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Tesla belatedly tries to make their connector a North American standard

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I think the first we will see the NACS connector will be at charging stations.

Eg. An independent station (ie. Not Electrify America) might install say 90% NACS/CC1 and 10% NACS/CHAdeMO.

Arguably Revel Brooklyn has kind of done this already.
They've got a bunch of Tritium Chargers with CCS1/CHAdeMO, but have permanently attached a TPC/CHAdeMO adapter to most of the CHAdeMO outlets. Looks a bit ungainly but works.

photostudio_1668575150456.jpg
 
Tesla is not small. And it will only take 1 other big company to pick it up and CCS will fade away in North America.

Toyota, for instance, has next to nothing going. They might jump on it. Stellantis is a real possibility for our market. Nissan just left Chademo behind. The cost to change to the Tesla port is comparatively low.

I think there's a real chance this will go. It'll be fun to watch over the next couple years.
Toyota adopting NCAS would be a game changer, but boy that would be some serious loss of face as they have dissed Tesla for so long. I think (based on nothing really) that Nissan or Honda would be more likely (and also huge).
 
Don't know if the ship has sailed.
You're talking about a different "ship".
Why wouldn't an up and comer like Aptera do this?
I'm pretty sure they will, but...
though that vehicle may never ship,
This. I find it hard to take anyone seriously who is taking Aptera seriously. They have been fundraising for their vaporware car for 16 years now.

and suddenly all the rules on subsidies for charging stations as long as they support a standard connector will apply to them.
I already granted that this will happen. I believe that. The charging stations will be adding the NACS cables to support Teslas now that it is available as an open standard that they don't have to get into licensing agreements for.
Now, even if you're Ford or BMW,
Yeah, this is the part that's not going to happen. That's the "ship" I was talking about. The big existing auto makers won't do this.
other than out of spite, if you are coming out with a new car in the USA and you can put NACS on it, and offer your drivers Tesla SC as well as all the others, why wouldn't you?
Because they have already chosen their path. It's not spite; it's economics. They aren't going to split up their vehicle lines. Redesign is expensive, and they would be faced with two terrible choices: support both ongoing, with the extra supply lines and inventory stuff and confusion and frustration for their customers, or drop CCS entirely and orphan a generation of cars they already have out, which pisses off your customers. There isn't much compelling reason to switch TO the NACS, when they already have something which is the standard across the industry of all auto manufacturers except one, and CCS is fine (for them).
 
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I really like the looks of the Aptera and I might even buy one someday if it really gets to production.

However let's be real. Aptera will be a small market niche kind of vehicle. It will never produce high numbers like a Tesla or a Ford or a GM.

The DC charging market will consist of Tesla and CCS in North America and this will be true for a long time to come.

I don't think a Ford or GM or VW will every use a Tesla connector on their car's.
 
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I really like the looks of the Aptera and I might even buy one someday if it really gets to production.

However let's be real. Aptera will be a small market niche kind of vehicle. It will never produce high numbers like a Tesla or a Ford or a GM.

The DC charging market will consist of Tesla and CCS in North America and this will be true for a long time to come.

I don't think a Ford or GM or VW will every use a Tesla connector on their car's.

I can’t predict the future of transportation, market share for 3 wheelers may be niche or it may be huge.
My financial advisor was just telling me about rates in 2024. I asked him about Ukraine in 2024, or the elections in 2024- obviously no answer.
 
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I find it hard to take anyone seriously who is taking Aptera seriously. They have been fundraising for their vaporware car for 16 years now.

This isn’t the right thread for diving too deeply into this topic, but that statement is a big oversimplification.

Yes, Aptera was founded a long time ago (2005), but they folded in 2011. Then it rebooted in 2019 with a new marketing angle (Now with a solar roof! You never have to plug in! 😏).

But more important than the solar addition, EV tech (specifically battery costs) and the broader EV market has changed dramatically since 2011, so it’s a much more favorable environment for them to succeed in this time around.

