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The mass sponge EV charger plug migration continues to collect steam. Since we final wrote concerning the matter, first Polestar after which Mercedes-Benz additionally introduced that they are dropping the Mixed Charging Commonplace 1 (CCS1) connector in favor of Tesla’s North American Charging Commonplace (NACS). Someday subsequent yr, non-Tesla electrical automobiles from these makes, in addition to Ford, Basic Motors, Volvo, and Rivian, will be capable of begin making use of Tesla’s Supercharger community. In 2025, these automakers—and doubtless just a few extra—will begin constructing vehicles with NACS ports inbuilt.
It is not simply the automobile makers. Charger producers and charging networks have additionally been asserting new NACS merchandise, and it seems like sufficient crucial mass is constructing that CCS1 is likely to be headed for extinction. Or no less than it might be relegated to curio standing alongside CHAdeMO. Issues are wanting even higher now that SAE Worldwide is taking up the administration of NACS, so it’ll not be underneath the management of a rival OEM run by a billionaire identified for impulsive and infrequently arbitrary selections. At this level, many are merely ready to see if Hyundai Motor Group or Volkswagen Group would be the subsequent massive convert.
The justification for dropping an entrenched commonplace and switching to NACS, from Ford and others, was as a lot about acquiring entry for his or her EV homeowners to Tesla’s Supercharger community, and why not? Even probably the most hardened partisan from the EV model flame wars has to concede that not solely are there way more Superchargers on the market, however they provide a vastly superior charging expertise to any of the general public charging networks.
However does that mechanically imply that the change from CCS1 to NACS will assure a superior charging expertise for all these Fords, Chevys, Rivians, Volvos, Polestars, and Mercedes? I am not fully positive it does. I’ve three massive unanswered questions: Will the non-Teslas match Superchargers, will non-Teslas match in at Superchargers, and why ought to we imagine {that a} totally different plug will abruptly make all these horribly unreliable third-party charging networks abruptly run completely?
For the {hardware} makers—vehicles and chargers each—the change theoretically should not be that troublesome. The truth is, NACS truly makes use of the identical communications protocol as CCS (and in addition ISO15118, also referred to as “plug and cost”), in contrast to earlier variations of the Supercharger community that used a proprietary communications protocol that interfaced with a Tesla’s CAN bus.
Will it match?
However the first massive drawback drivers from all these non-Tesla makes will encounter is whether or not or not the charging cable even reaches their charging port. As a completely closed ecosystem (till now), Tesla has been capable of optimize the Supercharger expertise for its EVs. So all Teslas have charging ports in the identical location (on the again, built-in into the aspect of a light-weight cluster), which in flip means the Superchargers do not want very lengthy cables to achieve them.
Different manufacturers’ ports are in every single place—usually on a entrance wing forward of the door, but additionally generally on the rear beneath the C pillar—however with little standardization of which aspect of the automobile they go. We don’t know whether or not Tesla will redesign Superchargers to accommodate the brand new arrivals, but when so, “you want lengthy cables to get each place of the charging port,” stated Dennis Mueller, SVP of product advertising and communications at ADS-TEC, which makes EV charging {hardware}. “An extended cable means they’re heavy; there’s numerous price of copper and so forth.”
These longer cables do not simply get costlier; additionally they get heavier and extra unwieldy. And it is not likely the plastic CCS1 plug that contributes to the heavy cables it’s important to take care of at an Electrify America or Chargepoint (or whomever) quick charger; it is all that copper wiring.
