Opening the North American charging standard
tesla.comTesla said in May that it would be adding CCS adapters to its Supercharger stations, already used in Europe: https://electrek.co/2022/05/10/tesla-add-ccs-connectors-supe...
Now they're trying to declare their own charger as a "standard", after launching a $250 adapter in September to use the actual standard plug?
Also, obligatory Technology Connections video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZOuz_laH9I
I think it's a good strategy given how people are standardizing on CCS1 in NA. They're embracing CCS1 to a large degree, offering adapters for plugging your car into a CCS charger and allowing CCS cars to charge at Superchargers.
But the connector is definitely better, so they may as well open it up in the hopes that people adopt the nicer plug and then they won't have to change it after all. Basically no reason not to given how things are going with CCS1. I certainly think from a usability perspective it would be preferable if "NACS" was the winner. CCS is not a great design.
> But the (Tesla) connector is definitely better,
I'm not convinced of that. Tesla's connector is thinner and lighter yes absolutely. But Tesla is also weaker and less reliable \ less fault tolerant than standard EV charger cables (See the dreaded EP307 / lock error, something that can't even happen with a normal EV CCS charger)
I definitely think it's preferable for CCS win, as it's the safest, most durable, most compatible, while also being the lowest cost option.
The tesla plug has a decade of successful heavy use behind it, and it doesn't have a history of failing despite being the most used ev charging system and plug in the world (comparing to the ccs standards around the us and the world). You'll need to provide some references to point to tesla problems. On the other hand I have a brand new us ccs car and every time I go to a public charger it's an open question whether it will work (and yes there are a variety of problems). CCS charging is less reliable, it's a common thing for people to complain about ccs charging problems. With due respect, I think you are wrong.
I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the vast majority of 'faulty' chargers are in fact issues with software. Ie. Network connection down. Car not registered. Card terminal broken. Etc.
I think you are probably right that most problems are hardware, but there are a lot of broken chargers (display out, not fixed). People just report them all the time. look at reddit.com/r/electricvehicles.
But yeah, it's probably a lot of software issues. Strangely I do not hear from Europe that there are problems like here. I don't hear about 'charger is broken or won't charge' in Europe when people use tesla chargers (which are on the euro-ccs standard just like tesla cars there). Can anyone chime in? I'm in the US.
>it's preferable for CCS win, as it's the safest, most durable, most compatible, while also being the lowest cost option.
Can you share a link to back these claims?
Not sure where any of these suggestions come from. Superchargers have the highest utilization and uptime in the industry.
Thinner means more accessible/easier to use. CCS is wholly unreliable if it is even slightly at the wrong angle, which is common due to the bulk of the plug and cable.
Doesn't really matter even if it's slightly technically better. We are WAY too late in the game here (US is already deploying federal funds!), and they should have engaged with open standards a decade ago.
Yup, I don't think it matters which one is technically better. They both get the job done, and one is an actual standard that many car makers have agreed upon -- "many" meaning "every single one except Tesla".
If Tesla wanted theirs to be standard, they should have made this move years ago. They missed the boat, and are now scrambling to avoid having to change their own sockets.
Looks at Apple.
It's an apt comparison, and obviously there has been movement (eg the EU) to push them onto usb, but I think cars are a slightly different context than laptops/phones where there us much more of a social incentive to standardize early, given the high cost, low turnover, lower availability of fuel/energy during transport with competing plugs, etc.
EU managed to get Tesla to standardise onto a common plug (CCS2) too, but unlike with USB-C it Tesla are happy to not roll it out globally.
This implies they didn't, which is false.
CCS was released slightly before the Model S (first to use Tesla's connector). Both were developed at the same time. At the time, there was no viable alternative for Tesla. Now, there is no reason to revert to a significantly subpar option.
Yes there is - because their proprietary (until today) plug is not the industry standard.
What "game" are they too late for? The number of ports is the game, and the reason my next EV will be a Tesla.
It's very difficult to find charge stations that aren't Tesla, and when you do, they're often used for general parking.
Out of curiosity, where in the US are you?
Where I am (Oregon), public CCS charger locations outnumber Tesla chargers several times over. There are huge areas of the state that have CCS chargers, but no Tesla charging capacity.
My next EV will certainly not be a Tesla, for that reason.
Tesla Superchargers outnumber all other HVDC chargers in every state, usually by a factor of 2. Maybe you're thinking of the chargers that use the J1772 connector?[1] Those charge via AC, and every Tesla comes with an adapter for them. Tesla also sells a CCS adapter in case you want to use other high voltage chargers such as Electrify America.[2] Though honestly, other charging networks are a shitshow. A friend of mine has an Audi e-tron and he won't drive it farther than Tahoe. Electrify America is too unreliable to trust for road trips.
No, I'm not thinking of J1772 chargers. I'm thinking of CCS chargers.