And they’ve made significant progress towards a production vehicle in the past 3 years (functional prototypes, key supplier agreements, etc.). They still have significant hurdles ahead and could still fall short in the end, but I’m somewhat optimistic they can at least make it into (limited) production in the next year or so.
 
Yeah, this is the part that's not going to happen. That's the "ship" I was talking about. The big existing auto makers won't do this.

Because they have already chosen their path. It's not spite; it's economics. They aren't going to split up their vehicle lines. Redesign is expensive, and they would be faced with two terrible choices: support both ongoing, with the extra supply lines and inventory stuff and confusion and frustration for their customers, or drop CCS entirely and orphan a generation of cars they already have out, which pisses off your customers. There isn't much compelling reason to switch TO the NACS, when they already have something which is the standard across the industry of all auto manufacturers except one, and CCS is fine (for them).
It would take a lot for Ford or GM to do it. But if you look at an automaker without a major EV effort deciding to launch a new EV and debating what connector to put on it. A CCS, or an NACS with CCS adapter and a deal to use Tesla SCs plug and play, just like Teslas.

It's a no brainer what one would want as a customer. And an old company might ignore customers but a new one would not.
We're soon going to see Chinese EVs moving into the US market. Those EVs use a different connector in China of course, they are not wedded to CCS in any way, though they will support CCS2 in Europe. But in the USA, NACS with available CCS adapter is a very, very strong choice.

Right now when somebody asks me what EV to buy and they are comparing a Tesla and another, I ask, "So, do you want to take road trips?" Right now there's a huge difference in the quality of a road trip with a Tesla and a CCS car. Especially with the CCS adapter. Perhaps that gap can be narrowed, but it will be a while. And everybody says they want to take road trips, though some only expect to do it a little. While there are many factors in choosing your car, this is a big one.

And so I think we will see Chinese automakers, plus companies that haven't done too much CCS (like almost all the Japanese makers, even Nissan which was the only major of CHAdeMO and was slow to abandon it) seeing this as a great opportunity to differentiate.

As a Standard, Tesla will start to get subsidies that let them build up the SC network with tons of extra funding. They won't even have to put a CCS connector and the long cord those need on the stations. It will be the clear winner, not for the nice small plug, but because it's the connector you would want on a car you are buying today as a customer.

If I were Rivian I would seriously consider switching. They haven't sold many CCS Rivians. They are planning on building their own Rivian-dedicated chargers but it would be much better if they could just use SC, and work with Tesla to build more chargers for Rivians and Teslas. If I were Lucid I would think about it too.

The biggest problem is the old cars that put their charge port not at the corner where a Tesla cord can reach it. Hard to help them except with very bulky extension adapters.

But tell me, if you are a new EV model, from China or Japan or elsewhere, with no legacy in the market, why would you choose CCS over NACS (if you can get a deal to use Tesla SC for your cars?) I can think of only one reason -- fear of Tesla. So Tesla might need to write the contract in a way to get rid of that fear. But you also have the CCS adapter so even if you get shut out of Tesla you are still OK at all the stations that added Tesla cords, and all the CCS stations with a slight hassle.
 
But tell me, if you are a new EV model, from China or Japan or elsewhere, with no legacy in the market, why would you choose CCS over NACS (if you can get a deal to use Tesla SC for your cars?)
Yes, summarizing from a few mentions in your post, the possibilities I see are companies that are at or near the starting line in North America for various reasons:

1. New companies like Bollinger, and yes, I hoped Rivian would and maybe still could. But Rivian is pretty far along--not with individual customer deliveries, but with pretty big corporate delivery van fleets with Amazon.
2. Toyota or somesuch who have kept delaying and delaying entering the EV market at all, so they are still basically at the starting line.
3. Chinese companies first entering the North America market and so having to choose a plug type for here for the first time.

But any of the big existing ones who have been in this for a few years, like Ford, GM, VW, Jaguar, etc. I don't see them changing.
 
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But any of the big existing ones who have been in this for a few years, like Ford, GM, VW, Jaguar, etc. I don't see them changing.
They change if a lot of customers say, "I wanted your car, but I wasn't going to get a car that can only charge in 1/3rd the places of the competition."
People will say that. And today it's already getting close to 1/3rd since Teslas can charge at all CCS now.

