TeslaTap Mini Adapter feedback?

[whitex]

It’s the standard 10kW charger. HPWC is on a 50A breaker so 40A, however I was about to swap out for a 60A breaker because I checked the wiring and it can handle it.

This is a neat, albeit slightly excessive, idea to avoid having to handle the combined plug/adapter size with the adapter. I’m buying a Taycan so I’m all for slightly excessive things - I’ll look into it!

Speaking of slightly excessive. I am not sure whether there is enough room on the AC-only charger of the Taycan (I presume there would be room where the DC charging plug is on the right), but if there is, I could just install a permanent "Tesla adapter" - basically a Tesla socket to plug into. It would be the very first Taycan with a built-in Tesla plug!

Spoiler alert, I only know how to do that for AC charging (today, only started learning about this recently once I decided to buy a Taycan) - more work than just an adapter to do it safely, but possible. DC charging is harder, though probably technically doable (would have to do some supercharging reverse engineering), except now I'd be getting into potential legal issues with the fact that Tesla sells energy there, so plugging in a Taycan into a supercharger would probably be considered stealing, unless maybe if the owner already had a Tesla with an account and the plug would pretend to be that Tesla (so the energy used would get charged to the owner's account).

Ok, I see it now, perhaps this could be considered a tad over slightly excessive.

EDIT: Corrected the illustration to show a US charge port, rather than EU

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[daveo4EV]

Speaking of slightly excessive. I am not sure whether there is enough room on the AC-only charger of the Taycan (I presume there would be room where the DC charging plug is on the right), but if there is, I could just install a permanent "Tesla adapter" - basically a Tesla socket to plug into. It would be the very first Taycan with a built-in Tesla plug!

View attachment 20102

Spoiler alert, I only know how to do that for AC charging (today, only started learning about this recently once I decided to buy a Taycan) - more work than just an adapter to do it safely, but possible. DC charging is harder, though probably technically doable (would have to do some supercharging reverse engineering), except now I'd be getting into potential legal issues with the fact that Tesla sells energy there, so plugging in a Taycan into a supercharger would probably be considered stealing, unless maybe if the owner already had a Tesla with an account and the plug would pretend to be that Tesla (so the energy used would get charged to the owner's account).

Ok, I see it now, perhaps this could be considered a tad over slightly excessive.

in europe no TeslaTap is required - I simply not this because your photo has a Euro-style plug - and North American Tesla plug - this sort setup isn’t required.

 

[whitex]

in europe no TeslaTap is required - I simply not this because your photo has a Euro-style plug - and North American Tesla plug - this sort setup isn’t required.

Touche, I picked the wrong picture (European Type 2 instead of US Type 1) to illustrate the idea. The good news might be that the US version might have more free room at the bottom. I swapped the original post with the correct mockup.

I do have a question you might know the answer to, how did Porsche solve the issue with 2 charging ports to make sure that you don't try to plug both sides to AC charging, or even simple safety to make sure that the power pins in a port are not energized while charging from the opposite side? Did they simplify this by having some interlock system which makes sure you can only open one charge port at a time and/or if were to open the both sides the car stops all charging, or are they disconnecting the unused port pins internally so the opposite side to the one charging just doesn't work (and pins are not energized in case you stuck your finger in it)?

 

[DerekS]

I do have a question you might know the answer to, how did Porsche solve the issue with 2 charging ports to make sure that you don't try to plug both sides to AC charging

When you open one side, the other side locks.

 

[Jhenson29]

When you open one side, the other side locks.

You can open them both at the same time if you have two people. I just did it because of this post.

The charging light goes red if you do…

 

[andrewket]

I'm not too worried about soldering a cable if needed, but I get that it's not for everyone. I would say it's a small step above installing your own L2 charger (i.e. adding a new circuit, running wires, etc), and even that is not recommended as a DIY for everyone either. The conversion of Gen3 looks straightforward (to me) in the youtube video, but will let you know once I convert my Gen2 (which won't be until I get a Taycan CT which I'm told will be Q1 next year or later - might have gotten 4S a bit sooner but I'm holding out for a Turbo allocation). I plan to get the 20KW charger upgrade so will be able to report how the 80A charging works with the HPWC, and how well it balances the charging with an actual Tesla (between the 2 Teslas it works smooth as butter, hoping it works the same between a Taycan and a Tesla).

It doesn’t work 100%.

tldr; A Porsche software developer made a bad assumption when using scheduled charging: that the amperage available when you first plug in will be available when the car starts to charge. If it isn’t, the car throws an error and doesn’t charge at all.

I have 3 HPWCs, all 80A. One is gen1 on its own 100A circuit, and the other two are gen2’s sharing 100A. This of course worked just fine with 3 Teslas.

