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Comment by mkozlows | Hacker News Reader

They did. It was CCS. Everyone except Tesla was on board to using it, and it was widely viewed as the standard going forward, and even Tesla was retro-fitting its chargers with CCS ("Magic Dock"), and presumably would one day switch its cars over.

Then Tesla pulled a fast one on the morons at GM and Ford, who signed stupid deals that handed the future back to Tesla, and now the only question is whether Tesla consolidates the entire industry behind it (possible) or we end up in a world with a split between NACS and CCS (also possible, but probably less likely).

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The problem is that CCS is objectively bad and way worse than NACS. I suggest watching Sandy Munro's analysis on it.

Sandy Munro has a conflict of interest he doesn't always highlight when reporting on Tesla-related issues.

Please tell.

He is really into good engineering which has made him a huge fan of Tesla, especially since they took some of his recommendations and incorporated them into their manufacturing process.

It is fair to say he is biased, but at the same time I don't see why his assessment of NACS vs CSS is wrong.

[citation needed]

Its a plug, its bigger than NACS but apart from that its hard to notice the difference as a consumer

It's better engineered and designed. It's that simple. Yes, the differences aren't mind-blowing, but who cares. As long as they properly open it up and standardize it as they are saying they will, then this is a perfectly good outcome. Most EVs and fast chargers in the US have Tesla/NACS ports anyway, so this is the easier lift to standardize.

It's not black and white: CCS supports 800V charging, NACS does not (yet). Higher voltage = lower current and lighter cables and less strain on the connectors.

Superchargers wete also lagging on liquid-cooled cables, which will be included in v4.

If it's possible for NACS to support 800V charging then that is not really a very meaningful advantage of CCS, is it? I think Tesla themselves will eventually switch to 800v at some point.

V3 Superchargers have liquid cooled cables, that's why they are thinner than V2 cables. V4 has even crazier liquid cooling, where the conductors are directly immersed in the coolant.

Sure it can support higher voltage in a new revision, but that means currently deployed chargers have an inferior design in that aspect, doesn't it?

Sure, but I don't know whether that would be a hardware revision or just a protocol thing how complicated it would be. Could be a software update for all I know. Is it the case that all currently deployed CCS chargers support 800v charging? If not, is it possible for an 800v architecture vehicle to charge at a 400v CCS charger?

Plus, if the concern is the port then I don't necessarily mind that fast charging companies will have to deploy new hardware, as long as the cars don't need to get retrofitted all the time or use adapters.

> it can support higher voltage in a new revision, but that means currently deployed chargers have an inferior design in that aspect

It's tough to bring currently deployed chargers to CCS's defence, given most deployed chargers are Tesla's.

That sounds like goal-shifting, considering I was arguing against gp's rather absolute claim on NACS having superior design and engineering:

>> It's better engineered and designed. It's that simple

> sounds like goal-shifting, considering gp's rather absolute claim on NACS having superior design and engineering

CCS currently supports 800V. NACS is going to support 800V. The number of extant chargers with 800V capability is, to a reasonable approximation, the same for CCS and NACS. So NACS being able to support 800V rhetorically balances CCS being able to roll out 800V chargers (or any, period), at least in my mind.

Put another way, one solution is deployed and capable of upgrading. The other is also capable of upgrading, maybe comes upgraded already, but hasn't been deployed. The first strikes me as better engineered. (The latter may have superior design, but I have trouble buying that argument given NACS can be upgraded.)

From what I can see, telsa use CCS2 but with a different plug.

In the EU/UK they have the CCS2 plugs on them, and are compatible with any CCS2 capable car.

(source: me, I used one last week for a non tesla car)

I don't think people can hear this loud enough. I own an EV with CCS, I'm glad the rest of the industry looks to be going NACS. CCS is in fact objectively terrible. CCS could only seem decent when it was following on something as truly atrocious as Chademo.

> I own an EV with CCS, I'm glad the rest of the industry looks to be going NACS. CCS is in fact objectively terrible.

Can you explain your reasoning? I have an EV with CCS and have never had a problem with it, so I don't know what is "objectively terrible" about it.

Heavy. Huge. Expensive. Complex. Prone to failure.