Tesla is way, way better at installing charging than any of the CCS networks. They are more experienced at it, they do a better job and they do it for vastly less money. Read my article where I dug into the costs of putting in the stalls:

We're talking at least $100K per stall for most of the CCS stations, an $30K per stall Tesla style. It's ridiculous. Now the CCS companies will get better but Tesla will get better too with even more scale. And if you're a charging network that actually wants people to plug in (they don't all want that) they will be putting Tesla connectors directly on their stations just to support the pre-2021 Teslas, which I think outnumber any given CCS model, maybe several of them combined.

So yeah, I think it gets to the point where there are 3 times as many places a NACS car can charge than a CCS car. And twice as many hotels where you can slow charge.

So yes, customers are going to go to Ford and GM and say, "I like your car, but this is too much of a difference." It may even be strong enough to make them overcome their fear of Tesla. This is the big factor, they don't want to be at the mercy of Tesla, where suddenly they get into a dispute and their cars can't charge at SC any more. But this can be fixed. If Tesla is smart, it will offer a promise that can't happen to the first players who come over. Later, it won't have to offer that promise, OEMs won't have a choice. Tesla's long head start on charging is hard to beat without a massive investment the other vendors don't want to make.
 
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Yes, Tesla is doing this to get access to government subsidy funds.
Does anybody have a link to the current legislation (and relevant agency rule-making surrounding that, if relevant) and its language on what qualifies for US government subsidies? My recollection is that the language effectively required CCS, although IIRC it wasn't by name; it's just that CCS ticked all the boxes and nothing else did. I doubt that Tesla opening up its connector specs would tick all those boxes, although if enough manufacturers adopted Tesla's adapter, it might. Currently, none do; Aptera has yet to sell a single vehicle, and AFAIK no other manufacturer is likely to adopt Tesla's plug design -- at least, not in the short term. My recollection of the language is also that CHAdeMO and proprietary adapters were also both explicitly permitted at charging stations that get government funds, but neither would be sufficient -- so Tesla-only or CHAdeMO-only sites could not get funding.
They tried it the opposite way (offer CCS charging at Tesla stations) and that didn't seem to get traction.
Can you provide a reference for this? Reporting from a few months ago was that Tesla would begin manufacturing CCS1-equipped Supercharger stalls by the end of 2022. We've still got several weeks left in the year, and I have seen no reporting that Tesla was abandoning those plans. Tesla has been very close-lipped about progress toward the goal of adding CCS1 support to North American Supercharger stations, but that's very typical of Tesla; I wouldn't take silence from Tesla on this subject as evidence that they'd abandoned those plans.
 
Does anybody have a link to the current legislation (and relevant agency rule-making surrounding that, if relevant) and its language on what qualifies for US government subsidies? My recollection is that the language effectively required CCS, although IIRC it wasn't by name; it's just that CCS ticked all the boxes and nothing else did. I doubt that Tesla opening up its connector specs would tick all those boxes, although if enough manufacturers adopted Tesla's adapter, it might. Currently, none do; Aptera has yet to sell a single vehicle, and AFAIK no other manufacturer is likely to adopt Tesla's plug design -- at least, not in the short term. My recollection of the language is also that CHAdeMO and proprietary adapters were also both explicitly permitted at charging stations that get government funds, but neither would be sufficient -- so Tesla-only or CHAdeMO-only sites could not get funding.

Can you provide a reference for this? Reporting from a few months ago was that Tesla would begin manufacturing CCS1-equipped Supercharger stalls by the end of 2022. We've still got several weeks left in the year, and I have seen no reporting that Tesla was abandoning those plans. Tesla has been very close-lipped about progress toward the goal of adding CCS1 support to North American Supercharger stations, but that's very typical of Tesla; I wouldn't take silence from Tesla on this subject as evidence that they'd abandoned those plans.

I don't have the exact legislation, but basically there were large grants out there for charging stations, but only if they served the general public which excluded Tesla's proprietary setup.

