Full on conversation to CCS or NACS?

[TSayles]

Has anyone done, or even investigated doing, a full on conversation to CCS or NACS (aka Tesla)?

I have an older Outlander PHEV (2018 NA) with 115k miles. Tha battery has been abused charging twice a day for most of those miles. I starting to find more charging stations that do not support CHAdeMO.

Rather than a simple OEM battery replacement, has anyone gone to a shop that converts ICE vehicles to EV to upgrade the battery and change out the whole charging system for a standard that isn't going away?

 

[littlescrote]

It would never pay for itself. You'd spend thousands on a modification to be able to charge at expensive destination chargers. You might as well just use the ICE.

 

[tikan]

There are some after market adapters out there that look like might work. I haven't heard of a conversion. I am surprised they are still putting the CHAdeMO port on the 2023 and 2024 models though.

 

[TSayles]

It would never pay for itself. You'd spend thousands on a modification to be able to charge at expensive destination chargers. You might as well just use the ICE.

I've got a <$100 USD adapter that allows me to charge at level 2 destination chargers.
What I talking about is a conversation that would allow charging at CCS and (eventually) Tesla fast DC charging stations.

 

[TSayles]

I've got a <$100 USD adapter that allows me to charge at level 2 destination chargers.
What I talking about is a conversation that would allow charging at CCS and (eventually) Tesla fast DC charging stations.

Also looking at the resale value boost of having upgraded the battery and done a conversion.

 

[TSayles]

There are some after market adapters out there that look like might work. I haven't heard of a conversion. I am surprised they are still putting the CHAdeMO port on the 2023 and 2024 models though.

Can you point me at the aftermarket CHAdeMO converters? I've been looking and haven't found anything.

 

[tikan]

Can you point me at the aftermarket CHAdeMO converters? I've been looking and haven't found anything.

These are the ones I saw a couple weeks ago. Not sure if they have been tested or are safe, etc.

https://a2zevshop.com/collections/chademo/products/dc-ccs1-to-chademo-adapter-125a-500v

https://evniculus.eu/products/adapter-ccs2-to-chademo-for-nissan-leaf

 

[Rockwallrick]

There are some after market adapters out there that look like might work. I haven't heard of a conversion. I am surprised they are still putting the CHAdeMO port on the 2023 and 2024 models though.

We’ve had our 2023 for over a year now and haven’t used the Chademo port at all. Most Electrify America stations have at least one Chademo port but with their infrastructure issues it would probably be more trouble than its worth. I just burn gas on road trips and do level 2 charging with a Grizzle at home. This vehicle has plenty of range for almost all of our local driving!

 

[tikan]

We’ve had our 2023 for over a year now and haven’t used the Chademo port at all. Most Electrify America stations have at least one Chademo port but with their infrastructure issues it would probably be more trouble than its worth. I just burn gas on road trips and do level 2 charging with a Grizzle at home. This vehicle has plenty of range for almost all of our local driving!

I have a feeling Mitsubishi's implementation of Chademo is screwy as well. There are only a few Chademo chargers with 200km of me and every one of them has notes on Plugshare that say they don't work with Mitisbishi Outlanders. I've personally tried one of them for testing and the charge light immediately goes red.

 

[BobK]

I have a feeling Mitsubishi's implementation of Chademo is screwy as well. There are only a few Chademo chargers with 200km of me and every one of them has notes on Plugshare that say they don't work with Mitisbishi Outlanders. I've personally tried one of them for testing and the charge light immediately goes red.

I've used the Chademo on my 2023 many times at our local Flo charging stations and it works fine, but the charging rate is a fair bit slower than the capacity of the charger. Maybe the Plugshare charger can't match the charging rate the Outlander needs.

 

[tikan]

I've used the Chademo on my 2023 many times at our local Flo charging stations and it works fine, but the charging rate is a fair bit slower than the capacity of the charger. Maybe the Plugshare charger can't match the charging rate the Outlander needs.

It's not a plugshare charger, it's every charger in the area - different providers. It's possible it can't match, not sure. Plugshare is just a free app to view any charger in the area and add comments / let people know how long you will be.

