Hacker News Reader

Comment by nimbius | Hacker News Reader

I applaud the effort to expand charging across the nation as this will inevitably increase the comfort level of the average joe on the fence with range anxiety.

The elephant in the room that nobody is talking about is the connector.

There are SEVEN different competing charging connector types in North America. if i dont have an adapter, im either screwed into spending 3 hours at a charging station or im calling a tow truck. Until the USA adopts a reasonable national standard then all this electric car futurism is just branded nonsense and patent profiteering.

ICE automobiles have TWO standards for fuel, regular pump, and hi-flo nozzles with a wider diameter built to fit commercial trucks. they are free to use.

View on HN

What are the 7?

In my experience, the two that really matter are J1772/CCS1 and NACS (Tesla). There's a scattering of CHADeMO, but I haven't yet seen a Level 3 DC charger that has CHADeMO only - the cabinet also has a CCS1 plug.

Most (all?) manufacturers will be moving to NACS in the next few years. Luckily, J1772/CCS1 and NACS are protocol-level compatible, so adaptors are relatively cheap and easy to make.

The remaining incompatibilities are commercial/business decisions (e.g. Telsa opening up the Supercharger network to other manufacturers).

EDIT to clarify: I'm combining J1772 and CCS1 because there aren't any cars that have one but not the other. CCS1 starts with J1772 and adds a couple extra pins for DC fast charging (Level 3).

I'm guessing that 7 comes from splitting J1772 from CCS1. It sort of makes sense, I guess. There are even a few EVs with J1772 but not CCS1 (eg, the early Chevrolet Bolt without the DCFC option).

I agree with you, though. Splitting it out is weird at this point. It'd be a bit like pointing at all the different grades of gasoline and saying filling gas cars is hard. 87 octane, 89 octane, 92 octane, e-85 (try explaining the difference between the 85% ethanol and octane to people for some real fun), race gas, 100LL, ethanol free in several octanes. And that's not even getting into oil viscosities. Of course, the real world isn't hard at all.

EV standards aren't really hard in the real world either, though there is a little learning curve.

There are many plug in vehicles with J1772 and nothing else. See: almost any PHEV. Lol.

PHEVs usually only have J1772. Not that we need to charge at a station, but I'm happy to take a free charge when available.

Eh, AC is nice for employers, hotels, RESIDENTIAL. But the shopping center ones are gimmicky. They're like 3.3kW with a 1kW TV next to it. Thanks shell.

if i dont have an adapter, im either screwed into spending 3 hours at a charging station or im calling a tow truck

Found the commenter that’s never actually owned an EV. 13 years of EV ownership and numerous road trips, and your hypotheticals have never happened to me. Yes, you’re technically correct, said by some to be the worst kind of correct. Because in day-to-day reality, there are basically two kinds of connector types.

Though if your day job, as listed in your profile, is changing brake pads, I could see how you don’t have a lot of contact with EVs. :-)

They're technically correct in the same sense that there are more than 2 mobile operating systems.

Or maybe it's kind of like there were more than 4 different plugs for mobile phones to charger (lightning for apple, several variants of USB, some weirdo proprietary, then usb-c). A lot of people like me have 3 there way splitters (micro-usb, lightning, usb-c), so I can charge any phone.

The world is switching to usb-c finally

There's only 3 plug formats that matter. J1772 for AC charging, the Tesla plug (called NACS), and CCS, the other main standard. It may look messy but it's trivial in practice, once you can use superchargers.

Once you have access to superchargers you can just drive. I've driven across the country 3 times in a Tesla, now I have a different EV with a CCS plug and access to superchargers with an adapter, I'm free to go where I want.

It's not only the plug shape though, it's also the language the plug speaks. Newer Tesla chargers (I think supercharger v3 and up) will be able to talk CCS over the NACS connector for wide compatibility, but the older ones will look the same and only charge a Tesla because they don't communicate with CCS.

That "old superchargers don't work with CCS" is true yet it's not really a problem. First, the software sites that show you chargers know about the different versions. Tesla and even Rivian show you only the superchargers you can use.

The old superchargers (called v2) used the original protocol (CANbus) which is different than CCS's protocol. Newer Tesla superchargers speak the original proto and the ccs wire protocol. All new chargers uses the new protocol. Tesla is slowly replacing their chargers as they age out. At the same time this transition helps reserve a few chargers for teslas (the older v2 ones).