We're talking about two different things.
You are talking about the count of chargers. Tesla has a higher quantity of chargers, yes. However, their chargers are concentrated; a single charging location has 30+ chargers. This drives their high charger count numbers.
CCS chargers are more geographically widespread. There are more locations with CCS chargers than with Tesla chargers. There are fewer CCS plugs in total, but you're more likely to be close to one.
It's more useful to have one fast-charging location with 3 plugs every 50 miles, than to have 500 fast-chargers next to one another in a single location and then nothing in a 200-mile radius.
If you go to plugshare.com and zoom in to Oregon, you can toggle back and forth between Tesla and CCS. There are very visibly way more discrete places in Oregon that have a CCS charger.
The supercharger network is now dense enough that you can drive anywhere in the US without worry. The largest gap in the nation is between Coeur d'Alene, ID and Superior, MT, and that's 100 miles. I've gone to rural Montana and Idaho in the winter and I've never had to worry about charging.
Also while Plugshare may show more dots on a map, that doesn't correspond to useful charging. Non-Tesla charging stations are notoriously inconvenient, unreliable, and slow to charge. That's why my friend with the e-tron rents a gas car if he wants to go more than a few hundred miles. This is borne out again and again in tests. When MKBHD tested a Tesla and a Mustang Mach-E, the Mach-E itself was fine but the charging infrastructure was unreliable.[1] The Mustang was delayed over 6 hours due to bad charging.
I've put almost 30,000 miles on my car and I've never had an issue with a supercharger. You just plug in and it charges. You don't need to install any apps or enter your credit card info. And if for some crazy reason I can't use a supercharger, I have adapters for the other connectors.
If you want the electric vehicle that can charge in the most places, get a Tesla.
> Non-Tesla charging stations are notoriously inconvenient, unreliable, and slow to charge
All my arguments are geographically based. In Oregon, this is not the case. In the last three years, I've never pulled up to a CCS charger and had all chargers be out of service or sub-50kw. Rarely have I ever had to wait in line for such a charger. As no adapter is necessary, I consider this superior to Tesla. There are towns we frequent on the Oregon coast that are far from any Tesla chargers, but are dotted with CCS chargers. When my friend comes with us and brings his Model 3, he has to take at least one detour that's over a half hour each way so that he can charge for the trip home. We do not have to do this.
Adapters are a good stopgap but not everyone has one, because they're somehow not stock with the car.
While there is value to distribution, having only 3 plugs where any number could be full or non-functional upon arrival easily ruins a whole trip.
I fully agree. That would be awful.
That said, we've so far not had any issues with that in the last two years; while sometimes only a subset of chargers at a location have been working, it's never been zero, and we've rarely had to wait in line.
Maybe we've been lucky. Or maybe Oregon is special. But in the face of reliable chargers, I prefer a smaller, widespread count over larger numbers in a concentrated location.
California, near a city of over a million people. It's maybe 4 (Tesla) to 1 where I am, physically, with most non-tesla ports being 240V. I've even run into 120V. Available port wise, it's much much worse. Until these other companies implement a fee/reporting system, for sitting in the charge spot all day, it's going to remain very painful.
A family friend returned her EV after realizing how dumb the situation is here. Perhaps it's a regional problem.
> and allowing CCS cars to charge at Superchargers.
I'm reading the announcement differently. They are saying future non Teslas who adopt NACS can use the Tesla chargers. It doesn't say anything about current CCS cars being able to use Tesla charging.
Tesla announced a plan to open superchargers to non-Tesla EVs earlier this year; Musk announced that they would be adding CCS to US superchargers back in May. Unfortunately Musk is both the official Press contact for Tesla and also a guy who says a lot of random half-baked things, so it's impossible to determine if this was an official policy or just an idea he had one morning. [1]
Even after this move I don't see any way that the Tesla standard gains enough momentum to take over from CCS in the non-Tesla US EV market. If Tesla had done this in 2015 there's a chance it might have caught on globally. With the non-Tesla US EV market locked into CCS and growing rapidly (and Tesla itself already committed to CCS in Europe), it feels like the Tesla standard is doomed. (In fact today's move is actually sort of bad news, since it indicates that maybe Tesla hasn't quite accepted this reality.)
[1] https://electrek.co/2022/05/10/tesla-add-ccs-connectors-supe...
My thoughts as well, this is their business advantage to lose.
> NACS is the most common charging standard in North America: NACS vehicles outnumber CCS two-to-one, and Tesla's Supercharging network has 60% more NACS posts than all the CCS-equipped networks combined.
Yet, in your link it's complained about that the Supercharging network capacity is already strained. Bottom line is that the vast majority of the charging stations that will exist 10 years from now are still yet to be built.
Tesla may still be hoping for a regional break, as their standard wins in some geographies but not for others. This would be a loss for all of us all collectively.
