How Tesla Magic Dock Actually Works

Work for Torque News, follow on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook.

We have some information about how Tesla's magic dock will work. Let's go over potential solutions and then what we think will actually be done.

Tesla Magic Dock Possibilities

Tesla has a magic dock solution that will allow other EVs that aren't Tesla vehicles to charge up at Tesla Superchargers. What is the magic dock, and how does it work?

The magic dock has been shown in many different renderings. Let's talk about some of them, and then we'll discuss what the magic dock actually is.

One rendition is simply another cable with a CCS adapter connected to it that you can use at a Tesla Supercharger. Versions of this will simply be another cable that is attached to the Tesla Supercharger stall. A non Tesla EV owner can simply use the Tesla app to be able to connect and charge.

Future versions of Tesla Superchargers could include two cables on each side of the panel, making it easier to pick a Tesla charger or a CCS charging cable in order to charge your vehicle. This is all being done in parallel with the White House, which is giving incentives to Tesla to open up its chargers.

CCS chargers today are large and clunky. Tesla's connector is smaller and comes with a much lighter cable and is much easier to use. CCS compatibility is nice to have, but would be even nicer is if Tesla's connector became the gold standard for EVs to use.

The reason for this is that Tesla's connector is smaller. I've used a CCS charging station and the cable is heavy and hard to haul around and plug in. The Tesla cable and charger is very light and easy.

Aptera has adopted Tesla's charging plug, and I think this is a smart idea on their part. It will make their cars easy to charge with a lighter cable and standard plug and it makes them more likely to be acquires by Tesla in the future.

You may also be interested in:

How Tesla Magic Dock Will Actually Work

Supercharging for other EVs will help increase EV adoption going forward. The reason for this is that other charging stations generally have issues with charging and being up - meaning they are down a lot. Now let's look at what the magic dock will probably end up being.

Tesla's magic dock is a CCS adapter for a Tesla Supercharger that is inside a box that the standard Tesla charger is plugged into. When you select your stall using the Tesla app at a Supercharger, you can specify that you are using that stall with a magic dock. This is another way that it will be used.

The way this will be used is that the Tesla plug will not come out with just itself. It will come out with a connected CCS adapter. You might wonder how this will work if it could just be stolen.

Well, the design is genius. The genius design is that when you choose to use the magic dock, it will lock the CCS adapter to the Tesla cable. If you tried to rip them apart, you will cause damage and Tesla will know who you are using their stall and can penalize you or take legal action.

I think this will be cheap for Tesla to retrofit. It simply means adding a CCS adapter that can lock to the Tesla adapter. This makes it easy for other people to use CCS charging at Superchargers. This is very good and useful - whoever came up with this engineered something brilliant.

In Related News: Tesla Model Y Is Starting to Lead the World in Sales

Leave your comments below, share the article with friends and tweet it out to your followers.

Jeremy Johnson is a Tesla investor and supporter. He first invested in Tesla in 2017 after years of following Elon Musk and admiring his work ethic and intelligence. Since then, he's become a Tesla bull, covering anything about Tesla he can find, while also dabbling in other electric vehicle companies. Jeremy covers Tesla developments at Torque News. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn to stay in touch and follow his Tesla news coverage on Torque News.

Image Credit, Tesla, Screenshot

If the Tesla cable is the same length, or shorter, for some CCS charging EVs this IS going to be a problem (for the driver of the CCS vehicles at least, not a problem for Tesla owners of course). Any CCS EV with a charge port on the front grill/bumper, or rear should be fine. But some CCS EVs have their charge points on the front or rear quarter panel (think Audi eTron). They may not be able to reach their charge point from the supercharging station, unless perhaps they park their car adjacent to the charger, but doing so would block 3 or more charging stalls. I hope Tesla is adding cameras to their charging station and will be promptly issuing notifications/warnings to people blocking chargers because many CCS EVs don’t have their charge points in the front/rear or same spot as Tesla does. It will be a problem for Tesla drivers if/when a bunch of CCS EVs start blocking multiple chargers because it is the only way they can charge.