Charging cable suggestion

Super fast chargers come with the cables attached. He'll only need a cable to charge at regular public chargers, generally up to 22kwh. I purchased 3 when I first started out, as I had issues with the first two. Ended up buying the last one from Supercheap Auto, mainly for ease of return if I ran into issues again. Cost me around $140 and it hasn't skipped a beat.

Hi, thank you for that insight. I might head over to check out their options.

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That’s a lovely thought and there are a few options for cables that can be useful to carry. However, the “right” cable depends entirely on the socket you need to plug it in to. So it might be tricky to find something that is actually useful for your bro.  Here’s a quick rundown of some options though.  For comparison, the “granny charger” is known as a Level 1 charger, and gives about 2kW, which adds about 10km of range per hour.  “Level 2” charging needs a dedicated “box” with its own wiring to the panel. In a Seal that will give you a max of 7kw, so about 45km per hour. Some of those “boxes” have a hard wired lead, but some you need to bring your own, which is known as a Type 2 to Type 2 cable - easy enough to search online for (you want 32A), they seem to start at around $170 at the moment. They’re useful to have, but they’re still in the “overnight/all day charge” category so may not be of use if there isn’t a specific box he can use.  Level 3 chargers (including Tesla superchargers) all have connected cables, so nothing to buy there. This is the true fast charging option, and if your brother is going up and down in a day, might be his only option to do it on the way.  There are a few other niche options, such as 15A plug adapters (~$200) but again you need access to a special socket and it really only gives you an extra 50% power over the granny charger. Or the Fronius Wattpilot portable Level 2, but they’re going to set you back a couple of grand and again need a really specialist socket to be available. So they probably fall into the “extreme enthusiast” category! Hope this is all of some help!

Doing a bit of a rough plan using abetterrouteplanner.com from the centre of Melbourne to Wangaratta a Seal would need to stop for about 20 mins at the Glenrowan BP on the way back. These chargers are capable of power delivery at up to 150kW There is also a couple of 50kW chargers in Wangaratta itself and these would sort your brother's car out in about 40mins If he's staying somewhere where there is a normal power point he'd be able to use the granny charger to charge the car overnight, probably wouldn't get enough to avoid a fast charger on the way back but it would probably half the stopping time. The granny charger your brother speaks of plugs into a regular household outlet and charges the car slowly, around 10km/hr or 1.5kWh/hr. As another poster mentioned the high speed DC chargers will have cables already. There are other slightly crazy options as well like stopping for 3x 5min charging sessions at Glenrowan, Avenel and Wandong.

Hi, thank you. I probably didn’t specify - he will be traveling for work so just a stay at the local motel. But thank you for the plug share recommendation - I’ll look into it.

Thank you! I heard previously some non Tesla models have compatibility issues with superchargers - any truth to this?

Hi, thank you for that. I will check out that site.

Not all Tesla sites are open to non-Teslas, and all but the newest sites have cables that are too short to get to the Seal’s port (back right instead of back left on Teslas). So you need to park awkwardly.  However Seals have the right plug (CCS2) and there are other brands’ sites that don’t have the same short cable issues.

Thank you. Maybe this will have to be a back up option then.

Something I did forget to mention. The navigation system in the car will automatically plan in appropriate fast charging stops any time that a journey is put in that exceeds the cars current range.

The Seal can only do single phase up to 7kW. I bought a 5m three phase cable, and it’s really heavy and annoying. I’d recommend buying a 7m single phase cable based on that! As noted by others the really fast chargers all have permanently attached cable so he’ll probably be fine for the trip, but it’s still going to be useful from time to time

Keep in mind that the Seal only AC charges via a single phase, so the maximum power is 7kW. CCS charging will max out at about 120-150kW (at least my Seal does) Second note, if you do end up getting a cable, there's 2 types - 3 phase & single phase. The single phase cables are cheaper since they have less copper wire in them. But the Seal only supports single phase, so the cheaper one is fine, but if you want to use it for a different car in the future, it will be limited to 7kW, even if that car supports 22kW AC charging (3 phase)

Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind when looking for cables

That’s handy to know! I’m not sure I’ve heard him mentioning this feature but will let him know.

Early BYD Atto 3 and BYD Seal had hand shake issues with certain Tesla Superchargers and even some Tesla Wall Connectors. The hand shake issue meant the Supercharger wouldn’t charge or charge at a very slow speed and was related to a hardware issue (please anyone correct me if I’m wrong).

it comes with the cables except the type you basically don't need anymore. at least i have had zero need for the old old type of charger that does need a cable.