How to Charge a GM EV on a Tesla Supercharger

[@chrisb508]

Thanks for the informative video. Tesla opening their Superchargers is a huge deal for people in West Texas where DC fast charging is very inadequate. I have a 2022 Chevy Bolt and got the Lectron Vortex adapter about a month ago. I tried it out at a local Tesla Supercharger using the GM app. It worked fine. This week I'm excited to go on a road trip and use it for real. Where I live it West Texas it's about 190 miles to the first DC fast charger if I drive to Austin. I can and have made it to the charger in the past, but I'm cutting it really close and it freaks my wife out rolling in to the charger with dashes on the guess-o-meter. Tesla opening up their Superchargers will allow me to charge in Llano which is only 129 miles which means no range anxiety when we go to Austin.

[@chargeeverywhere]

I can imagine that. The only time I ran through that area was 15 or so years ago and there isn’t much out there! Good luck on your trip!

[@chrisb508]

@@chargeeverywhere Thanks.

[@EVnStevenApp]

My favorite plug? Definitely the NEMA 5-20P! It's got the power for everything I need, and that unique blade design just makes it stand out. If you know, you know!

[@dalececil7527]

That's what I use at my apartment where I have 20a outlet. The difference between the 12a and 16a power delivery really makes a difference.

[@junehanzawa5165]

I have said it all along, and will keep saying it -- this is the best thing that has happened to EV adoption in North America since the founding of Tesla itself. And they began the whole thing worldwide. This is truly a game changer. Charger anxiety is now gone for all those who have access, and those that will soon get access. With this last major obstacle gone, EV adoption will shoot up like never before. It already hit 10% of all car sales in September for the time month ever. The fact that they're being advertised all over television and other mediums from almost all manufacturers now is just another sign.

[@usflin]

@@junehanzawa5165 The inconvenience of not being able to charge at home for people who live in multifamily buildings and can't afford to upgrade their property to support home charging is a bigger hurdle I think. People need to be able to charge conviniently on a regular basis where they already live. I've been living without my own charger for a year and it's annoying, not something I'd ever recommend to someone.

[@junehanzawa5165]

@@usflin Let me ask you this -- did you have your own gas station at home when you had an ICE vehicle?

[@usflin]

@@junehanzawa5165 It takes me 10 min to go fill up the gas car to 100% at a gas station and return home. It takes me 2 hours at a DC charger or 8 hours at a L2 chargers to fully charge my EV to 100%. If I don't charge to 100%, then instead of one trip per week I have to make two or three trips.. Are you trying to say that people are going to be just fine waiting 2 to 8 hours at a public charger versus being able to plug in at home, go to sleep, and unplug in the morning when they wake up?

[@usflin]

@@junehanzawa5165 Sorry again if this is a duplicate, my comments keep disappearing. What's a reasonable amount of time for you to spend thinking about where and how you'll charge your car? To wait in line at a public charger? To sit in your car while it charges? To call customer service because their app isn't working and their station isn't accepting credit card payments?

[@junehanzawa5165]

@@usflin You're confusing superchargers and their 99.96% uptime and reliability rate with EA and other such crappy providers in America. And the fact that you think otherwise illustrates why this is so game changing. Superchargers simply work. You just plug it in and it works. The usual time for most drivers is 15 to 20 minutes. We usually grab something to eat through a drive through and eat while charging because it charges so fast that we don't have time for a sit down meal. If you don't have a place to charge at home, you simply visit a supercharger site once a week or two weeks (depending on how much you drive daily) just like you did with a gas station. If you live in an area with high EV concentration, you simply look online and see which times the sites are least busy and go there at said times once a week, again just like a gas station.

[@tkmedia3866]

I have lots of chargers in California. Plenty in most populous areas in fact. Finding a charging site is easy. There are lots of ccs sites. Often more sites and more convenient than tesla superchargers. Finding one that is available to use and unoccupied without a long queue is much more difficult. Problem is high ev adoption rate here by everyone. Additional tesla sites will hopefully relieve some of this but its just temporary. More multi unit and work L2 solutions are needed.

[@chargeeverywhere]

Yes, people don’t fully appreciate how little DCFC is needed if you have L2 everywhere!

[@usflin]

Yep!

[@usflin]

To give folks some added perspective on this, I was curious so I went and looked up the data for San Francisco, CA where I live. There have been 49,710 EVs registered in San Francisco, cumulatively thru mid 2024. San Francisco has around 1,000 public EV chargers. So that's about 50 EVs for every public charger. Plus a good number of public chargers turn off at midnight or when businesses close, or are located within parking garages that require payment for parking before accessing the charger.

