Tesla chargers win more backers as its plug becomes US standard | Hacker News Reader

Tesla chargers win more backers as its plug becomes US standard

bloomberg.com

32 pointsmfiguiere48 comments

I don't know how to feel about this. Honestly, I think CCS is a perfectly fine solution that was basically the de-facto standard anyways for many years (everyone was on it except Tesla).

But if swapping to NACS provides consumers and manufacturers less resistance to swapping to electric, that isn't a bad thing.

As long as we have inter-operability that isn't a nightmare, it's fine.

But of course it's going to provide more resistance. As you say, CCS was the obvious standard -- everyone (except Tesla) building a car was using CCS, and everyone (including Tesla) building chargers going forward was using CCS. You could buy a car with CCS and be confident you were buying the standard, well-supported thing. You could install CCS chargers in your garage, apartment complex, business parking lot, etc. and be confident that you were installing the standard, well-supported thing.

Now all that's up in the air. If you were planning to install chargers at home or in your business, it's not clear what kind you should install, so you just won't. If you were on the fence about buying an EV, it's now not clear whether your EV will be compatible with future chargers (without requiring a stupid dongle adapter that you have to haul around and pop out of your trunk every time you stop to charge), and you might just put that on hold.

(This is particularly egregious for Ford/GM, since their CEOs have announced that they think NACS is the path forward, and they make zero NACS cars and will not make any NACS cars until 2025. They just osborned their entire lineup, great move, real awesome strategy there.)

The uncertainty caused by backtracking from the vision of CCS as universal standard is awful, and may slow the EV transition by years. (But it's great for Tesla, inasmuch as a standards-compliant non-vendor-dependent charging network helps Tesla's competitors, and so slowing down that buildout makes Tesla stronger.)

CCS1 is a DC Fast charging plug / protocol. You're not installing that at home.

I have a tesla; I got a cheap charger on amazon and use the j1772 converter that came with my car to charge the car. Another friend, also with a tesla, also does home charging using a "standard" plug and a j1772 adapter. There are even "tesla to j1772" adapters.

The CCS1 plug is enormous and silly. The existing DC fast charging networks tha aren't run by tesla are absurdly bad. They failed because they were setup to drive people away from EVs (seemingly) -- deeply unreliable and expensive and poorly placed.

This whole "Tesla plug standard wins" thing is around DC fast charging and not L2 / AC charging, where the plug barely matters -- everyone will use a cheap passive adapter and move on with their lives (I use an adapter basically everywhere I charge and barely notice)

CCS is a superset of J1772, and "CCS charger" here means obviously "charger that is physically compatible with a CCS charging port, but not compatible with an NACS charging port."

I'm glad the adapter life works well for you, but I submit that for a mass audience, it's not going to be acceptable. "I just use an adapter everywhere I charge" is a thing only early adopters put up with.

That’s just not true. While some chargers are out at EA stations I’ve never had to wait in line when I went and always have been able to charge at max (relative to curve). Are they as good as Tesla? No. Should Hyundai/Kia owners be left out in the cold due to their charge port choice? No.

Who's being left in the cold? Other than people with chademo only cars, that is?

If you have a CCS1 car, you can buy an adapter and use the tesla app to charge at a supercharger. If you have an NACS car you can buy an adapter to use CCS1 chargers. Neither is great but nobody's getting cold unless they're unwilling to buy adapters.

The OP was talking about "which charger should I install at my house or business?" which is silly -- install a j1772 plugged L2 charger -- everyone with NACS car has an adapter.

CCS1 is a fast charging protocol / plug. If you were planning on starting a fast charging network, well, the cost and the plug and cord is 0.001% of the cost. So add a NACS and CCS1 cables to your kiosk and you're fine.

EA or other places will probably still add CCS1 plugs for the next 3+ year to new installs (all 300 of them) and you get access to tesla superchargers if you buy an adapter. If you manage to drive a CCS1 for 20 years it might be a problem but it's not an issue today.

The main concern for me is that this may very well allow Tesla to gatekeep the entire NA EV/EVSE market, since they still control the patents around NACS, and their pledge has carve-outs allows them to exclude pretty much every major player for one reason or another.

(I am also assuming that adapters well be relatively available in the 2+ years til implementation, so the CCS2-equiped fleet isn't left out in the cold)

If they were willing to release it under an OSHW license with a non-revocable patent grant, I'd be fine with it. I agree that Tesla superchargers do tend to provide a better UX than their competition, some of that is vertical synergy, but a good portion of it is the competition just not being up to snuff.