The Taycan unfortunately gets confused by the load balancing combined with scheduled charging.

When you plug in, the Taycan starts charging to determine the max amperage. It then stops and pauses until the calculated start time (for example, I have my taycan set to finish at 4:55am). Unfortunately, if the Tesla on the other HPWC is charging when the Taycan starts to charge, the Taycan doesn’t handle this correctly. The pilot signal is now indicating 40A, and it appears rather than charging at 40A (and then ramping up if the Tesla finishes first), it throws an error. It also causes the HPWC to go red.

Of course if I charge the Taycan on the gen1 which is not shared it works just fine.

I need to experiment more - but I think if you’re just using direct charging it works just fine, including raising and lowering the amperage based on the pilot signal. It’s an edge case with scheduled charging… I think.

I could remove the load balancing and split 40/40, but then I’m not taking advantage of the 19.2kW charger which I actually need from time to time because of my 4-hour time of use window. My only other choice is to swap the location of the HPWCs so the Taycan has the dedicated circuit. Swapping the cars in the garage isn’t an option.

 

[whitex]

It doesn’t work 100%.

tldr; A Porsche software developer made a bad assumption when using scheduled charging: that the amperage available when you first plug in will be available when the car starts to charge. If it isn’t, the car throws an error and doesn’t charge at all.

I have 3 HPWCs, all 80A. One is gen1 on its own 100A circuit, and the other two are gen2’s sharing 100A. This of course worked just fine with 3 Teslas.

The Taycan unfortunately gets confused by the load balancing combined with scheduled charging.

When you plug in, the Taycan starts charging to determine the max amperage. It then stops and pauses until the calculated start time (for example, I have my taycan set to finish at 4:55am). Unfortunately, if the Tesla on the other HPWC is charging when the Taycan starts to charge, the Taycan doesn’t handle this correctly. The pilot signal is now indicating 40A, and it appears rather than charging at 40A (and then ramping up if the Tesla finishes first), it throws an error. It also causes the HPWC to go red.

Of course if I charge the Taycan on the gen1 which is not shared it works just fine.

I need to experiment more - but I think if you’re just using direct charging it works just fine, including raising and lowering the amperage based on the pilot signal. It’s an edge case with scheduled charging… I think.

I could remove the load balancing and split 40/40, but then I’m not taking advantage of the 19.2kW charger which I actually need from time to time because of my 4-hour time of use window. My only other choice is to swap the location of the HPWCs so the Taycan has the dedicated circuit. Swapping the cars in the garage isn’t an option.

Thanks for sharing. I don't use scheduled charging since my electricity is not on TOU (somtimes I don't plug my cars in until evening out of good will to help not strain the grid), so this won't be an issue for me, but this sounds like a Porsche software bug which will show up with any balancing charger setup, not just Tesla HPWC. Out of curiosity, does the error show up if the rate is throttled at any time during scheduled charging (Taycan figures out it cannot finish on time, so rather than try to get as close as it can, it gives up and throws an error), or only if the rate is throttled at the very beginning of the schedule? If it errors out only when if the starting current is throttled, you could just make sure that the Tesla scheduled charging starts few minutes later. If at any time, then you might have to just split the charging between Taycan and Tesla, 2hrs Taycan, 2hr Tesla. Or, make the Taycan HPWC a single and load balance the remaining two (as you said). A third alternative is to look into 80A balancing charger set which can also handle scheduling ( it shoudl work since I noticed there is setting in a Taycan for that):

You'd probably have to change the chargers to some other brand though, as the only way I know to have the Gen2 HPWC do scheduled charging is a community reverse engineered solution which add a Raspberry Pi Zero to the HWPC and allows you to control it through a web interface (or you could roll your own solution too, but that is even more work). Of course the ideal solution for Porsche to fix their bug.

I suspect this will not be caught by Porsche QA until Porsche has a balancing AC charger, or a bunch of customers do, which might take a while. Does Porsche have any official ways to report bugs? I know they might not care about Taycan working with Tesla chargers, but this sounds like a bug which will show up with ANY load balancing charger (e.g. Clippercreek) or perhaps even if the charger is temporarily throttling for other reasons.

PS> I watched a video on charging settings on a Taycan, OMG, whoever designed this probably a software developer (rather than UI/UX designer) who never owned an EV in their life! This could be so much simpler, for example why is there no Max Charge setting in a charging profile, in addition to the min charge (instead of having to use timers)?

 

[whitex]

When you open one side, the other side locks.

You can open them both at the same time if you have two people. I just did it because of this post.

The charging light goes red if you do…

It seems like Porsche simplified the design by disallowing charging if both ports are open, and trying to prevent the opposite port from opening if charging is in progress. It probably allowed to to just wire both ports to the same power pins (which means when car is charging from one port, the pins in the other port are energized).

