Best adapter for charging at Tesla chargers?

[MAPC]

Any particular recommendations for the adapter to allow Taycan to change at Tesla (not supercharger) charging facilities?

Post links of ones that you like and work well.

Sponsored

 

[FrozenBerries]

Any particular recommendations for the adapter to allow Taycan to change at Tesla (not supercharger) charging facilities?

Post links of ones that you like and work well.

I think I’ve seen everyone mention teslataps. I just ordered the 80 amp teslatap mini myself.

 

[beefster]

TeslaTap Mini 60A if you have the standard AC onboard charger, TeslaTap Mini 80A if you have the 19.2kW option

 

[Torv]

I have a TeslaTap adapter and it’s fine. But I recently bought this and it’s more than half the price and it works like a charm:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C6MD3DCD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

[arijaycomet]

@MAPC is the Taycan your first EV? Having been electric since 2012, my over-a-decade experience tells me that the need for any sort of NACS/J1772 adapter is pretty limited. Obviously this may change in the near future as we all move to NACS, but at the moment there are actually more J1772 connectors "in the wild" (Level 2/AC charging) than NACS.

I can say that there has been rare occasions where I was staying overnight at a hotel that had 1x J1772 and 1x NACS/Tesla, and the former was taken, and the adapter helped. But that is rather rare to have occur; and most hotels that have EVSE have both, or these days, favor J1772 still. We have had as many as 3x EVs in our home over the last 5-6 years at times, and I don't even carry the adapter with me. I have one, but I never use it.

Since I know you were on a budget shopping for the car, I'd hate to see you spend $50-100 on something you don't actually need. Of course, everyone's use case is unique and that is not lost on me.

 

[MAPC]

Thanks @arijaycomet-- appreciated.
I have owned 3 EV's in the past. A Tesla Roadster (yes, I too was an early adopter) then I had one of the earliest Model S' (March 2013) and then a P100D.

I agree with your assessment- my thought was that $50-100 isn't a bad additional insurance policy. I likely won't order one straight away but wanted to at least know what I should vet should I want one.

Reality is in my 5+ years of Tesla ownership (1 with Roadster, 3 with S and 1 with P100D), I very very rarely charged anywhere other than home (exception: free charging at SFO so I would plug in there when traveling).

 

[arijaycomet]

Agree 100%! Cheap insurance policy. Better to have it and not need it then the other way around. If you don’t mind spending the money that makes sense.

By the way, I also had a roadster, a radiant, red 2010 sport. How I wish I had kept that car since it would’ve doubled in value, but I was always afraid of the battery needing replacing again. It already had the R80 upgrade! (Prior owner; sat one winter unplugged) - my Taycan is car 102 and almost 1/3 of them have been plug-in electric. Last year I had 11 cars this year about half as many. It’s a sickness ;-)

excited to follow your Taycan journey and see what you think especially now that I know you had those Tesla vehicles. The Taycan has the best steering and chassis dynamics and helps me miss my roadster a little less

 

[MAPC]

Agree 100%! Cheap insurance policy. Better to have it and not need it then the other way around. If you don’t mind spending the money that makes sense.

By the way, I also had a roadster, a radiant, red 2010 sport. How I wish I had kept that car since it would’ve doubled in value, but I was always afraid of the battery needing replacing again. It already had the R80 upgrade! (Prior owner; sat one winter unplugged) - my Taycan is car 102 and almost 1/3 of them have been plug-in electric. Last year I had 11 cars this year about half as many. It’s a sickness ;-)

excited to follow your Taycan journey and see what you think especially now that I know you had those Tesla vehicles. The Taycan has the best steering and chassis dynamics and helps me miss my roadster a little less

Nice to meet someone with a disease worse than mine! I think my count is only in the 60s-70s.

In that mix there have ben the three Teslas (I made a good amount on the Roadster but not as much as if I had held it longer! Mine was #158- Thunder Gray) and 9 Porsches (at last count---3 911's, 2 Boxsters, 1 Cayenne (eHybrid), 2 Macans and now the Taycan).

As such, I shop the hell out of them before buying so that I minimize my loss at time of sale. Made money on the Roadster and about half of the Porsches!

 

[arijaycomet]

Wow yours was an early car-- my 2010 was # 613 and a sport. Purchased from original owner, I was both the 2nd and 4th owner. Made good money off first sale, broke even second time around but should have kept it. You can see some photos if you scroll down far enough on my Instagram page, should you care.

Between my wife and myself we've had 11 Tesla vehicles, I've had a half dozen Porsche -- I did a count by make once but that was 15-20 cars ago. So I'm not really sure on all those figures. Recently had a Hummer EV SUV for a few weeks this year -- some odd stuff, and a lot of fun BEVs!

BACK ON TOPIC --- as an early EV owner, I did have a 40A NACS/Tesla adapter for my vehicles -- because at one point we had a Tesla EVSE in the garage and I had a non-Tesla that needed to charge. Ultimately I sold that to a friend when I decided to go full J1772 charging at home and just use the adapter w/Tesla as needed. More recently however, I did buy THIS ADAPTER OFF AMAZON since it was on sale at the time for $65 -- currently at $75 -- but I can admit that I've had it 6+ months and not used it. But I bought it when the NACS news was blowing up, it was on sale, a friend recommended it, etc -- I assume in the coming years as more new L2 chargers are NACS, this may prove being more useful than in the past.