Basically like any design-by-committee output.

This is what Tesla fans say, but the actual reasons they give are weak.

The advantages of CCS: It supports 800V today, it supports V2L/V2H/V2G today.

The advantages of NACS: It's smaller, which nobody cares about except Tesla fans.

Did you watch Sandy Munro's analysis on it? He's one of the leading minds in the auto industry.

what are the bullet-point issues?

V2x is a matter of protocol, not the connector.

The advantage of NACS is that it has a working network of chargers, and plugs in effortlessly.

> Tesla pulled a fast one on the morons at GM and Ford

Consumers prefer NACS to CCS. And Electrify America failed, spectacularly, to deliver a working product. (As someone put it bluntly, NACS exists. CCS does not. You bet on the horse, not the unicorn.)

The auto industry is standardising around NACS because it will eventually force the standard into the open. That, in turn, enables antitrust questions about the Tesla/Supercharger tie-up. (In the meantime, everyone avoids the wastefulness of a meaningless standards battle.)

We should have some brand of car install both plugs (as I understand the smarts are in the car, the plug is basically a dumb electrical connection) and then after a year or two see which people are using.

My understanding is that installing both is basically 2x the complexity. What's on the other side of the plug is fairly different between NACS and CCS

Is that “double the price of the car” or “an extra 100/200” or somewhere in between.

Because I could see people taking the option.

There are many cars on the global market with two AC charging sockets but last time I checked, there are none with two DC charging sockets. Multiple DC charging sockets would be a severe safety risk without a beefy isolating mechanism, which adds weight and a non-trivial point of failure.

<<Tesla pulled a fast one on the morons at GM and Ford, who signed stupid deals that handed the future back to Tesla>>

It's always curious to see someone with such strong conviction that somehow they have an insight, without access to any of the information involved in negotiating this partnership, that the various folks at GM and Ford failed to see.

I agree with you but to be fair they fail to see a lot of things other than their stock price

As far as I know, Tesla will still add CCS compatible adapters to the Supercharger network in the future, since it is a requirement for the EV network funding they're going after by opening up to additional manufacturers.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/new-bi...

That's the plan as of right now, but the clear intent here is to push the government to change the rules to allow NACS-only chargers. If a few more automakers (Hyundai and VW being probably the most relevant) sign deals with Tesla to use NACS, it'd be impossible to argue that there's any reason to do a CCS buildout.

I think this is very much correct. This is the line from the Federal Highway Administration's rule from February (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/28/2023-03...) that talks about the Tesla connector vs. CCS:

> FHWA Response: Commenters overwhelmingly supported the CCS connector standard and verified that the industry is moving to adopt CCS as a market standard; therefore, FHWA requires CCS Type 1 connectors for each DCFC port through this final rule. Although a few commenters preferred Tesla connectors, most of the Tesla products are proprietary and do not address the needs of the majority of EV makes and models available in the domestic market. However, on November 11, 2022, Tesla announced its “North American Charging Standard” (NACS), which makes its existing and previously proprietary Electric Vehicle charging port and connector available for broad and open public use, including to network operators and vehicle manufacturers. In the announcement, Tesla noted that charging providers were planning to offer NACS charging ports at public charging infrastructure. This rulemaking allows permanently attached non-proprietary connectors (such as NACS) to be provided on each charging port so long as each DCFC charging port has at least one permanently attached CCS Type 1 connector and is capable of charging a CCS-compliant vehicle.

Again, the CCS rule came out in February, and when the rule was being made it definitely did look like "the industry is moving to adopt CCS as a market standard", as prior to Nov 2022 there was no "North American Charging Standard", only Tesla's closed, proprietary tech.

I think the government would only allow NACS only if it becomes an open standard. The government can't mandate a connector that only one manufacturer can make when alternatives exist.

Musk is set up to win both ways. That's the genius.

> Then Tesla pulled a fast one on the morons at GM and Ford

They're trying to sell expensive EVs, but people were buying Teslas instead because they can guarantee the chargers work and are in good locations.

I have a lot of strong criticisms of Tesla, but slowly investing billions into building a reliable charging network over the last 10 years is hardly a "fast one"

90% of the north american BEV industry has consolidated on NACS just now.

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