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Comment by PaulWaldman | Hacker News Reader

This still feels a long way off. I have yet to encounter a charger, not made by Tesla, that has an NACS plug.

Everyone in the US has committed to NACS in the next couple years. The others are aware of this and if they are not completely stupid making plans. They will probably support CCS for a while in some form, but they will be doing NACS in the near future. It might be like regular/premium/diesel fuels - pumps support more than one hose (though wire is more expensive than a hose).

> They will probably support CCS for a while

NACS is CCS with a different plug on the end. Tesla's charging standard is to die off, CCS will be the standard going forward.

Here's a real world demonstration of a charger with J3400 plugs (aka Tesla's plug):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3-0xRTduPI

It works on a Chevy Bolt because it is CCS.

So what does this mean for a Tesla on an NACS charger? Do they already support CCS over that port, or is it a software update?

I know Teslas were already CCS in Europe, so I wouldn't be surprised if the software is already basically there.

Older Teslas (approx 2019 and older) need a hardware update.

Damn, ouch. Seems crazy that they're now in the position of breaking supercharger compatibility with existing cars.

No compatibility break as far as I know. I believe V3 superchargers speak CCS to 2019 and newer cars and fallback to the older Tesla-proprietary communication if necessary.

Sure, but some Tesla owners are going to be surprised when they pull up to a third party charger with a Tesla plug that doesn't work on their car even though it plugs in.

Only ~once.

A little bit of pain when there aren't that many vehicles is fine if it makes things quite a lot better going forward.

I just scheduled the upgrade for my 2018 Model 3. It’s not free, but only costs $280 and they do it in my driveway. Rumor has it I might get a CCS adapter out of the deal too, but I’m not sure. It’s an older car but still going strong, and my biggest concern is that if I don’t do the upgrade now they’ll run out of upgrade kits and the car’s value will be permanently damaged even if it lasts another ten years.

Yes, you get a CCS adapter bundled for no extra charge with the retrofit. I just had mine done.

So retrofit + CCS->NACS adapter for $280 from Tesla cf. NACS->CCS adapter for $225 from GM.

ah, gotcha. Yeah, I can live with broken compatibility with just the newer non-Tesla chargers, especially if the upgrade is as cheap as folks here are saying.

Tesla version 3 superchargers already use CCS for communication between car and charger for 2019 and later vehicles.

Version 2 superchargers do not speak CCS and won't ever be opened to non-Tesla vehicles and there are certain routes where that's quite annoying. My most common road trip has 5 supercharger locations along the way with 3 of them being V2, including the most isolated charger. Even once the NACS changeover happens taking a non-tesla on that journey will be a real pain.

Tesla has not put any resources into converting V2 sites into V3s. Some of the locations have been expanded with the new additions being V3, but I haven't seen much in the way of switchover.

Now that it's open and standardized, you'll probably see tons of third party charging stations with the NACS plug. Tesla's part in bootstrapping charging infra to make EVs viable seems to be mostly done.

Either EA or EVgo just deployed their first one in the last few weeks.

There's a huge wave of chargers building over the next 24 months. Many will have NACS.

That is the definition of the current state.

Fortunately for the future state, they can be changed.

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