and white X in the corner of my icon and Dashcam Unavailable, check USB drive. I’m at a loss!

 

[mrplt]

My 2024 Model 3 has CCS compatibility listed under Software, but Tesla website states I need to get something retrofitted. So I got one from Tesla Service today, and gave it a shot.

https://imgur.com/eZ1Ux7x

I was able to get ~130kW from Electrify Canada. The initial handshake took much longer than it does at a Supercharger, but the charging experience was just fine. (Oh and Supercharging is cheaper) Most of my charging will either be done at home or a Supercharger, but it won't hurt to have this in the trunk as a backup solution.

 

[israndy]

On my Model 3 I just put the CCS adapter in the door pocket, fits perfect, I haven't tried it on the new TM3 like the one you showed

 

[Transformer]

Good grief it takes a lot of tricks and futzing to get CCS to work!

Tesla mobile service did a fine job installing the retrofit, and the technician was right to have me test L2 charging before calling it done. Next you should to test CCS charging and set up the needed app(s).

CCS lessons:
* You need to notice the cabinet name/ID and which of its plugs you're going to use or its plug-specific QR code.
* It's confusing that there's one cabinet per parking stall but two plugs per cabinet. When that's one CCS plug and one CHAdeMO, it makes sense. When it's two CCS plugs, is one a spare? -- Anyway, it's not obvious in the app how many charging-parking stalls are available!
* With EVgo you can sign up for "autocharge+" which lets you plug in and it'll identify your car and account without messing with their app, after you use their app once to sign up, scan your VIN, enable autocharge+, then initiate the first charge then plug in.
* When it doesn't start charging, there's no info about why not or how to fix it. It could be the cable, plug, CCS adapter, wrong plug selected, Internet access problem, wrong startup sequence, account problem, who knows?
* Be sure to press the adapter tightly onto the plug.
* EVgo cabinet screens are unreadable in bright sun, esp. while you're holding the fat heavy cable, your adapter, and your phone, so you don't have another hand to shade the screen. If the screen is off, that cabinet is offline. In other cases is the screen useful?
* The button on top of a CCS plug is not like the one on a J1772 plug: Don't push it to stop charging. Tap "Stop Charging" on the Tesla car|app screen to do that. Then pull the plug, then press and hold that button to release the adapter (otherwise it won't come off!).
* I did not succeed with a Powerflex charger, but those are flakey event at L2.

Clearly these engineers didn't even look at Superchargers.

 

[davewill]

Good grief it takes a lot of tricks and futzing to get CCS to work!
...

Clearly these engineers didn't even look at Superchargers.

Tesla had the advantage of not having to work with anything but Tesla vehicles. They didn't even implement billing for the first several years, just gave it away free, without worrying about making money. When they did do it, they could hook into their own back end, and didn't have to accept different forms of payment.

The CCS folks had to work with all the cars, and make billing work for all of them from day one. They can't subsidize their installs by knowing it will sell cars for them, they have make those installs pay for themselves, period. I'm not sure any of them have had an actual working business model, at least not at the rates people are currently willing to pay.

Ironically, it will get better because Tesla has pushed the carmakers into supporting the standards Tesla has pioneered, so they will end up solving the billing problem for all of the charging providers, and I think we'll end up with the system everyone actually wants where we just plug in the car and charging can start because billing is handled via the car's connection back to the manufacturer.

 

[Transformer]

Tesla had the advantage of not having to work with anything but Tesla vehicles. They didn't even implement billing for the first several years, just gave it away free, without worrying about making money. When they did do it, they could hook into their own back end, and didn't have to accept different forms of payment.

The CCS folks had to work with all the cars, and make billing work for all of them from day one. They can't subsidize their installs by knowing it will sell cars for them, they have make those installs pay for themselves, period. I'm not sure any of them have had an actual working business model, at least not at the rates people are currently willing to pay.

Ironically, it will get better because Tesla has pushed the carmakers into supporting the standards Tesla has pioneered, so they will end up solving the billing problem for all of the charging providers, and I think we'll end up with the system everyone actually wants where we just plug in the car and charging can start because billing is handled via the car's connection back to the manufacturer.

Great points.

What I had in mind was things like the stiff power cord which is difficult to maneuver around the poorly placed bollards and the cabinet and bend to meet the car. Also so many ways for things to go wrong given the number of steps, no instructions, extra hardware, and no feedback. Clear lack of usability testing.

 

[Parsa5]

Good grief it takes a lot of tricks and futzing to get CCS to work!

Tesla mobile service did a fine job installing the retrofit, and the technician was right to have me test L2 charging before calling it done. Next you should to test CCS charging and set up the needed app(s).

CCS lessons:
* You need to notice the cabinet name/ID and which of its plugs you're going to use or its plug-specific QR code.
* It's confusing that there's one cabinet per parking stall but two plugs per cabinet. When that's one CCS plug and one CHAdeMO, it makes sense. When it's two CCS plugs, is one a spare? -- Anyway, it's not obvious in the app how many charging-parking stalls are available!
* With EVgo you can sign up for "autocharge+" which lets you plug in and it'll identify your car and account without messing with their app, after you use their app once to sign up, scan your VIN, enable autocharge+, then initiate the first charge then plug in.
* When it doesn't start charging, there's no info about why not or how to fix it. It could be the cable, plug, CCS adapter, wrong plug selected, Internet access problem, wrong startup sequence, account problem, who knows?
* Be sure to press the adapter tightly onto the plug.
* EVgo cabinet screens are unreadable in bright sun, esp. while you're holding the fat heavy cable, your adapter, and your phone, so you don't have another hand to shade the screen. If the screen is off, that cabinet is offline. In other cases is the screen useful?
* The button on top of a CCS plug is not like the one on a J1772 plug: Don't push it to stop charging. Tap "Stop Charging" on the Tesla car|app screen to do that. Then pull the plug, then press and hold that button to release the adapter (otherwise it won't come off!).
* I did not succeed with a Powerflex charger, but those are flakey event at L2.

Clearly these engineers didn't even look at Superchargers.

Why did you have to test L2 charging if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Transformer]

Why did you have to test L2 charging if you don't mind me asking?

Testing that some level of charging works shows that the new charging module, its connections, and its software are working. L2 is just what's available at home. That test doesn't cover DC fast charging but most of the hardware and software should be in common.

 

[Parsa5]

Testing that some level of charging works shows that the new charging module, its connections, and its software are working. L2 is just what's available at home. That test doesn't cover DC fast charging but most of the hardware and software should be in common.

Great to know! I will have this retrofit done tomorrow.

 

[Piwacet]

Well add me to the group that had the retrofit done. 2019 model 3. So far seems to work. Charged at a 50kw EVgo charger today.

I did try to go into the service mode while charging so I could see things like battery temps. While CCS charging the service mode seems to crash - the service mode screen would disappear before showing any useful information, revealing the normal underlying map/screen.

Fussing with the CCS cord, plug and adapter did make me appreciate the tesla/nacs system.

 

[Transformer]

EVgo has some how-to videos like this one, which explains two gotchas but doesn't mention others like attending to the charge cabinet name. They recorded the video indoors where the screen is readable -- turns out it has some instructions and a stop-charging button.

They sent a feedback form with a text field that fit all the ideas I could remember.