Certainly feels like they should have known better. Past greed will leave them (and their customers) with a massive writeoff in the future if your prediction comes to pass.
The T.C. video is very thorough and worth a watch for all EV related shennanigans.
That's most T.C. videos I've seen. Often niche topics but I sat* through (and enjoyed) 20 minutes of why an obscure can opener is superior than the mainstream ones.
Also why the best toaster was created in the 50s, how petrol lamps work, the wild story of video on discs, and dumb US. automotive standards (or less dumb ones). Followed by a speed run through the entire history of analog photography.
It’s wild not just how varied Alex’s interests are, but how he’ll find interest in the most mundane subjects (christmas lamps) and how well and thoroughly he’s able to present them.
A bit more electrics based but Big Clive also tears down the most random pieces of technology. It's quite fun to watch him take a dollar store toy apart and see how it ticks.
You guys are pretty much listing my subs. Adrian's Digital Basement, 8-bit guy, Curious Marc, LGR, Usagi Electric and Techmoan also feature.
Can you please share a link - who/what is TC?
Technology Connections channel on youtube
So far he's mostly been an exception to Gell-Mann Amnesia, too. The videos I've seen from him that are on subjects which I'm knowledgable about haven't been perfect, but the inaccuracies I've noticed have been nitpicks, not major problems. That combined with his willingness to do further research and make an update video when people object to something he said makes me a lot more willing to trust him on the subjects I know nothing about.
Hilarious to call their thing the "North American Charging Standard" when every other manufacturer in North America has already standardized on something else.
They are all tiny in comparison...
The vast majority of EVs in the United States use this now, and it's not just historical - Just to emphasis the most popular EV cars in the US today are:
Tesla Model Y 60,271 20% 191,451 50.7% 33.2% Tesla Model 3 55,030 67% 156,357 94.5% 27.1% Ford Mustang Mach-E 10,414 – 28,089 49% 4.9% Tesla Model S 9,171 150% 23,464 79.9% 4.1% Chevy Bolt EV/EUV 14,709 226% 22,012 -11.3% 3.8% Hyundai IONIQ 5 4,800 – 18,492 – 3.2% Tesla Model X 6,552 43% 19,542 16.4% 3.4%
Cars can last 10 or more years. If you buy a car today you're making a bet that Tesla and its standard will still be dominant over all other car and charger manufacturers in the year 2032+. That is an extraordinarily foolish bet.
My bet is that within two years Tesla standardizes on CCS for its US cars (thus getting rid of an annoying upgrade/adapter/retrofit problem) and then what'll be left is the sad minority (AKA me) who are stuck with the dying standard and an annoying dongle.
I'd bet a garage will be able to do a connector swap within an hour's labour if Tesla will make the necessary firmware changes.
For legacy cars the likely answer is that people buy the $250 dongle. For new cars this will cost a few hundred bucks in parts and labor (or let's say 1-1.5% of the sales price) and it will be required surgery on your brand-new car.
Who is going to pay for this? If it's Tesla, then the smart move is to put CCS into cars right now (and as a side benefit, standardize their US and European models [edit: nevermind this bit, not the same standards].) If it's the customer, then it's an annoying non-trivial cost you'll have to bear. Yuck.
They don't standardize US and Europe because US is CCS1 and Europe is CCS2.
Ugh god why. Didn't realize that. Rest of the point stands.
3 phase vs 120V.
But it doesn't matter. The number of vehicles taken either way is negligible. In the old days, you had to change the miles/km speedometer to the other one when you took you car with you as you emigrated. Buying a charge adapter is easier.
Arguing about 120V is a red herring. Just about every US home has 240V service, most cars will charge at 240V not 120V.
Single phase vs three phase is the big reason for a difference between US and EU charger plugs though. Three phase is pretty uncommon in residential areas in the US but is common in many EU countries. Industrial customers in the US will often have three phase but it's pretty rare to see outside of that.
Since good adapters exist, it's not really a deeply committing bet.
Adapters remove the benefits of having a "superior" charging standard. It may be that the Tesla connector is better than CCS, but Tesla+CCS_adapter is going to be obviously worse. (This is something you're going to use every day, even a slightly worse ergonomic experience adds up.)
My point is you get a Tesla for many reasons, not just the NACS plug, and if CCS wins you still enjoy all those other things.
But there are already 3x more level 2 + CCS ports than tesla ports.
In the US:
There are 36000 individual tesla connections
There are 92000 l2 j1772 ports.
There are 22000 CCS DC fast ports
They are comparing the DC fast number to the tesla number, and ignoring the j1772 number.
They are comparing fast charging only, yes. (Also all Teslas come with a J1772 adapter.)
