Yesterday I had my Tesla CHAdeMO adaptor delivered, this will be our lifeline when we go on holiday to Scotland in a few weeks time as the furthest north Tesla Super Charger is in Dundee.

This adaptor is a serious bit of kit weighing in at about 2.3kg and costing £358. On one end you have a female CHAdeMO socket and the other you have a male type 2 connector which is what the Tesla takes.

The adaptor can handle up to 125 amps of DC voltage which gives a maximum of 43.75kW for 350v packs such as my 75kWh, and 50kW for 400v packs such as the 100kWh. I believe these are more theoretical limits though and you usually obtain 35-40kW from most UK charging stations.

Whilst it evidently is built to handle some serious power I believe that a decent amount of the cost is to cover licencing fees to the CHAdeMO Association along with covering the R&D costs of the communication layer.

Effectively the adaptor is talking to the car to understand it’s voltage, state of charge (SoC) and what power input it can handle based on this and it’s temperature. It then takes this data and translates it into a standard the CHAdeMO charger understands. So it’s a little more than a couple of meaty adaptors connected with a big thick cable.

As a Tesla owner, I can do you a favour when you get a Tesla. The only way to get free Supercharging is to use this link: http://ts.la/kris3228