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
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.
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.
Can you share a link to back these claims?
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.
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.
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.
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...
> 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.
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.
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.
It's very difficult to find charge stations that aren't Tesla, and when you do, they're often used for general parking.
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.
A family friend returned her EV after realizing how dumb the situation is here. Perhaps it's a regional problem.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.