Tesla initially thought to just offer a CSS plug or adapters at stations. They did like a pilot trial or two and then the CCS effort seemed to stall. This new idea goes the other way to allow Tesla plugs and adapters in everyone's cars and now their stations are "public use"
 
Lower cost of coverage?

Maybe they think that by opening it up, they can get networks to include their plug on chargers deployed in low-density areas and concentrate on higher-density areas.

For example, there are RFPs out to install chargers in Northern Maine.
Tesla WAS on the SAE committee for charges, and when no other OEMs would consider, so Tesla developed their plug.
 
Does anybody have a link to the current legislation (and relevant agency rule-making surrounding that, if relevant) and its language on what qualifies for US government subsidies? My recollection is that the language effectively required CCS, although IIRC it wasn't by name; it's just that CCS ticked all the boxes and nothing else did. I doubt that Tesla opening up its connector specs would tick all those boxes, although if enough manufacturers adopted Tesla's adapter, it might. Currently, none do; Aptera has yet to sell a single vehicle, and AFAIK no other manufacturer is likely to adopt Tesla's plug design -- at least, not in the short term. My recollection of the language is also that CHAdeMO and proprietary adapters were also both explicitly permitted at charging stations that get government funds, but neither would be sufficient -- so Tesla-only or CHAdeMO-only sites could not get funding.

Can you provide a reference for this? Reporting from a few months ago was that Tesla would begin manufacturing CCS1-equipped Supercharger stalls by the end of 2022. We've still got several weeks left in the year, and I have seen no reporting that Tesla was abandoning those plans. Tesla has been very close-lipped about progress toward the goal of adding CCS1 support to North American Supercharger stations, but that's very typical of Tesla; I wouldn't take silence from Tesla on this subject as evidence that they'd abandoned those plans.

Relevant bit:
1668635541483.png
 
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Tesla initially thought to just offer a CSS plug or adapters at stations. They did like a pilot trial or two and then the CCS effort seemed to stall. This new idea goes the other way to allow Tesla plugs and adapters in everyone's cars and now their stations are "public use"
Yes, Tesla has built a few stations with a dozen (or whatever) Tesla stalls and one CCS/CHAdeMO stall. I've seen reporting (but haven't tried to independently verify) that this has been done at some sites in New York State to satisfy state subsidy requirements.

More recently, Elon Musk announced that Tesla would be opening the Supercharger network "worldwide" to non-Tesla vehicles. This was (relatively) easily done in Europe, where (AFAIK) all automakers now use CCS2, and so Superchargers there provide CCS2 plugs. There's been lots of coverage of this. In brief, not all Supercharger stations in Europe serve non-Tesla vehicles, but a fair number do. In the US, there was speculation about how Tesla would serve non-Tesla vehicles, but dribs and drabs of reporting came out suggesting that Tesla would deploy something termed a "Magic Dock," which is described as a "built-in adapter" to enable one cable to handle both Tesla and CCS1 vehicles. The description is pretty vague, but I interpret it as an adapter that's keyed (physically and/or electronically) so that it must be attached to either the charger pedestal or (on the other end) the charge cable (or both), so as to prevent theft. See this article for one of the more complete public descriptions of the Magic Dock. There's also this 2022 White House press release, which claims that "later this year, Tesla will begin production of new Supercharger equipment that will enable non-Tesla EV drivers in North America to use Tesla Superchargers." Taken together, all of this (Musk's tweets, reporting in the EV press, the White House press release) paints a consistent but incomplete picture: Tesla intends to add CCS1 plugs to at least some new Superchargers going forward, and/or to retrofit older stations. We're left speculating about the details, and of course it's possible that Tesla will change course or claim to have never intended this.

I don't see the new NACS announcement as altering this prior narrative. It might be an attempt to get US government subsidies without adding CCS1 support, but unless and until we start seeing Superchargers built with those subsidies, or at least detailed announcements of plans to build them, we won't really know.
 