What this means is you use your incar app or a phone app to find chargers, and you only see the ones that you can use. This works for Rivian, Tesla, but also GM and Ford. It's a messy issue for sure, but it's turns out not to be an issue.

Everyone's car already knows what chargers they can use. The card doesn't route you to incompatible chargers. This is a solved problem. It sounds like you just don't have an EV.

I'm aware of that, thanks.

It's more a note for any apartment dwellers thinking "I see Tesla chargers all over town, I could buy a 2025 Equinox (or whatever) with NACS and swing through the one on next to my office when I need to. If it's a v3 or v4 that's true, if it's an older station it's still only for Teslas.

So if you buy a new EV thinking "I know where the nearest Tesla chargers are" you could be in for some disappointment. Check the map first: https://www.tesla.com/findus?filters=nacs_superchargers

It's a worse problem in some areas than others. For example, all 9 supercharger locations in South Dakota are Tesla Exclusive.

Anyone buying an EV learns this in like five minutes before they buy, honestly.

I think you're overestimating normal car buyers, as EVs continue to shift from early adopter novelties into the mass market. People will see a charger and expect to be able to pull up and charge there, like they've been doing with gas stations for decades.

SAE is thankfully working on universal plug and charge standards which will be a huge help for the other problem - the mess of different apps for each charging network. Because just providing a credit card reader like every gas pump ever was too hard.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sae-industry-techno...

Yeah the V2s are also slow enough most people wouldn't want to use them anyway. They are already drastically outnumbered too.

Seven? No, there's really just CCS/J1772 and NACS. And those are protocol-compatible, just the pins are different. Some stations now conveniently have adapters right there too. Your portrayal of charging in NA is not accurate.

In practice there are only three: NACS (currently only at Tesla stations); CCS (everywhere that isn't Tesla), and J1772 (destination charging).

NACS is the industry consensus on the one true North American plug to rule them all going forward.

CHAdeMO is completely dead -- you'll sometimes see them, but they're being kept on life support if not outright decommissioned.

In practical terms, CCS and J1772 are the same standard, in the sense that 2 prong and 3 prong US power plugs are the same standard, since receiving plugs support both.

I do still see CHAdeMO at a lot of EA and EVgo stations (I usually charge at home, so my charging station experience is mostly limited to road trips)

Around here EA's upgrading to CCS-only stations. The older non-upgraded stations only have a single CHAdeMO plug that is usually out of order because it's on very old hardware.

> NACS (currently only at Tesla stations)

The J3400 plug is already deployed by other charge point operators. ChargePoint had J3400 plugs on their chargers 6 months ago:

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

There are still in the neighborhood of 190,000 Leafs in the U.S.

For better or for worse, the charging networks have generally agreed that the aging Leaf population isn't worth supporting.

(Which makes it absolute lunacy that Nissan is still selling the Leaf)

Especially when they apparently have a replacement platform that is perfectly adequate (Ariya).

This is not at all accurate. There have only ever been 3 DC Fast Charging connectors in use in North America. CCS1, Tesla's and Chademo. Chademo was only really used on a couple of cars and most popularly on the Nissan Leaf. Chademo is effectively dead in the US. Which leaves CCS1 and Tesla/NACS/J3400 (which is all the same thing.) All manufacturers are migrating to Tesla's plug. This will take time as it's not a trivial change. Any EV driver is well served to carry an adapter, but it's not totally necessary. My BMW EV does not have accesd to Tesla's supercharging network (so no need for an adapter) and I have driven over 50k miles in the last 18 months on road trips all over the US.

Please stop spreading misinformation.

The US did just adopt a Federal EV charging connector. [1]

Hint: it’s Tesla’s NACS

1 : https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/teslas-nacs-set-to-become-o...

Isn’t adoption of NACS supposed to be the solution here?

Virtually every EV sold today is one of 2 standards.

And adapters for the other standard are <$200, and don't take up that much space in a trunk.

In the event I'm ever truly stranded, I do have a Level 1 charger I keep in my car so that all I need is a 110v outlet. Since my car (EV6) supports V2L and has an internal 110v outlet, I could also use it to help another stranded EV. Not fast, but it is a lifeline.

Half way through your comment I got worried you were about to claim you could charge your EV off its own internal outlet. No joke, I’ve seen many people on car forums saying EV companies are idiots for not making them self charging.

https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/No_f...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com