Pretty sure the title is wrong and that it isnt a US Standard... Pretty sure CCS is though.

The standard was opened last year.

What definition of "a US Standard" are you using exactly, and why do you think CCS meets it but NACS doesn't?

To be able to be subsidized for building chargers in the US, you need to have CCS. To me that makes it more like a real standard in the US.

Just because some law references one particular standard doesn't mean it's the only standard that exists.

calling your own implementation a standard is like trying to make fetch happen; it’s so disingenuous.

ccs is government funded, tesla “nacs” is not. if you want tesla to be standard, sure. open it up, get all automakers on board, dont charge royalties, and let’s see.

it’s so asinine that NA and ROW will have different ac and dc charging. why cant we just have one global standard? preferably one not controlled by a rich megalomaniac

> calling your own implementation a standard is like trying to make fetch happen; it’s so disingenuous.

Is Intel not allowed to call USB4 a standard?

> ccs is government funded, tesla “nacs” is not.

Are USB or PCIe government funded? Are they not standards either?

> if you want tesla to be standard, sure. open it up, get all automakers on board, dont charge royalties, and let’s see.

Didn't Tesla already do those things? (Assuming you meant "some other" instead of "all", because if you didn't, then USB-C wouldn't be a standard either since iPhones don't use it.)

The overwhelming majority of EV chargers in the US use NACS, that is what makes it the standard.

It looks like there are roughly 128k public EV charging stations in the US, of which 28k are DC fast chargers, of which 17k are Tesla Superchargers and 6600 are CSS chargers.

So NACS is beating CSS roughly 3:1, but J1772 still outnumbers NACS something like 5:1.

Ford and GM recently announced they will be using NACS for new electric vehicles. NACS is the standard.

Tesla Destination Chargers are public EV charging stations that aren't DC fast chargers but are NACS. You appear to be counting them all as J1772 instead.

Hmmm, fair point.

Looks like there are around 4000 Tesla Destination Chargers in the US; that shifts the numbers to more like 32:7:2 for J1772:NACS:CSS.

You can plug a J1772 plug into a CCS car without an adapter, and you can't plug it into a Tesla/"NACS" car without one. I think it's meaningfully true to treat J1772 as CCS for this purpose.

J1772 should never have existed, IMO. It's pitiful 19.2 kW maximum charge rate hurt EV adoption by continuing the idea that it takes hours to charge your car.

In the conversation of NACS versus CSS, J1772 shouldn't even be part of the conversation. It's simply not relevant.

You frame the argument the way you want it to end.

CSS is a fraction of the US fast chargers; NACS is a fraction of the total US EV chargers.

NACS is used by 2/3rds of the existing BEV fleet; CSS/J1772 is used by 2/3rds of the existing plug-in EV fleet.

>Pretty sure the title is wrong and that it isnt a US Standard... Pretty sure CCS is though.

The Bloomberg article is describing a defacto USA Standard while omitting the word "defacto":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto_standard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto

If NACS outnumbers CCS enough in marketshare, it will become a defacto standard and everybody in conversational usage will just call it a "standard" instead of "defacto standard".

Whether that threshold has actually been reached and NACS is truly a defacto standard today may be debated.

https://archive.is/t55MU

will this also allow future EVs to supercharge (charge quickly) at the current Tesla charging stations?

if so, that makes me happy

Yep[1]

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/15/tesla-chargers-publ...

That is completely unrelated news about Tesla agreeing to use the actual standard (CCS) in their chargers to get federal funds. This news is about Tesla working Ford and GM to try to kill CCS. They're opposite pieces of news.

Ford and GM, yes. Other manufacturers it’s an open question.

How does this benefit Tesla? Are they receiving royalty for each NACS shipped?

They don’t, but they’ll be able to capitalize on this by opening up their charging infrastructure and also make it so that more and more non Tesla public charging stations will be able to support their customer base.

I don't find this explanation very satisfying. Now Tesla's competitors will have the same access to the charging network, leveling the playing field in that regard. I wonder if this was mostly about not wanting to look like a jerk.

> Now Tesla's competitors will have the same access to the charging network, leveling the playing field in that regard.

Yes, but I could see Tesla giving a discount to Tesla owners so they pay less than Ford drivers.

