New Charger-related recall (for the 240 V cable) (NHTSA ID 23V-841)

[whitex]

is the cable gauge any thicker? or will it still overheat but now interrupt your charging session when the cable gets too hot?

That was the first thing I was wondering too. Unfortunately the cable is short so chances of getting the gauge labels are not 100%. All I can see is this:

However, given that the new cable is the same size, while possibly having 2 more conductors (the 2 extra signal pins wired up, can't be sure if previous wire didn't already have those conductors in the past just not wired up though), I would venture to guess the wire gauges are the same as before, only a temperature sensor was added. Here is a picture of new vs. old (new Audi cable on top, old Porsche on the bottom):

I measured the diameter of the cable, it's 16mm for both. It's possible they made the insulation thinner or the signaling conductors thinner while going up in size for power, but I doubt it.

So it seems they will still heat up, but something will happen when a temperature rises above some threshold. Not sure what that something will be, either a current throttle or charge cycle abort. Too many other things to do lately to setup an experiment at this time.

 

[800v]

I would venture to guess the wire gauges are the same as before, only a temperature sensor was added. ..

Yikes! I really hope this is not the case. For Porsche that would be not something that I would expect from the brand, and very disappointing hope they did better ..

(for example by also sending power over the signal cables to reduce the load on the main one. (The J+ booster for example uses multiple thinner wires to be more flexible than one big one))

 

[whitex]

Yikes! I really hope this is not the case. For Porsche that would be not something that I would expect from the brand, and very disappointing hope they did better ..

I sincerely doubt Porsche will have a different solution that Audi.

(for example by also sending power over the signal cables to reduce the load on the main one. (The J÷ booster for example uses multiple thinner wires to be more flexible than one big one))

[/QUOTE]
Not over actual signaling wires - they are too small for it to be worth while (too much insulation vs. conductor material). This is done sometimes to make the cable more flexible, use two conductors instead of one, but you’d have to use dozens of signaling AWG22’s for example.

 

[daveo4EV]

That was the first thing I was wondering too. Unfortunately the cable is short so chances of getting the gauge labels are not 100%. All I can see is this:

However, given that the new cable is the same size, while possibly having 2 more conductors (the 2 extra signal pins wired up, can't be sure if previous wire didn't already have those conductors in the past just not wired up though), I would venture to guess the wire gauges are the same as before, only a temperature sensor was added. Here is a picture of new vs. old (new Audi cable on top, old Porsche on the bottom):

I measured the diameter of the cable, it's 16mm for both. It's possible they made the insulation thinner or the signaling conductors thinner while going up in size for power, but I doubt it.

So it seems they will still heat up, but something will happen when a temperature rises above some threshold. Not sure what that something will be, either a current throttle or charge cycle abort. Too many other things to do lately to setup an experiment at this time.

thank you for the update - this is disappointing but unsurprising - they are still probably shipping 10 gauge wire for the high voltage conductors which will continue to have their high nominal operating temperature - they have "fixed" the problem in that they will probably not run too hot for too long, but they have not addressed the core issue that it doesn't need to run that hot and a simple fix is to move to 8 gauge or 6 gauge wire for a cooler nominal operating temperature.

sad.

 

[whitex]

thank you for the update - this is disappointing but unsurprising - they are still probably shipping 10 gauge wire for the high voltage conductors which will continue to have their high nominal operating temperature - they have "fixed" the problem in that they will probably not run too hot for too long, but they have not addressed the core issue that it doesn't need to run that hot and a simple fix is to move to 8 gauge or 6 gauge wire for a cooler nominal operating temperature.

sad.

Not at all surprising - a minimum cost solution is typically what corporations will do - helps their bottom line (bigger conductors would probably mean more redesign of plugs/connectors, and potentially recertification - not just a little extra copper). The main thing I want to know is what happens then the plug overheats. If the charging just slows down a bit, that's much better than if the charging just stops (and worse, if it doesn't automatically resume after plug cools off).

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