I feel the need to move ahead with a solution for how to indicate what type of plug is available at the various supercharger sites in Europe. Until the roll out of model 3 all superchargers in Europe had the “Type 2 - Tesla variety” type - i.e. a type-2 plug with slightly longer pins allowing for more power. When model 3 arrived the existing chargers have been updated with dual cables - one with a “Type 2 - Tesla variety” plug and one cable with a CCS plug. So far all fine.
Problem started with introduction of V3 which has only the CCS plug. To use this you need to have a car new enough to be delivered with the CCS charge port - or to have upgraded your car with some new wiring and a CCS communication module as well as the “CCS to Type2” adapter.
Some new charging stations are V3 only - and some are a mix of existing V2 stands with some newer V3 stands added later. For both of these the custom at supercharge.info is to write the highest power available i.e. 250kW - as we do not have a way to indicate something like 12 stalls V2 + 12 stalls V3.
As long as there still are cars without the upgrade mentioned above there will be drivers arriving at a charging station just to find that there are NO V2 stands with dual cables - just V3 stands that they cannot use as they have not upgraded their car.
Please add the ability to enter a number of stalls of each of these types (72kW (not yet found in Europe), 100-150kW (aka v2), 250kW (aka v3)
Display this info when hovering over the icon - and when showing details.
I think icons should be:
pink circle for 72kW
red circle for v2 (the same as used today)
purple circle for v3
half red+half purple circle for stations with both v2 and v3
half pink+half red circle for stations with both 72kW and v2 (does such stations exist anywhere?)
Does stations with all 3 varieties exist anywhere?
How are the V3 stalls in the US? Do they have a CCS plug only (like in Europe)? Or do they still use the “Tesla plug” like the V2 stalls in the US? Or do they have both?
I just would like to understand if the US drivers with an older Tesla can use the V3 stalls or if an adapter is needed?
North American superchargers only have the Tesla plug and no NA Tesla cars have a CCS port. All NA Teslas besides the original Roadster can natively use any supercharger (i.e. no adapters needed). The only limitation for older Teslas is that their battery can’t take the highest power the newer superchargers can put out, so while they can plug in and charge regardless of whether the supercharger is V2 or V3, they don’t get the full speed benefits that newer cars can get at V3 superchargers.
The fact that US drivers do not have to worry about the plug available on the supercharger explains why this subject is getting such low attention.
For Europe the situation is that all new cars have a CCS type interface. All the older cars (and there are many of those) have the “Tesla variety of Type 2”. All V2 superchargers are now fitted with BOTH CCS and “Tesla Type 2” plugs - so no worries for drivers of newer cars. For older cars a retrofit of some internal wireing as well as a “CCS to Tesla Type 2”-adapter is needed. If you are driving a car without this upgrade you would need to see what chargers will work for you (i.e. only V2 chargers).
The map in the car without the upgrade will omit V3 chargers - I think it should be possible to omit V3 chargers (or see them with a different symbol/colour) on supercharge.info too.
As an alternative to different colors, an alternative might be to implement filters (e.g., on the “Map options” menu) for the individual urban/v2/v3 Supercharger types. Then one could click on the box for each of the types to enable/disable their display on the map.
Over time, this could easily be extended for future v4 Superchargers, megachargers, or whatever else Tesla comes up with.