Tesla announces hefty retrofit price for old vehicles to use CCS adapter

Tesla has announced the price of the needed retrofit for older Tesla vehicles to use the CCS adapter and access other charging stations.

For the past year, Tesla has been working to open its Supercharger network to non-Tesla electric vehicles in North America. This has been a concern for Tesla owners since it will increase traffic at Supercharger stations. On top of that, it doesn’t work both ways, since Tesla owners don’t have access to most non-Tesla charging stations due to them being equipped with CCS connectors.

In 2020, Tesla announced that a CCS1 adapter is coming, but it was only available in Korea, for some reason.

It took two years, but Tesla finally launched the $250 CCS adapter in North America late last year.

However, the adapter was not available to all Tesla owners. The charging ECU in Tesla vehicles built prior to October 2020 is not compatible, and it is going to need a retrofit in order to work with the adapter.

When first launching the adapter last year, the automaker said that the retrofit would come in 2023 without confirming the price.

Now Tesla has added the price of the retrofit, and it’s not cheap. Last week, Tesla reduced the price of the adapter to $175, which helps, but if you have a car older than October 2020, it is going to cost you $450 to get both the adapter and the new charging ECU.

Tesla also appears to have pushed the start of the retrofits, which will put some stress on the automaker’s service capacity, to “mid-2023.”

Electrek’s Take

Is it worth it? That will depend on everyone’s situation. If you do a specific route regularly that the Supercharger network doesn’t cover well, but where there are CCS chargers, it might be worth it.

Personally, I think $450 is a bit high. I don’t think I’ll get it on my Model 3.

The Supercharger network has served me well so far and it keeps growing. I think I’ll save $450.