Edit: For reference, the one I checked was a Flo charger provided by the provincial government. It even has a note saying they have reports from Outlander owners that it doesn't work for them and it didn't work for me either.

 

[Stevepl11]

I've used the Chademo on my 2023 many times at our local Flo charging stations and it works fine, but the charging rate is a fair bit slower than the capacity of the charger. Maybe the Plugshare charger can't match the charging rate the Outlander needs.

That's probably because it's a PHEV not BEV, so the battery is smaller. You cannot charge a 20kWh battery at the same rate as a similar voltage 100kWh battery. Because you'll set it on fire.

 

[BobK]

It's not a plugshare charger, it's every charger in the area - different providers. It's possible it can't match, not sure. Plugshare is just a free app to view any charger in the area and add comments / let people know how long you will be.

Edit: For reference, the one I checked was a Flo charger provided by the provincial government. It even has a note saying they have reports from Outlander owners that it doesn't work for them and it didn't work for me either.

I've successfully used 6 different Flo Chademo chargers here in Nova Scotia and I have seen other Outlanders on them too. Can't explain the difference.
However. one curious thing I'm finding in the colder weather is that after Chademo charging the car shifts out of EV mode much more often at highway speeds (even when I select EV mode). Makes me think the battery is not producing enough current to keep the car at speed. This rarely happens after using my home charger, before I do the Chademo charge.

 

[BobK]

That's probably because it's a PHEV not BEV, so the battery is smaller. You cannot charge a 20kWh battery at the same rate as a similar voltage 100kWh battery. Because you'll set it on fire.

Unfortunately, the charging here is billed based on time, not power consumption, so it makes charging the Outlander considerably more expensive than the EVs.

 

[tikan]

I've successfully used 6 different Flo Chademo chargers here in Nova Scotia and I have seen other Outlanders on them too. Can't explain the difference.
However. one curious thing I'm finding in the colder weather is that after Chademo charging the car shifts out of EV mode much more often at highway speeds (even when I select EV mode). Makes me think the battery is not producing enough current to keep the car at speed. This rarely happens after using my home charger, before I do the Chademo charge.

It could be the batteries running too hot and unable to provide enough power. Have you checked the temperature after a Chademo charge?

 

[TSayles]

I've traveled all up and down the west coast of the USA and all the fast DC stations (except Tesla Superchargers) I've visited had one, and only one, CHAdeMO plug. Many time that one plug has been blocked by someone charging with the CCS plug even when there were plenty of other CCS plugs that wouldn't block the CHAdeMO.

Recently however I came across a station that had NO CHAdeMO plugs at all. If the CHAdeMO plug are eventually going to get phased out in North America, given that NACS (Tesla) is now the new standard, that makes me worry about the resale value of my Outlander PHEV.

Being that my 2018 Outlander needs a new battery anyway, I'm wondering if it might make sense to both upgrade to a non-OEM battery AND replace the OEM charging system with an aftermarket NACS or CCS conversion kit intended for ICE vehicles.

 

[TSayles]

I have a feeling Mitsubishi's implementation of Chademo is screwy as well. There are only a few Chademo chargers with 200km of me and every one of them has notes on Plugshare that say they don't work with Mitisbishi Outlanders. I've personally tried one of them for testing and the charge light immediately goes red.

I had problems at several ChargePoint stations recently. The session will end after about 4 seconds of charging. So I've also had a feeling that something about the Outlander PHEV CHAdeMO protocol isn't quite compliant with the standard.

 

[BobK]

It could be the batteries running too hot and unable to provide enough power. Have you checked the temperature after a Chademo charge?

If anything, I think it is the other way around. I think the battery isn't warm enough. I don't have this problem in the summer, only when I hi-speed charge in below zero weather in the winter.
I have an iPhone. Is there a way of monitoring the battery temperature other than the Android only PHEV Watchdog app?

 

[tikan]

If anything, I think it is the other way around. I think the battery isn't warm enough. I don't have this problem in the summer, only when I hi-speed charge in below zero weather in the winter.
I have an iPhone. Is there a way of monitoring the battery temperature other than the Android only PHEV Watchdog app?

My 2024 has a screen where you can see the battery temperature on the console. That's where I check to see when it's too cold to use the battery.