Deep dive into Tesla power electronics

One thing I never bothered to read up on is the tech that allows the model X & S charge port doors to open up automatically as the owner brings the Tesla nozzle close to the charge port door. Even the 240v HPWC at home does this.
It's soooo unnecessary .... but 'cool' nevertheless.
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Isn't that true of most luxury features?

 

Auto-folding mirrors...

 

& with defrosters .... & proximity flashers, & integrated blind spot cameras. Hate to hear what these things go for.

 

I thought there was going to be discussion of the technical specs.

I'm impressed by the well thought out handshake of the J1772 interface. While it is designed for lower power levels than a modern Tesla, the batteries used in cars were much less capable when the J1772 standard was developed. Obviously, the lower power levels were meant for cars that did not commute hundreds of miles a day. I could travel 100 miles a day and easily recharge off a J1772 level 2 charger each night.

Tesla was smart to make the charge port J1772 protocol and signal compatible, even though they made the plug itself deliberately incompatible with the public infrastructure. It sort of smacks of selfishness to set up your cars to use locally provided resources (chargers) while prohibiting other cars from using the Tesla chargers. Of course, nothing in the modern ethos prohibits selfishness, especially when there are no repercussions.

It's neat that tesla chose to use Bluetooth as an "open sesame" signal. BT is easily spoofed, copied and corrupted but a BT chip is dirt cheap and routines to work with them are widely available in the public domain.

 

The Volt charger will run off DC in its specified 90-250 vDC range (as validated by a guy in Europe)

Trouble is finding an EVSE to handshake or even operate on dc but the charger itself will run.

Also supplying DC to a Volt will not allow any faster charging, might be useful to HV solar though

 

If I recall correctly, at the time the Tesla charging plug was designed, there was no existing standard for charging plugs that met the requirements of supercharging. Tesla was forced to either develop a better plug, or debilitate the future cars and Supercharger network with the available standard plugs. So I don't understand why Tesla choosing to not cripple itself with obsolete technology would be considered selfish.

 

There have been 4 or 5 times over the past 8+ years with my Leaf where I have gotten to the charge port door and realized I forgot to open it with the inner release button. Each time was mildly frustrating and I wish it had BLE opening!

 

CHAdeMO was the only other standard in the US at the time, and it may have been limited to just 50kW back then. They also charged licensing fees to use it.

 

Sort of. Look at the offer and you will see that it includes a clause that gives Tesla the right to use the intellectual property of the other company with indemnity in exchange for the use the tesla designs.

 

Many licensing agreements between companies involve a license swap.
Toyota wanted BMW knowledge with carbon fiber, so traded fuel cell expertise for it for example.

 

It's in one of my posts back when when this was last discussed. Maybe late last year???