But the NEVI document is different: Federal Register :: Request Access

View attachment 875291

And I have seen some states criteria specifically call out CCS.
Thanks. That's the bit I was thinking of. It continues:
FHWA NEVI regulation said:
Section 680.106(c) would further provide for additional flexibility for the provision of charging ports after the aforementioned CCS requirement has been met. This includes adding permanently attached proprietary connectors to DCFCs. In addition, specific to the use of FY22 NEVI Formula Program funds, DCFCs may include permanently attached CHAdeMO connectors for one or more DCFC charging port.
This section is explicit in permitting "proprietary" (read: Tesla) and CHAdeMO connectors, so long as the station also provides CCS connectors.

In fact, for those saying that NACS being a standard, rather than proprietary, would help Tesla get federal funding for NACS-only Supercharger stations, this language could blow up in Tesla's face -- as NACS is no longer "proprietary," it might no longer be permitted by this regulation, as interpreted by the FHWA. Personally, I think that's a ridiculous reading, but I could see lawyers for Electrify America, Ford, or whoever making the argument and tying things up in court for months or years.

IMHO, the main initial effects of Tesla's opening NACS in this way are most likely to be less legal exposure of adapter manufacturers and the possibility of non-Tesla fast charging operators adding Tesla plugs. Yes, EVgo has already done this at some stations; but it's likely to be cheaper and easier for them if they don't need to buy Tesla's CHAdeMO adapters.

I find it hard to imagine any major automaker switching to NACS, particularly in the short term. Even though it's now an open standard, it's an open standard that's 100% controlled by a direct competitor, dependent on the charging network that's also controlled by that same direct competitor. This second point would change if most non-Tesla DC fast charging networks add NACS plugs, but right now, in late 2022, that's far from certain to happen. Oh, and no automaker is likely to want to add NACS support, while keeping CCS1; doing so would add cost and complexity to their products -- especially existing products. That said, if Tesla were to add the CCS protocols to most or all existing Superchargers, I could see other automakers offering NACS-to-CCS1 adapters (although in this circumstance, Tesla would probably sell such adapters, and other automakers might leave that business to Tesla).
 
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You're talking about a different "ship".

I'm pretty sure they will, but...

This. I find it hard to take anyone seriously who is taking Aptera seriously. They have been fundraising for their vaporware car for 16 years now.


I already granted that this will happen. I believe that. The charging stations will be adding the NACS cables to support Teslas now that it is available as an open standard that they don't have to get into licensing agreements for.

Yeah, this is the part that's not going to happen. That's the "ship" I was talking about. The big existing auto makers won't do this.

Because they have already chosen their path. It's not spite; it's economics. They aren't going to split up their vehicle lines. Redesign is expensive, and they would be faced with two terrible choices: support both ongoing, with the extra supply lines and inventory stuff and confusion and frustration for their customers, or drop CCS entirely and orphan a generation of cars they already have out, which pisses off your customers. There isn't much compelling reason to switch TO the NACS, when they already have something which is the standard across the industry of all auto manufacturers except one, and CCS is fine (for them).
Agreed. The above is exactly one reason the ICE companies created a different standard from what Tesla was pushing.
They figure that, with their might, they can force Tesla to split up their vehicle lines, just as the European car companies cried to their mommy governments and convinced them to make the outsider, Tesla, do so in Europe.
The other reason they adopted the frankenplug was because it was ok with them to have an ugly, kluge of a charge connector. They didn't want to make EVs anyway.
 
Agreed. The above is exactly one reason the ICE companies created a different standard from what Tesla was pushing.
They figure that, with their might, they can force Tesla to split up their vehicle lines, just as the European car companies cried to their mommy governments and convinced them to make the outsider, Tesla, do so in Europe.
The other reason they adopted the frankenplug was because it was ok with them to have an ugly, kluge of a charge connector. They didn't want to make EVs anyway.

To be fair, a universal charging standard (at least on a per country basis) is a good idea for the public.

We can debate what the best standard is, but one plug that works everything and is available everywhere is a good idea. It's unfortunate that the US seemed to pick the huge ugly CCS1 for it - sort of the USB-A of the charging world.