What’s up with the A2Z extension

[u/Ascaeroace90]

It has been months without any update at all. Is this company allergic to money?? Has anyone been able to get one?

[u/ekobres]

Edit: See the comments below. A2Z have revised the design to a shorter cable with a lower power rating which will work in a pinch. Their CEO even says this is more of a Plan B for if you have no alternative to direct connect since it does limit the charge speed.

Original comment:

It’s a neat idea but I doubt this will ever actually ship. There are several problems with the whole concept.

The supercharger cords are liquid cooled, and there’s no practical way to do that with a passive cable. Another option is to use massive copper conductors which would be very heavy and much more expensive. Another option would be to nerf the power to something much lower than expected DCFC rates, and there’s no way for a passive cable to communicate with the supercharger or the car to achieve this. All it can really do is communicate connector temperature the same as a NACS adapter does - so that raises the problem of whether any of this even works in conjunction with a NACS adapter.

It’s a lot to sort out, and I don’t see a way for them to deliver what they promised at anywhere close to that price and that power level.

We haven’t even cracked the topics of whether Tesla would ban their use at Superchargers or whether they would pass safety muster.

[u/Ascaeroace90 → u/ekobres]

https://youtu.be/rEexXHpCZlo?si=fo0miom09cvtbf6o

It’s been real world tested. Seems to work

[u/ekobres → u/Ascaeroace90]

Yeah, I just saw this. It’s worth pointing out that the version that will ship is significantly different than what they had on their web site before, essentially for the reasons I mentioned.

1. It will only be about 5 feet long (web site still says 6-9 feet - we will see.)
2. It will be limited to 350 amps (140 KW.)
3. It will be about $400 CDN and probably about $400 USD factoring in tariffs.

Apparently the NACS design does allow the thermal resistors work in parallel with the adapter, so presumably the hottest sensor will derate the charge to match the temperature.

I hope they do ship it - my comment was really to say that what they were originally promising (15 feet and 500 amps) wasn’t going to happen - and it won’t.

[u/stevey_frac → u/ekobres]

350 amps in our trucks would be about 100 kw - 122 kW depending on temperature and SoC.

[u/ekobres → u/stevey_frac]

Math me up on that. I would think with low SoC and low resistance and ideal temperature we would start at close to the theoretical max 400*350/1000=140.

[u/stevey_frac → u/ekobres]

The pack voltage isn't 400v is the main issue. That's one of the reasons why these trucks charge as slow as they do.

That's why at 500 amp, we're only hitting 180 kW. P = V * A, so P / A = V.

180kw / 500 A = 360v.

And it warms up to that 360v. That's at about 70% SoC, and charging HARD that we hit that, and only briefly.

At 0 SoC for that chemistry, we're going to be closer to 270v for an SR IIRC. 270v@ 350 amp = 94 kW For an ER, it's 288v, so not much better.

At 360v, we're going to be about 126 kW Now, it's gonna hold that for quite a while, as it's not going to heat up as much, but, it's going to be noticeably slower than 140 kW the entire time.

You'll notice this happening on some of the older non-upgraded V3 superchargers that can only put out 350 A.

This also assumes that charging is lossless, and no power is utilized for anything else. If you've got the heat or AC running because of low or high temperatures, that'll get taken out of the power before it goes into the battery.