The CCS (Combined Charging System) has become the standard for electric vehicle charging over the last few years.
When Tesla first debuted the 2012 Model S, the CCS charging connector didn't exist. In fact Tesla developed its proprietary Tesla connector because there wasn't anything capable of fast DC charging.
Today, the CCS connector supports charging speeds up to 350kW.
For comparison, Tesla's latest v3 Superchargers can currently charge at speeds up to 250kW, although Tesla plans to update v3 Superchargers later this year to support up to 324kW.
Tesla already offers Superchargers with CCS connectors in several regions, but they will now begin adding CCS connectors to Superchargers in the United States.
Tesla will add the CCS connector in addition to Tesla's own connector. This will give non-Tesla owners access the extensive charging network, Elon Musk said.
This announcement follows the path announced by the CEO to eventually open its Supercharger network to all-electric vehicles globally.
Non-Tesla electric cars have been allowed to charge at select Tesla Supercharger locations in France, the Netherlands, and Norway since November.
Allowing Superchargers - which account for more than half of all fast chargers in the United States to charge all electric vehicles would be easier and less expensive for everyone involved, and it would substantially improve the landscape of the current fast-charging infrastructure.
CCS is the obvious charging standard to go with, given that Tesla, like many other manufacturers, has already accepted CCS standards in Europe and its Supercharger stations are already equipped with CCS connectors.
Tesla's cars and Supercharger stations in North America use its own proprietary connector, which has rendered Non-Tesla owners unable to use Tesla's fast-charging infrastructure.
It also prevents Tesla owners from charging at other DC charging stations, unless they spend a considerable amount of money purchasing a CHAdeMO or CCS adapter.
Speaking at the Financial Times Future of the Car summit, Musk said they will add the connectors even if it lessens their competitive advantage over other automakers.
“It's a little trickier in the US because we have a different connector than the rest of the industry, but we will be adding the rest of the industry connectors as an option to Superchargers in the US. We are trying as best as possible to do the right thing for the advancement of electrification, even if that diminishes our competitive advantage,” Musk said.
This is comparable to Tesla's approach in Europe when the Model 3 was originally introduced with the CCS standard. Both Tesla and CCS connectors were installed at new Supercharger stations, and the carmaker also began retrofitting some existing stations.
Last year, the Taiwan EV Charger Equipment Supplier and Manufacturer Advancement Alliance declared that CCS should be the country's charging standard, forcing Tesla to retrofit CCS connectors to all Superchargers.
Tesla upgraded Superchargers with CCS connectors in addition to their proprietary connectors a few months after the decision.
Tesla's CEO gave no indication of when the company planned to begin installing CCS connectors at stations in the United States.
The connector the US is using differs slightly from the CCS connector in Europe. In the US it's known as CCS combo 1, or CCS1 for short. This is the connector that Tesla will support in the US and it is not interchangeable with CCS2 that is used in Europe.
Tesla is already selling an adapter to go from CCS1 to Tesla's plug, but it is currently only available in South Korea. Tesla is likely to make this adapter available for sale in the US in the future.
However, your Tesla will need to specifically support the CCS adapter. If your Tesla was built after May 2019, then it likely supports the CCS adapter. If it was before then, then it will need to be retrofitted if you plan to charge using the CCS 1 adapter.
You can check whether your car supports the CCS adapter by going to Controls > Software and tapping Additional Vehicle Information.
You can also find more information about how to check whether your car is supported, the cost of a retrofit, and the cost of the adapter in our CCS adapter article.
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Tesla has issued a new recall affecting 129,960 vehicles from 2021 and 2022, due to an overheating issue with the infotainment center CPU.
The automaker has discovered a fault where the center display may become laggy due to the CPU overheating when the vehicle is pre-conditioning the battery pack for Supercharging or while it's Supercharging.
“A lagging or restarting CPU may prevent the center screen from displaying the rearview camera image, gear selection, windshield visibility control settings, and warning lights, increasing the risk of a crash”, Tesla wrote in their recall notice.
Tesla claims to have discovered the issue during standard endurance testing. Although there have been no reports of wrecks or injuries, the company has received 59 warranty claims from January to early May.
Luckily, just like past recalls, the automaker will be able to fix the issue with a software update. The Recall Report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Safety reads:
“On May 3, 2022, Tesla began deploying an OTA firmware that will improve the management of the CPU temperature and associated communications with elevated temperature operation. This remedy will mitigate temperature elevations in the CPU when the vehicle is fast-charging or preparing to fast-charge, which will prevent slow processing or restart.”
Tesla will contact the specific owners with an official recall notice, expected to be mailed July 1, 2022.
Tesla’s ability to issue over-the-air software updates in order to fix most of the issues that have led to official safety recalls lately, highlights the effectiveness of their approach to in-car operating systems and connectivity, a feature that seems to be gaining fast adoption by other automakers, and will surely change the landscape of the automotive industry.
A typical traditional recall, in which affected owners must bring their vehicles in for service, could easily bankrupt a carmaker, which must pay for labor and parts to perform the repairs.
Affected vehicles appear to be limited to those with Ryzen-based CPUs, Tesla's latest MCU. MCU 3 provides increased responsiveness and faster loading apps such as streaming services and the web browser.
If you have a Tesla with a Ryzen-based CPU and have experienced a delay when using the touchscreen or had it restart randomly, you may see improvements when this fix is rolled out.
The fix is expected to be in later revisions of Tesla's 2022.12 updates.
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A welcome feature that allows Tesla driver profiles to independently control their streaming accounts has dropped as part of software update 2022.16.
Tesla introduced their Spotify integration in 2019, delighting premium Spotify users with a seamless streaming experience that enabled users to log in and easily stream their playlists.
But, for owners sharing a Tesla with multiple driver profiles, it required users to login in and out of their respective accounts if they wanted to view their own playlists, song likes, and suggested content.
This led many owners to create a separate shared Tesla Spotify account that would be shared for everyone in the vehicle.
Thankfully, taking pity on the countless users stuck listening to their significant other’s playlists, Tesla has now tied streaming account logins to driver profiles.
Users have begun to note that the differentiated account experience works with the other streaming services available on Tesla like TIDAL.
There are no new menus or options to set. When you log in to Spotify or another music service, your car will now simply remember that login should be used for the current driver profile.
This does not yet work for video streaming services like YouTube since those are essentially web pages, but we hope that Tesla can separate out more user specific information like browser data in the future.
While Tesla drivers are undoubtedly thankful for the integration of multiple streaming profiles, one cannot help but wonder if Tesla will get around to the other popular streaming services believed to be coming in future updates.
Apple Music, the second most popular music streaming service, remains absent from the streaming lineup.
Amazon Music, a close third-place finisher, also misses the cut. If the rumored Tesla App Store is on track for deployment before the first Cybertrucks, there is hope that additional music streaming apps will appear as Tesla opens up their software to others.
It should be noted that workarounds exist for playing content from excluded streaming services like Pandora, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Youtube Music, etc. through the use of Bluetooth streaming.
Audiophiles would point out that the act of streaming via Bluetooth degrades the quality of the music to compress the data stream for wireless transmission.
You can also store music on a USB drive to play directly in your car, but there's no doubt that streaming music directly in your Tesla is the most convenient way, even if it requires Tesla's Premium Connectivity.
Dedicated Tesla streaming integrations ensure a higher-quality stream. For now, Tesla owners are just thankful they don’t have to listen to their co-owners German Techno Spotify playlist on repeat ever again.
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