Which is pointless to compare -
1. All the other cars are J1772 + CCS
2. So you'd have to provide adapters for every other non-tesla car, or replace every non-tesla port. Not just the 20k CCS ones, but the 96K J1772 ones.
3. They are claiming a false ubiquity to make it seem like now is a good time to do this. The point at which there are 3x other plugs than yours is not a point where others are going to switch to your thing.
In fact, they are almost certainly doing it because they see the train coming at them, and don't want to deal with it.
It's too late.
Are you trying to imply that just calling something is a standard doesn't make it a standard ? Hmmmm
Try plugging a Nissan Leaf into a CCS charger.
Let's just not talk about the Nissan Leaf. The Nissan Leaf is completely out-of-place in today's EV landscape and by current EV standards, it barely counts as a "real EV" you can live with. Speaking as a former Leaf owner.
The Leaf is the only model in the U.S. that uses, or has ever used, the CHAdeMO connection that the Leaf has. Good luck finding a CHAdeMO charger now, it was already hard 4 years ago and it is just getting worse. Most places that had one were Nissan dealerships, but those are almost always broken now. Nissan dealers just don't care about it. Even when they exist and are working, that has to be the most difficult connector I've ever seen for a consumer-grade product.
Their 40kW battery base model costs as much as a 60kW Chevy Bolt. Where I live, 40kW will get you only ~120 miles of range. That small of a battery also can't charge that fast.
The most damning thing of all though is that the Nissan Leaf is the only EV sold today that doesn't use active cooling on their battery pack. It was a horrible oversight on the Gen1 Leaf, but it is absurd for the Gen2 after most of those Gen1 batteries cooked themselves to death (and were eventually replaced after a class-action lawsuit).
> The Leaf is the only model in the U.S. that uses, or has ever used, the CHAdeMO connection
That's mostly true, but there is the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV which still uses it.
Nissan for a long time has stuck to the Japanese standard (CHAdeMO) for their NA cars; some early EVs in America used CHAdeMO as well I think, but afaik only Nissan has stuck with it here.
I think even they've dropped it for future stuff tho.
Nissan Ariya has a CCS port, so even Nissan has standardised on the CCS. The Nissan Leaf is the iPad with the Lightning port of the EV world.
Lightning? Maybe the OG 30-pin iPod/iPhone connector.
Apple doesn't sell anything with a 30-pin connector.
Tesla is at least 5 years late here, maybe more like 10. All of the US federal funds will likely go to CCS now because they stuck to the proprietary network strategy, despite the OBVIOUS and natural social utility from an open industry-wide standard and charging networks open to all.
For reference here is the DOT's NPRM from June laying out the proposed requirements for states to receive federal funds from the infrastructure package: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/06/22/2022-12...
From the article:
> NACS vehicles outnumber CCS two-to-one, and Tesla's Supercharging network has 60% more NACS posts than all the CCS-equipped networks combined.
This suggests to me it’s not Tesla that’s late. If anything is a society-wide EV standard in North America, it’s the Tesla plug.
At one point that number was probably 100% or very close to it. Now it's 60%.
It has nowhere to go but now, and is almost certainly dropping fast.
The number is also a feint.
It's true that NACS outnumbers CCS, but that's because they are only comparing fast-charging spots, which they outnumber.
If you included the J1772 part, tesla is outnumbered at this point in the US.
Going by ports (because that's what tesla is counting in their numbers).
There are ~92000 public level 2 ports (not chargers) in the US. That does not include the DC fast charging ports. There are about 20k of these.
There are 35,000 tesla ports (which tracks, since this is 60% more than 20k) For tesla, there is no difference between dc fast charging and non ports.
So the number cited is, as per usual for tesla, misleading, since it ignores the level 2 ports that are commonly used. There are 2.5x more of those, and combined with CCS, there are 3x more ports total than tesla's standard.
I like the connector for sure, but it's way too late.
Those metrics are deceptive, because tesla has consistently working chargers while the other ones tend to be broken at a way higher rate.
I have no idea where your data is coming from, and doesn't match my tesla or non-tesla experience, but this actually would change nothing even if true.
You see constant EV road trip comparison videos and consistently see how bad EV chargers hamper the non-tesla cars, while the tesla chargers are consistently reliable. Go look around in the news and more.
I don't see either? I also road trip quite often, and have road trip'd in a lot of places of the country in my EV, and again, my experience doesn't match this at all.
Maybe 5-6 years ago, it was true, but it's definitely not true anymore.
I can't even remember the last time i hit a non-working non-tesla charger on a road trip or locally
It's great that J1772 is ubiquitous, but it charges too slowly to be useful for road trips. It's meant for "destination charging" such as hotels and homes, where the car will be sitting around for hours. It can't substitute for fast DC charging, so it shouldn't be counted.
You are sort of missing the point, i think.
Tesla is claiming that now is a good time to move to NACS because they already have 60% more NACS ports than CCS.
