Tesla tests Model 3 CCS charging at third-party station

Years in the making, it’s finally happening: a Tesla Model 3 was spotted charging at a CCS charging station – the first Tesla vehicle to publicly do so, as far as we can tell.

It’s something that Tesla owners have been waiting for for years as it became clear that CCS is becoming the main charging standard in the industry.

Last month, Tesla confirmed Model 3 is getting a CCS plug in Europe and that an adapter is coming for Model S and Model X.

Earlier this month, the automaker started retrofitting European Supercharger stations with “dual charge cables” to support the existing connector and CCS standard.

That’s so Model 3 owners be able to use Tesla’s Supercharger network, but the CCS standard will also enable them to use several other growing CCS charging networks, like the FastNed network.

Christoph Maria spotted the vehicle at a FastNed charging station in the Netherlands earlier today:

Gespot de eerste model 3 op de weg in Nederland, testcar @FastNed met ccs stekker! pic.twitter.com/wvPcNN6aQt

— Christoph Maria (@ChristophMaria) December 18, 2018

A source familiar with the charging station said that the Model 3 was an engineering prototype that was performing some tests.

The vehicle was at over 60% state of charge when it stopped at the station and therefore, it didn’t reach any kind of significant charge rate.

The source said that they only “tried a couple of 1-minute sessions” instead of a full charge.

The first Model 3 customer deliveries in Europe are expected in February. We should know more about the charging rate on a CCS station by then.

Electrek’s Take

I am very curious about the Model 3 charge rate on third-party networks.

On Tesla’s Superchargers with the new CCS cable, the Model 3 is likely to still be limited to ~120 kW, but there’s a chance it could be different on other stations.

The 120 kW limitation is believed to be at the stall and not on the Model 3’s high-wattage system.

The FastNed station where the Model 3 engineering prototype stopped has a capacity of up 175 kW. It would be fascinating to see a full cycle on that station.

We are likely going to find out within the next few weeks.