 

[Jhenson29]

trying to prevent the opposite port from opening if charging is in progress.

Minor correction, but as @DerekS said, one side locks as soon as the opposite side is open; it doesn’t wait for charging to start. That’s why it took two people to open both at the same time. And that was for manual doors. I would assume the powered doors simply won’t open both.

 

[DerekS]

PS> I watched a video on charging settings on a Taycan, OMG, whoever designed this probably a software developer (rather than UI/UX designer) who never owned an EV in their life! This could be so much simpler, for example why is there no Max Charge setting in a charging profile, in addition to the min charge (instead of having to use timers)?

I am a software developer and I found it absolutely ludicrous and overcomplicated.

They need to just do it like Tesla. Start charging when you plug in, unless there’s a charge time window set. Charge to the indicated marker on the battery.

Add to the fact some of the “features” such as location-based charging profiles don’t work well due to GPS drift when garaged.

 

[whitex]

I am a software developer and I found it absolutely ludicrous and overcomplicated.

Yea, but you've owned EV's therefore are not the developer I talked about. ?

I am engineer myself. My rant about this interface having been designed by a software engineer who has never owned an EV was not a dig at software engineers, but more a commentary that a lot of software is never designed properly (or at all) before it's implemented, leaving the developer to make design decisions during implementation. This often results in the UI being a mirror representation of the implementation, rather than made easy for the end user. To give a hyperbolic theoretical example, imagine a software developer is told to design a "save file" feature in a text editor, and the the developer has never used similar feature in any other software before. The implementation may end up being multiple buttons and dialog boxes with options, in this case an "open file button" (with dialog for name, read/write choice, attributes, append option, etc), "write file button " (with dialog option of block sizes to use and perhaps max blocks per second written), and finally a "close file" button , instead of a simple "Save" and "Save As" buttons. I suspect something like this happened in Porsche, whoever implemented the UI simply mirrored the implementation, because nobody actually properly designed the user experience prior to implementation. This was probably made worse by nobody properly defining the problem to be solved prior to implementation - people, especially engineers, often have problems seeing the forest for the trees (defining a problem in terms of a missing feature implementation, rather than stepping back to figure out what the actual problem is before deciding on an implementation).

PS> Tesla has some share of this happening too. Their UI is getting less and less usable in exchange for looking "cooler" - buttons getting smaller and less distinct, farther away from driver's line of sight, and buried under more levels of menus. Or, take a simple one - did you ever notice that if you turn your headlights ON manually, your car will ding/alarm after you park and open the door to leave to tell you that your headlights are ON and will drain your battery, but as soon as you lift yourself off the seat to leave, the lights go off (and switch back to AUTO)? What's the point of the alarm? If lights were on AUTO they would behave exactly the same, stay ON until you leave your seat. Btw, they've had this since the very early Model S, I submitted a bug in 2013, they fixed it (hacked it actually, it only suppressed the audible alarm but never suppressed the actual alarm , which back then was not show prominently on the screed - only a "!" icon you had to click to see what the alarm was), but then a couple of years later someone reverted the hack, and alarm text now pops up on both the instrument cluster and main screen.

 

[R88]

They need to just do it like Tesla. Start charging when you plug in, unless there’s a charge time window set. Charge to the indicated marker on the battery.

I don't own the car yet, but isn't that achievable by setting the "minimum charge" option and no custom timers etc?

 

[DerekS]

I don't own the car yet, but isn't that achievable by setting the "minimum charge" option and no custom timers etc?

No, the only way to cap a maximum charge level is with a timer.

 

[whitex]

No, the only way to cap a maximum charge level is with a timer.

Which is a horrible design choice. If you recommend not charging to 100%, there should be a clear limit you can simply set - simply adding it to the profile would go a long way towards this. Perhaps they assumed everyone has set schedule when they leave in the morning so they will set a timer for that, but that is definitely not true, especially during COVID.

 

[Jhenson29]

I don't own the car yet, but isn't that achievable by setting the "minimum charge" option and no custom timers etc?

No, the only way to cap a maximum charge level is with a timer.

Which is a horrible design choice. If you recommend not charging to 100%, there should be a clear limit you can simply set - simply adding it to the profile would go a long way towards this. Perhaps they assumed everyone has set schedule when they leave in the morning so they will set a timer for that, but that is definitely not true, especially during COVID.

You can set the limit with a profile (as “minimum charge”) and not use any timer. This is what I do. I only use a profile and the “minimum charge” is set it 85%.

The car will charge to the “minimum charge” setting as soon as you plug it in and then stop. It does not require a timer.

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