But this is not really right, because all those cars/charge stations also have J1772 connectors they are using and would no longer work.
So
1. Tesla is a lot less ubiquitous than they are claiming. J1772 + CCS is far more ubiquitous - by a factor of 3x.
2. You'd either have to retrofit or use adapters for all the J1772 stations as well (Yes, tesla ships an adapter, i know).
3. Nobody is going to do that.
The way I read the "two to one" number is that Tesla's market share in NA is collapsing.
Even if competitors decide to use the Tesla standard, it'll be a few years before they ship it. By then, Tesla's current 66% share of deployed vehicles will almost certainly have dropped to less than 50%.
Also, Musk said they're opening up superchargers to CCS soon, so car buyers like me don't think the Tesla connector is a differentiator any more.
Having said that, I have a CCS car, and charge station availability is totally fine, at least in the parts of California where superchargers exist.
Tesla has been the defacto standard, yes. But their lead has been declining. All the other ev car drivers would have been better off if they could use tesla charging stations, since the entire industry is basically terrible except for tesla superchargers. With tesla saying they'll finally support ccs cars in the us I think ccs will win. You have to point to the clever infrastructure bills in congress, I think that money is what pulled tesla through to supporting ccs (eventually).
I don't see anything new here (other than the name).
For those who don't know there are two charging connecters used for new electric cars in the US: Tesla (now called NACS and only used on Teslas) and CCS (used by everyone else). There's nothing here to indicate that that's changing and it feels like a move by Tesla to try turning around the momentum in a format war they're losing, even if they have a wider installed base today
There’s an actual set of specification documents available to download. That’s an improvement.
Previously the only public info was their patent filings.
It also sounds like they are offering specific parts (inlets and connector cables) for sale since they are providing datasheets on them.
I wonder if that means we'll soon have cheap dongles to charge CCS cars at supercharger stations. I'd pay (maybe) $200 for such a thing, mostly because sometimes the CCS chargers are busy.
Interesting thanks! I thought the specs were already published. Didn't they say they were going to do that a few years ago or am I misremembering something?
Nope. They posted a list of patents with a pledge that basically said “We won’t sue you about our patents if you don’t sue us about yours”
The connector patents were on that list but that wasn’t a real spec.
What legal guarantee is there that Tesla won't reverse course in the future? Say a charging station or car manufacturer adopts this connector and then in 5 years Tesla says "well actually, we've got these patents and we're going to start charging you to sell cars/charging stations"? Publishing the specs and saying "we won't enforce patents" isn't a legally binding guarantee
I'm not a lawyer but that sure sounds like it would be a case of promissory estoppel to me. That is, if someone relies on Tesla's word and makes investments based on it they'd have a legal case to prevent Tesla from trying to exercise those patents against them. But I do hope there's an actual legal grant of rights as well.
Haven't heard the term and I'm googling it to understand better. Is there case law where this was tested in the context of patents on ports? I'm thinking Tesla could say, "we changed our minds but you can keep selling any of the Toyota 2023 models, you just can't make a new car model with the port. therefore we aren't causing you financial harm or injury by relying on our promise"
You're asking for a very specific citation there.
But it doesn't matter, they could give everyone who asks a 20 year license for $1.
Also courts aren't stupid.
The press release says:
> we are opening our EV connector design to the world. We invite charging network operators and vehicle manufacturers to put the Tesla charging connector ... equipment and vehicles
This does not even promise that it is free. "open" and "invite you to X" sound good but are very vague.
Yeah, Apple has used similar language in marketing for their Lightning Connector licensing program.
Google “promissory estoppel”
I Googled it, and learned a new concept. Thanks!
> What legal guarantee is there that Tesla won't reverse course in the future?
None. There would have to be a governing body set up for this to have any legs
For context, North America's current "standard" is CCS1, which is not the same as Europe, which uses CCS2. So North America already has its own weird plug. The Tesla plug is definitely better from a usability perspective. Very curious to see if there is a major technical advantage for one or the other.
Ccs1 vs 2 comes down to the fact that the base plug (the ac part) has to be different between the two. Europe supports 3 phase because it's common there, while the NA plug doesn't, because 3 phase is unheard of in residential installations, and it has to support 120 level 1 charging.
Huh? CCS1, CCS2 and NACS are DC. You are probably thinking Type 2 (Europe) which is indeed 3 phase and j1772 (US) which is single phase.
Your distinction doesn't matter. They're talking about the plug/socket shape, which is shared between DC and AC standards.
Look up the difference between CCS1 and 2. It's just J1772 vs Type 2. The DC part is the same.
Doesn't seem like it has to be different, right? The Tesla/"NACS" plug supports three-phase.
How? Are you sure?
It has two big power pins, one smaller pin dedicated to ground, and two tiny pins that look completely unsuited for power.
