Using Tesla's CCS Adapter - My First Hand Experience

Using Tesla's CCS Adapter - My First Hand Experience

I've owned my Tesla Model 3 RWD for about 6 weeks now and recently bought a CCS adapter from Tesla for it. The reason for this purchase is that there is a Harmon's grocery store with free CCS charging just a few blocks away from me, and I expect to be using this charging station a lot. Here is my experience with it.

The CCS Combo 1 Adapter is available from Tesla's website for $250. You can also by a less kW charger of the same type from Lectron for about $199. It just depends on your budget. The nice thing about this adapter is it expands your charging options. I can now charge at locations I could not previously, and there are some free CCS charging stations near where I live.

Once the charging stall was open, I decided to go park in it. I was at about 81% charge and wanted to see how long it would take to charge my car. It ended up taking about 30 minutes, with the last 5 minutes being a calibration of the battery. That means Tesla was readjusting the expected range. My range is still about 272 miles, even though it usually says my charge limit is 267 miles. I know this because whenever I drive for the first few miles after charging to 100%, my miles stay at 267 and my percent stays at 100%.

When I got the adapter in the mail, I noticed that it was very large - much bigger than the SAE J1772 Charging Adapter level 2 chargers. I am very puzzled why there is a CCS charging adapter when Tesla has a natural and small charging plug that works just great in their superchargers. What is the point of all the extra plugs and holes in the CCS adapter? Still, despite it being heavy, it still only took me about 10 seconds to plugin and get going.

CCS -vs- other charging methods

I noticed that the CCS charger was getting me about 150 to 160 miles of charge per hour. That's not too bad, considering that most of the time when I go to work or park in one of the other level 2 chargers, I'm getting about 20 to 30 miles of range per hour. The Tesla Super Charger I go near where I live gets me about 300 miles of charge per hour during off-peak hours. Generally, I have to stay at work a full day to charge my car, or leave my car at Harmon's for about 5 hours to get any useful charging out of it.

Still, I now know that in under 2 hours, if need be, I can charge my car to full at Harmon's and this is good because Harmon's states that cars should not be left in charging stations for more than 2 hours. Even though I have left mine there for 5 hours before, I can feel good knowing that I am not taking up any more time than I should with the CCS adapter.

Another thing about the CCS adapter is that it broadens my paid charging options beyond just Tesla superchargers. There are Charge Point charging stations nearby, and I can pay to use those if I absolutely need to. I don't plan on having to though. I can pretty much charge at work or at Harmon's for 99% of my cases. If I ever need to use the Tesla Super Charger near me and pay, that is also an option.

Effect on Battery

I have used both level 2 charging and the level 1 charging, CCS adapter charging and haven't noticed a significant effect on my battery.

Conclusion

For me, the CCS adapter will be worth it in about 9 months time of using the CCS charge stall. I plan on using only that stall from now on and getting a full charge in about 2 hours or less. This is well worth it to me and means I don't need to leave my car at Harmon's for many hours at a time.

Would you get the CCS adapter for your Tesla vehicle?

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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 Gallery, Screenshot