 

[Racer_Ex]

Newb question: If you want to use a Tesla charging station, do you need to have an account with Tesla? Or can you insert a card like at a petrol station?

 

[arijaycomet]

Newb question: If you want to use a Tesla charging station, do you need to have an account with Tesla? Or can you insert a card like at a petrol station?

To answer this question, we must first back up a second and differentiate between AC and DC charging ---

In this thread what we are talking about are AC charging adapters. These can go up to 19.2 kW charging on AC using our car's J1772 port (Level 1/2) and any Tesla NACS adapter that is operating on AC only. This is like home charging, or overnight at a hotel, or similar. The adapter allows you to use a NACS (Tesla) cable to plug into our car (J1772) in the North American market. This is not applicable to Europe where there is no proprietary Tesla situation. Since AC charging is typically not VIN locked, you do not need any special software.

However, when you are talking about a "Tesla charging station" it is likely possible you are talking about Tesla DC chargers, also know as Superchargers. In that instance, you can NOT charge your Taycan at 99% of those stations. These adapters will not function in those situations (physically it would connect, but the station would error out, the charge session would not take place). That is because those chargers use the NACS handle to offer DC power, and those would require a different adapter AND approval from Tesla that does not yet exist (next year that will change).

Regardless, you -will- need to use the Tesla app, to start a DC charger at a supercharger station. However, these cheap adapters will NOT work. There are a SMALL ( less than 1% ) number of stations in the NA market that have MagicDocks built INTO the charging towers (Tesla) that allows non-Tesla vehicles to charge. In those instances, you need to download the Tesla app (there is just 1x app, no special app) -- create account, add credit card info, and then press the "charge a non Tesla" button -- and then you can tell it what station/tower you are at and charge. However again the # of stations that offer this are VERY limited.

 

[Racer_Ex]

Thank you for the very detailed reply! Exactly what I needed to know even though I didn’t know enough to ask the question with sufficient detail!

 

[daveo4EV]

for daily use the TeslaTap is of very limited use…

however when road tripping I've found it be used heavily and in one particluar use case…

hotels

a _LOT_ of hotels have Tesla L2 Chargers (16-80 amps) - so when away from home and traveling it's fairly common on the west coast to find Hotels w/Tesla chargers (often time with no J-1772 EVSE) - so having this adapter means you can charge your Taycan overnight where you otherwise would not be able to…

Tesla Tap (or equivalent) is a must have for any EV owner in my opinion. Having it on hand and with you in the vehicle turns an "oh sh*t" moment into a "no big deal moment" - and that alone is worth the cost.

For example in Big Sur, Ca the Post Ranch Inn - has no J-1772 EVSE's - only Tesla chargers.

and even at hotel with both Tesla and j-1772 - it means you have access to _ALL_ EV chargers the hotels provide - not just the J-1772 ones - Tesla owners have a j-1772 adapter so they can use both types of charges - we should be the same - equal access to L1/L2 AC charging regardess of plug type.

seems a no-brainer to me.

I don't know why you would not have one just to cover the bases.

Honestly one of these adapter is less than a tank of gas for Cayenne - we're not talking big money here - get it, throw it in the frunk - pull it out when you need it. Easy.

 

[hifi239]

Note that the 80A Tesla Tap mini isn't $50-100, it is $300-340. They got an early reputation for not burning up or melting. With any of them, though, I heard that even if you find a destination charger, getting it to charge a non-Tesla via a J1772 adapter doesn't always work.

 

[Torv]

for daily use the TeslaTap is of very limited use…

however when road tripping I've found it be used heavily and in one particluar use case…

hotels

a _LOT_ of hotels have Tesla L2 Chargers (16-80 amps) - so when away from home and traveling it's fairly common on the west coast to find Hotels w/Tesla chargers (often time with no J-1772 EVSE) - so having this adapter means you can charge your Taycan overnight where you otherwise would not be able to…

Tesla Tap (or equivalent) is a must have for any EV owner in my opinion. Having it on hand and with you in the vehicle turns an "oh sh*t" moment into a "no big deal moment" - and that alone is worth the cost.

For example in Big Sur, Ca the Post Ranch Inn - has no J-1772 EVSE's - only Tesla chargers.

and even at hotel with both Tesla and j-1772 - it means you have access to _ALL_ EV chargers the hotels provide - not just the J-1772 ones - Tesla owners have a j-1772 adapter so they can use both types of charges - we should be the same - equal access to L1/L2 AC charging regardess of plug type.

seems a no-brainer to me.

I don't know why you would not have one just to cover the bases.

Honestly one of these adapter is less than a tank of gas for Cayenne - we're not talking big money here - get it, throw it in the frunk - pull it out when you need it. Easy.

Love the Post Ranch Inn — and yes, my adapter did come in handy there!

Sponsored