There's a "mobile connector" that can convert 3 phase, but that has an entirely different plug on the wall side.
I think it doesn't actually, nevermind.
In the US Tesla uses its own proprietary connector, in Europe they use the Mennekes plug.
Hence why they are calling this the "North American charging standard."
I wish they had gotten more serious about this sooner. They had talked about offering the plug and network to other manufacturers before but there wasn't any movement on it. I expect that now it's too late and we'll be stuck with terrible CCS forever, but I'd be happy to be wrong.
Tesla is still >70% of EVs in the U.S. and Aptera has already adopted their plug (hopefully shipping soon).
We are still within bounds of choosing the superior connector. It isn't too late like in Europe, especially since US bound vehicles are already using a different plug than their European counterparts
"Our forecasts suggest that Tesla’s market share will decline from 70% in 2021 to (an estimated) 11% by 2025" -Bank of America
The major auto manufactures are on track to have 60% of all new cars EVs by 2026. Tesla just can't compete with that volume. They need to start getting ready for the new standard now, not pulling this nonsense.
Tesla is claiming 66% now that it is 2022 (down 4%), so BofA's projections are in the correct direction, at least.
> Tesla is still >70% of EVs
Only by strict volume of cars on the road. Looking at manufacturers and models, they are just a tiny fraction of the market. And judging from how fast their market share is slipping, we're probably only a year or so from them being in the strict minority by any metric.
> It has no moving parts, is half the size, and twice as powerful as Combined Charging System (CCS) connectors.
It's just a connector. Why did CCS have to be twice as big then? What's the tradeoff CCS took?
Edit: I just looked up a size comparison of CCS vs Tesla/NACS and what the heck happened...
CCS was backwards compatible with existing standards, and added stuff to it.
It would have been like USB-C being glued to the top of an old SCSI connector.
Tesla controlled both ends (literally) on theirs and so they could optimize for size/etc.
Why is CCS so absolutely enormous and so technically limited? What's the story behind how it got so bad? There must be some kind of trade-off Tesla took that CCS didn't?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27907051
TLDR CCS wanted to be backwards compatible, while Tesla planned fast charging to be first class with their standard. At the time, no one was doing fast charging at Supercharger currents (150kw). CCS was bolted on to J1772.
Considering how early that decision was made in the timeline of electric vehicles (how early we still even are) — getting saddled with a backwards compatibility kludge kind of sucks.
It’s still early days and certainly not too late to change it.
That's true for the US, but the EU mandates that all vehicle charging stations support CCS Combo 2.[1] They'd have to undo their mandate to allow better chargers, and I don't think that'll happen any time soon.
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...
CCS 2 is a different discussion, because at least it supports something the Tesla connector doesn't, 3 phase charging.
That really doesn’t explain all of it, J1772 is not really that big. CCS adds a ton of bulk on top of J1772.
J1772 can't carry enough amps through those pins. So it needs two more huge pins in a separate compartment.
CCS isn't the absolute smallest way to add two more huge pins, but it's pretty close.
Why keep the J1772 connector? Only the data pins are used. I'm sure there's a way to make a connector that's just the CCS part and fudge the data pins into it.
Then supporting the old cars just happens with a dongle.
Don't ask me that, I'm just answering why the decision to keep it caused such a huge connector.
Is bigger actually worse in this case?
At least in theory, it should be possible to make it mechanically stronger than a smaller connector.
I've heard of charge station cable connectors failing do repeated bending stress, and my car has multiple warning stickers saying not to plug into a charging cable that is under tension.
> technically limited
Is it? I can go to a 350kW charger with CCS1. What's the max for a supercharger? 250kW?
Says 1 MW?
2500 amps? I don't think liquid cooling is enough to allow for that.
You are probably thinking of the megawatt charger for the semi, which is different.
A regular V3 supercharger caps out at 250kW. There are rumors that the V4 might get closer to 400kW, but as far as I know those remain rumors. There's also a rumor of an upgrade of V3 superchargers to about 325kW, which would at least be getting close to CCS1.
Only going on what the article says "the Tesla charging connector is the most proven in North America, offering AC charging and up to 1 MW DC charging in one slim package".
Tesla themselves say 250kW. https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-v3-supercharging
But my source is also Tesla themselves - and yours is 2019 and mine 2022?
I'm not privy to CCS design process, however several possibilities spring to mind:
- Backward compatibility: CCS is backward-compatible extension of J plug, and can't share AC and DC lines due to that.
- Higher safety margins in CCS
- CCS design by committee
- Better engineers at Tesla
It sounds like folks are assuming this will be free for implementors and license universally with little restriction. Nothing in this press release says it's free. "open" could just mean "open to apply", for example. " We invite charging network operators and vehicle manufacturers to put the Tesla charging connector..." could be read as an invitation to negotiate.