Tesla owners would benefit from the expanded network, and Tesla does not need to invest as much in its charging infrastructure which quite possibly been so far their most expensive single ticket capex.

They also don’t have to worry about regulators pushing an alternative charging standard which makes all of their existing investment in infrastructure obsolete overnight and would increase the TCO for operating their charging infrastructure considerably.

If Teslas only advantage is their proprietary charging network and plug they might as well close up shop now.

The benefit for Tesla is simple and twofold:

1. If CCS took off as the standard (which it was extremely going to), then Tesla having an awkward proprietary charging port makes using a Tesla annoying, and they'd eventually have to transition over to CCS for their cars. It's like Apple having to switch from Lightning to USB-C -- an annoying transition that angers your early customers and makes them feel abandoned.

2. They have a giant network of NACS chargers. To receive federal subsidies, they have been planning to convert those to CCS. The argument they're going to make now -- helped by headlines like this inaccurate one -- is that NACS is the "real" standard, and the government should change the rules so that they subsidize NACS chargers. Then they can continue to make NACS-only chargers that don't support CCS, while taking taxpayer dollars to do so. (The government as of right now still holds the position that CCS is the official standard, and any charger receiving subsidy money needs to support CCS, but will that position hold up with GM and Ford joining Tesla in lobbying for NACS?)

So far it’s looking like VW and Hyundai/Kia may be left out in the cold, especially if there’s no adapter made for NACS/CCS for those brands (GM/Ford are getting some made so they’ll be fine).

The adapters shouldn't be a big deal. All new Teslas are able to use the CCS protocol over the NACS port and any new chargers implementing NACS will likely use it as well so any dumb adapter should work perfectly fine with a 3rd party NACS charger. GM/Ford additionally may have some special sauce that will let them use superchargers but that's somewhat of a separate issue.

That assumes third party chargers survive. If Ford and GM all start charging at Superchargers instead that’s less revenue to support EA/etc, regardless of how good they get in the future.

How will this affect home chargers? Will future Fords require an adapter to work with a home CCS charger? Will this affect compatibility with V2H?

Home CCS chargers don't exist.

IIRC, in Europe you can buy 40 kW CCS charger for about $20k and install it at home.

You only need 3x63A (~43 kW at 230V) line to run it.

A quick web search finds a lot of CCS charger resellers.

Europe uses CCS2, which is a different thing than the CCS in North America. And even if something comparable were available, given the cost and other requirements, I highly doubt there'd be more than a few dozen total installations.

It's called CCS in Europe all the same. No idea how many installations, but the point is you can have one at home.

> No idea how many installations, but the point is you can have one at home.

Okay, maybe my statement was slightly too strong, but that feels like nitpicking the statement "all Teslas are EVs" because of the one ICE conversion from Rich Rebuilds.

That's a pretty bold statement. There are millions of people for whom 20k€ is chump change. I'd be surprised if those installations are not counted at least in thousands.

"the statement "all Teslas are EVs" because of the one ICE conversion from Rich Rebuilds."

You can actually buy these CSS DC chargers online and have them installed. Comparing to something one-off rather unreasonable.

The EU CCS2 uses 3-phase AC. Good for fast power transfer, but 3-phase AC isn't available in residential zones in the US (unlike in the EU). Unless you're willing to pay tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the power company to run new power lines into your neighborhood, install a new 3-phase pole transformer for your house, rewire your house to have a 3-phase breaker panel, etc.

CCS is the big DC pins at the bottom. Ford and GM home charging happens via J-1772, the smaller AC pins. Tesla re-uses pins for both AC and DC which is a big part of why their handles are so much smaller than CCS Combo 1.

There are plenty of adaptors for Tesla <--> J-1772 already on the market. A popular one is called TeslaTap for J-1772 to connect to Tesla wallboxes and destination chargers.

A big downside of both J-1772 and NACS is they don't support 3-phase power. Type-2 in europe is very similar to J-1772 and will happily use 3-phase thanks to some extra pins. Not a big deal for home users, but operators of EV fleets could find 3-phase charging overnight very useful.

The answer here is: Yes. People are being weird pedants about J1772 vs. CCS to try to confuse this answer, but if you have a home J1772 adapter that plugs into your CCS car, and you get an NACS car in the future, you'll need to use an adapter.

There is no current V2H/V2L functionality on any NACS car, and nobody is sure how/if it would work. How Ford will handle that functionality on a hypothetical CCS-based F150 Lightning remains to be seen.

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