> Seems like it’s happening without government intervention
The federal government has definitely "intervened" by incentivizing interoperability through a $7.5B carrot[1] for interoperable charging networks.
The federal government has definitely "intervened" by incentivizing interoperability through a $7.5B carrot[1] for interoperable charging networks.
Also unlikely to be coincidental is the fact that Tesla "opened up" its charging patents/specs to competitors [1] in 2014 - but only signed its first partner in 2023, a few months after billions of federal dollars were made available for interoperable charging networks.
1. IIRC, they included a mutual non-aggression clause for patents, and if a 100-year-old company with plenty of patents like Ford, you may balk at that. I'm speculating that Tesla has been offering much more generous terms than the 2014 offer
I don't doubt they'd like it to remain that way. Starving CCS charging networks of federal dollars that are be relied upon by Japanese, German and Korean manufacturers would be a win for US manufacturers; expanding a Tesla-moat into a US-manufacturer moat. Tesla gets federal dollars, control the standard and keeps its hungriest competitors at bay who most threaten its margins; Ford, GM and Rivian get access to a large network and protection from foreign competition by being invited into the fort.
Cartel-like behaviour is notoriously self-emergent.
Insidiously, this arrangement might even get the US government to look the other way if it is American car companies vs. everyone else despite the original assumption being that CCS networks would get most/all of the federal funds.
> Interoperability of EV charging infrastructure. The requirements relating to interoperability similarly address less visible standardization along the national EV charging network. The FHWA is working to establish a seamless national network of EV charging infrastructure that can communicate and operate on the same software platforms from one State to another. The FHWA establishes interoperability requirements through this final rule for charger-to-EV communication, charger-to-charger network communication, and charging network-to-charging network communication to ensure that chargers are capable of the communication necessary to perform smart charge management and Plug and Charge.
And it's a sensible move if you care about e-waste, given that there are far more NACS vehicles and NACS charging stalls in than CCS1 vehicles and CCS1 charging stalls. (And that contrast becomes even more extreme if you assume that the thousands of unreliable CCS1 stalls would be getting scrapped anyway.)
Meanwhile Nissan and Mitsubishi are still selling brand new cars with CHAdeMO plugs. So much for it being a universal standard.
2. They want to sell cars, and cars with the Tesla connector have access to Tesla superchargers without a dongle.
So GM and Ford wanted to sign deals to use Tesla's charger network to remove a competitive advantage that Tesla had. Tesla apparently agreed to that, but one condition is that GM and Ford had to agree to switch future vehicles over to Tesla's previously-proprietary (and still Tesla-controlled) "NACS" standards instead of CCS. GM and Ford agreed. Rivian appears to have followed suit after GM and Ford agreed.
Other automakers are now evaluating the landscape to see where things will fall. The best alternative was always going to be that we had a unified CCS standard future, but now that GM/Ford have made that impossible, they may decide that it's better to get some leverage by unifying on NACS rather than having a split-standard future.