Just go try them both. CCS2 Has separate AC and DC conductors, and the plug is huge owing to having 2 pair of charging pins and backward compatibility. They are more awkward and heavier than a fuel pump, and significantly heavier than the Tesla plugs. It's terrible.
> They are more awkward and heavier than a fuel pump
Really? I don't doubt that Tesla's plugs are smaller and lighter, but it always seemed a bit caricature-ist about people saying how horrible the CCS plugs are and that they weigh like a million pounds or something. They certainly never seemed heavier or harder to manipulate to me compared to a gas pump, so I just never understood this complaint.
I recently tried the ones at Esso in Canada, it literally feels like 4x the weight.
I've never needed 2 handles to manipulate a gas pump or Tesla charger, but with the CCS I had to use both hands and my body weight to sorta force it around. It was wild.
I do think they are worse than fuel pumps in those aspects but the real issue is that, when you pull up to a gas pump, you usually pull your car right up to the pump and it's just a foot or two away from where the pump is.
Parking lot style EV chargers mean that I'm frequently pulling the charging cable across the front of my car and trying to plug the cable in straight while the tension on the cable is pulling it sideways. It frequently means it's a two hand job, one on the cable to keep in straight and the other guiding the plug in to the port.
Places where you don't need a fast charge? Overnight at home. From arrival to lunch at work. After lunch to quitting time. And even those times assume you drive more than 50 miles/day, which most folks don't.
Why would you consciously pick 7kW over 20+ just because of a sleeker connector?
> What was the problem again
Why would I want to wait for more than I have to? e.g. I forgot to charge during the night and need to go on a trip in a few hours. Now I need to find a fasts charger and pay for it instead of charging at home, why exactly?
While not the norm, 100km each way is not an unusual commute (I did that for years). With winter driving, long days out and long commutes, I suppose you could get to a point where 7kW AC slow-charging does not cut it, and having room for cheap upgrades don't hurt.
You want to charge as slow as possible for your need, but needs do vary.
In europe the connections are a lot lower amperage, around here for example 35 ampere per phase. But having 3 phases is pretty normal and the standard in any new house, which means 3 phases can let you charge at 22kW with a few Ampere left, while with 1 phase you can only charge at 7 KW.
That does make it useful to charge it in a few hours in the afternoon, instead of having to wiat the night.
In Denmark, the only places without triphase power are some very old apartments in inner Copenhagen. To be fair, some of those apartments predate US independence by a hundred years. Those buildings do have triphasic power, but had a silly scheme where each apartment got two random phases.
All houses have triphasic power (usually 35A per phase, sometimes 63A), and all apartment buildings with electrics from the last 2-3 decades provide triphasic power to each apartment as well.
Our ovens and cooktops expect triphasic power, with a two-phase downgraded configuration for backup.
My point being the connector, which is the topic here, is the exact same form factor while still delivering 10x what that chunky one does in the poster's situation. The choice isn't "small tesla form factor and slow" versus "chunky and a tiny bit faster"
The cost of the supercharger isn't really relevant either, most US homes are gonna max out at 200 amp service which is a max of 48kw, but realistically probably half that due to your house needing electricity and a single custom circuit unlikely to be over 100 amps.
CCS1 has separate AC and DC pins in the connector, but no cable has conductors for both. I've looked, since I was trying to make a passthrough testing device! Is CCS2 different?
If you get the DC cable, you have conductors on the pilot pins and the DC pins, and the AC pin positions are just empty.
If you get the AC cable, you have conductors on the pilot pins and the AC pins, and the DC part of the connector isn't there at all.
Nope. No separate AC and DC conductors for CCS2.
From wikipedia [1], the DC cable has: PE, CP & PP (comms), fat DC+ and fat DC-. That's it. In the AC portion of CCS2 there are connectors for Neutral and up to three lines (for three phase charging), but these are not present for a DC cable.
I have to admit I haven't used Tesla plugs, but there is already a slight difference between the cable from a 50kW charger and a 350kW charger.
I actually got a CCS adapter and did exactly that with my Tesla this week.
Esso in Canada has free DC charging for a while through their Journie app.
It is like manhandling a pressurized firehose, and I'm a 30 year old male who works out. I had to actually put my phone away and use both hands to force it around, I'm accustomed to the Tesla connector I easily one-hand.
And despite how big and thick it was, it was still so weirdly heavy I had to double check it wasn't somehow secured to the ground as well.
There is a 0% chance either of my elderly parents would be able to get that plugged in.
A combined CCS2 plug is chunkier and might be a bit heavier, but not compared to, say, using a fuel pump.