[@usflin]

Thanks for the tip about using the Chevy app. I just opened it, filtered by Tesla only, and found there are zero Tesla chargers in my city that accept Chevy. Saved myself the trouble of having to install and login to the Tesla app or wasting money on an adapter when I don't have any stations near me.

[@chargeeverywhere]

Interesting. Around me most of them do, but they are also mostly pretty new - I.e. v3 or newer

[@usflin]

​@@chargeeverywhereI've seen plenty of Tesla chargers in my city so they must all be v1 or v2.

[@junehanzawa5165]

Which city or town is that? Have you gone on the supercharger map online and filtered out everything except superchargers opened to NACS or opened to all? You don't have to be on any app or anything for that. You can also see if there are any planned sites coming to your area. Despite what everybody thinks, they added over 2,700 new chargers/stalls last quarter alone.

[@usflin]

@@junehanzawa5165 San Francisco. I looked at the online supercharger map a while ago when Ford announced they were compatible and there were none at that time. Feel free to look again and let me know if you find any. ;) I see one in Daly City and one in South San Francisco but none in SF proper.

[@usflin]

@@junehanzawa5165 I tried to reply earlier but I don't see that reply, so apologies if this is a duplicate. City is San Francisco, CA. I looked at the Tesla map online. There are zero "Superchargers open to Other EVs" or "Superchargers open to NACS" on that map.

[@MrAgility888]

I live in Philadelphia and will occasionally visit family in central PA or upstate NY. I have a Tesla and road tripping is so easy. I've looked at Plugshare and filtered only CCS stations to see what it would be like without superchargers. It would definitely be a challenge to drive.

[@chargeeverywhere]

It definitely was. A good adventure though 😊

[@dylanwhite6539]

NACS AC extension cables will exist, but superchargers CANNOT AND WILL NOT BE COMPATIBLE WITH EXTENSIONS. All DCFC have liquid cooling systems in the cables to prevent them overheating. This just isn’t physically possible to do with extensions. Rest assured, V4 dispensers should be the only ones installed now, and current V3 stations will likely get retrofits at some point.

[@dennisengland9787]

The reason no one took them up on it was they said they would tell the automakers the specs for the plugs until after that agreed to use it. Something CCS didn't do. And one reason Tesla chargers are so reliable is that they controlled everything. Now that all these other companies are plugging in, there is different software talking to the chargers and they're reliability will be going down.

[@daemoncan2364]

Does the Lectron also work for Tesla destination chargers?

[@chargeeverywhere]

No, there is a different Lectron adapter for that. If you look back in my videos you’ll find that there. The Vortex adapter here connects to the large DCFC pins on the CCS connector, while the destination charger version connects to the J1772 AC pins.

[@rossm9200]

People need to stop advocating for "beefy" connectors. In engineering, it's easy to make things strong and heavy. It's why steel is so commonly used. Beefy is bad in this situation because it makes it more difficult to handle and use. It might be fine for you as a reasonably young person, but think about someone with limited strength or potentially they have a disability. I have the A2Z adapter and it's weight and difficulty to use make it a product I couldn't recommend to anyone.

[@NackDSP]

With a Tesla you just drive to any post and plug it in. The car is recognized by the charger and you are charging. This video shows how sad the old standard was. The vehicle doesn't identify itself to the charger when plugged in. You have to use a phone. That is awful. That huge dumb old connector. So glad to see it going away. Every car made with that plug is obsolete and lost value. To drive my Mercedes any distance, I had to load three apps on my phone for the different networks and sign up with my credit card on three accounts. Then I couldn't find an open charger at any of those and had to download a fourth app at a charge station. It's hell out of the Tesla network.

[@MrMcgooOG]

Make your life easier buy a Tesla (less aggravating for existing Tesla owners)

[@thomasjacques5286]

Thanks, Elon and Tesla. Without your vision and leadership, we would still be looking for and hoping to charge our vehicle when taking road trips.

[@pup4301]

Am I first?

[@chargeeverywhere]

At least with the comment you are!

[@rp9674]

Tesla electrons are gross

[@planefan082]

Hey, electrons are electrons

[@rp9674]

Except for Tesla electrons, hateful

[@EVnStevenApp]

Interesting take, but fun fact: all electrons are identical, whether they’re from a Tesla or anywhere else. There’s even a theory that there's only one electron in the entire universe, moving back and forth through time, so calling them 'gross' doesn’t really make sense-they’re all the same!

[@rp9674]

Tesla electrons have the stench of musk - science

[@trg3625]

@@EVnStevenApparen’t all fundamental particles slightly different and can’t be the same