I expect licensing terms to be announced, and I bet you large users will have to pay.
The specification is posted publicly, with no listed restrictions, so the only method Tesla has of licensing this is via enforcing their patents.
While I expect car manufacturers would want to negotiate a custom patent license, others interesting in using the patents (like say EVSE manufacturers) could technically just utilize the Tesla patent pledge.
Of course if they do so they cannot later sue Tesla for any form of IP infringement, without getting countersued over the patents. Thus if you use tesla's patents under the license, you can sue them for copyright, patent, trademark, trade-secret or any other right, without getting countersued. This would mean Tesla could openly make full blown counterfeits of your companies products, and you cannot sue them without getting countersued for patent violation. So I'm doubting terribly many will want to take up this offer, but they technically could.
The risk that Tesla sues over patent infringement stands alone of any tit-for-tat infringement. Realistically, it's much more likely Tesla will just sue for $ rather than try and make a counterfeit of an infringer's product. No sane counsel would let their company knowingly and openly infringe on major patents like this.
The spec being open put up on a website does practically nothing. Patent's are public and it'd be trivial to reverse engineer a charging standard anyway.
Yay—wish they did this sooner. Anyone know if this is one of those “we will give you a royalty-free license to use our patent for this if you promise never to sue us?”
How much cheaper is it to build a vehicle with the NACS port vs J1772 port? If the build savings are enough, I foresee manufactures making the switch.
Why would they switch? Then their customers couldn't access CCS chargers OR the supercharger network. That's not exactly a selling point, no matter how much money they save on the connector.
Wow. Awesome!
I hope Ford and other EV Manufacturers make retrofit kits though - and similar for the charging stations already deployed. Lugging an adapter for all non-Tesla EVs before the, what, 2024 model year would be irritating. Assuming, of course, they are on board and this doesn't turn into Betamax/VHS, Blu-ray/HD-DVD, or HDR10+/Dolby Vision again.
I don't see anything here indicating that other manufacturers will start using the Tesla connector. Unfortunately we're already well into the format war with two standards: Tesla and Everyone Else (CCS).
Honestly this feels more like a desperate attempt by Tesla to push back on the trend towards CCS instead of a substantive announcement
They might be trying to get ahead of a possible push to mandate CCS, and they don't want to get pushed around like Apple did.
I for one am fine with it. The "NACS" is objectively better by almost every available measure, and if the despised Elon Musk wants to give his stuff away, hey I'll take it. Any good reasons why we should reject this proposal?
> Any good reasons why we should reject this proposal?
No idea here. The 1 MW charging claim feels weird since faster charging was definitely a touted benefit of CCS in the recent past. I'm not sure if something changed.
To me, it doesn't really matter one way or another. The CCS connector is bulky, but so is a gas station nozzle and I've never had a problem using one of those. Plus you'll use the CCS connector less often since most charging is done at home with a connector comparable to the NACS one. I'd probably lean towards CCS because it's effectively the same as international standards, it's already the standard, and separating the AC and DC pins probably simplifies engineering on the car side but I don't actually care as long as we all use one connector with an open spec.
North America's CCS[1] isn't compatible with Europe's CCS[2]. They're physically different connectors.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:J1772_(CCS1).svg
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IEC_62196_Type_2_(M,_DC,_...
>it's already the standard,
Not sure how you’re defining “standard” but given that Tesla has the major majority here, its connector is the standard most people are familiar with.
If you just mean, it’s something not proprietary that other manufacturers agreed on, then sure.
I mean it's something not proprietary that _every_ other manufacturer and _the federal government_ agreed on.
You can't reasonably say that e.g. USB is a standard and CCS is not
But that’s an empty gesture when the size is so irrelevant.
>You can't reasonably say that e.g. USB is a standard and CCS is not
CCS is “a standard” but Tesla is “the standard” from a consumer perspective.
The same thing happened with apple lightning early on. It was far better and dominated micro usb. If they had opened it early during usb-c it would have just killed usb-c and been the new standard.
>They might be trying to get ahead of a possible push to mandate CCS, and they don't want to get pushed around like Apple did.
Waaaaaay too late for that. It'd be like Apple telling that they'll open the Lightning connector and that other phone manufacturers should switch to it, if Apple had done that in like 2019.
Sure, nice try, but maybe you should've taken this position about a decade earlier.
This won't turn into Betamax/VHS or Blu-ray/HD-DVD because CCS has already won-- every EV sold in the US except Tesla (and maybe still the Nissan Leaf; they may still be on CHAdeMO) has CCS Type 1.
This is probably too little, too late for Tesla.
People seem deep in denial about Tesla market share. Tesla is 80% of all EVs sold and still 65% of current vehicles sold last quarter - even with some dramatically cheaper EVs available. As Gigafactories in Austin, Berlin and Shanghai continue to ramp, that's unlikely to change.
They dropped to 70% of vehicles on the road last year, and are only claiming >66% in this press release. BofA projects an 11% market share for Tesla by 2025.
Also, their order backlog is dropping, even though we are in the middle of a gasoline crisis, and all (?) other EV manufacturers are seeing unprecedented demand. This suggests current factories can meet Tesla's future steady state demand, so ramping will only help a bit:
https://insideevs.com/news/615583/estimated-tesla-order-back...
I think the root cause is that they only have a few models, especially compared to the combined model lines of their competition.
Also, many people on the coasts are uncomfortable supporting Musk, thanks to the Twitter thing and Tesla labor violations. For that crowd, Tesla may as well be welding truck balls to their back bumpers.
Tesla is still selling exclusively luxury sedans and SUVs. Cheaper cars like the Bolt or utility vehicles like the F150 Lightning serve market segments where Tesla is not even a competitor. I think it's expected that Tesla's market share will drop a lot in the coming years.
Musk pulled Tesla's director of software development, Tesla's director of Autopilot and TeslaBot engineering, Tesla's senior director of software engineering, a Tesla senior staff technical program manager, and a senior manager of security intelligence and tasked them with babysitting Twitter.
As much as I've grown to dislike Musk I'd rather like to see Tesla succeed. By gutting Tesla senior management as well as rank and file Musk is ensuring Tesla's market share is only headed in one direction: down.
Does Tesla still sell more EVs in the US than the rest combined?
Though if most of the bulk/plug is on the charger side, than this is all a non-issue.
So in other words, “the vast majority of electric cars in the US are using Tesla’s connector”. How exactly does that mean CCS won?
A bunch of far behind EV manufacturers settling on an inferior connector doesn’t mean much. Tesla and its connector is exactly akin to Sony and Blu-ray, except Tesla is further ahead and won’t be charging licensing.
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This is starting to feel like... the XKCD meme about too many standards.
Everyone in North America that isn't Tesla: CCS1
Telsa in North America: NACS
Everyone including Tesla in Europe: CCS2
Everyone in Japan: CHAdeMO
Everyone in China: GB/T
Not really. Tesla is already the vast majority in the US. They are just opening up to try to kill of an already existing worse standard.
What is the percentage split of Tesla vs everyone else in NA?
GB/T should probably be ignored as China being different on purpose.
And CHAdeMO just seems bad compared to the competition.
If you exclude those it becomes a lot simpler.
CHAdeMO / GB/T were harmonized into a new connector ( CHAdeMO 3.0 aka ChaoJi )
although the XKCD meme talks about making a new standard, NACS is already everywhere, tesla is just trying to ensure its ubiquity.
I have to admit, taking your own closed, proprietary standard, then opening it up while single handedly declaring it the "North America Charging Standard" takes a level of chutzpah that would make, well, Elon Musk blush.
Awesome. This should be a world-wide standard. NACS (Tesla) VS CCS is like USB-A 1.0 vs USB-C with Power Delivery: CCS is unbelievably slow and clunky to the point where it might turn people off wanting an EV once they experience the slow and clunkiness.
Tesla’s connector has zero marketshare in Europe and doesn’t support 3-phase AC charging.
I don’t think there is that much benefit in a global standard given that adapters exist.
Teslas (and their Superchargers) shipped there before ~2019 had the same plug, before they switched to CCS.
I'm not sure how 3-phase fits in, but it didn't prevent being at least as useful as in the U.S.
No, in Europe Tesla originally used the Type 2 connector, which Europe uses for AC charging and includes pins for 3-phase.
The proprietary part was they did pin switching to enable the same connector to do DC Supercharging as well.
Now they have switched to CCS Type 2 in Europe which is the Type 2 connector plus additional pins for DC charging and the CCS communication protocols.
Three phase power is very common in Europe. I have three phase sockets (for the oven etc) in my 80m² apartment.
I think you'd have to make yet another new connector if you wanted a really good global standard, which makes it even less worth attempting.
> CCS is unbelievably slow and clunky to the point where it might turn people off wanting an EV once they experience the slow and clunkiness.
Only Tesla owners say this. Owners of all other EVs literally don't care - except as much as they care that every other non-Tesla charger uses CCS.
They care about not having to worry about which charging station to use, not the shape of the plug.
Is CCS really that slow and clunky? I don't have direct experience with it but everyone I know who has says it's at least as easy to manage as a gas nozzle.
On speed, CCS supports faster charging than an Supercharger built to date so if you had a bad experience with charging speed it was the car or charger, not CCS
A typical EV owner will use CCS a few times a year. Every other day of the year they will use a much smaller J1772 connector with a much smaller cord. Having owned both a Tesla as well as an EV that uses J1772, it's the same experience.
Closer to Parallel port vs. USB-C