Tesla Charge Ports & Plugs from China, North America, and Europe Compared (for Models S, X, 3, & Y)

[Vostok]

And it's now NACS, not TPC anymore.

Tesla is not a standards organisation, therefore it cannot unilaterally decree something as a “standard”.

Get back to me when SAE has finished its work.

 

[EfficientWatts]

Tesla is not a standards organisation, therefore it cannot unilaterally decree something as a “standard”.

Get back to me when SAE has finished its work.

You do not need to be a standards body to call something a standard. If you want to be particular about it, you can say it is an unofficial standard. But Tesla as it is today now calls it NACS. (Opening the North American Charging Standard | Tesla). Maybe it is kinda presumptuous to have standard in the name, but their intentions and direction with the connector is clear at this point.

I don't know why you seem particularly triggered by the NACS and also calling those who like the Tesla connector fanboys in response. It shows your weak your arguments truly are. You also seem to gloss over the good points and only home in on the bad points, and you ignored the fact that despite the shared AC/DC lines, we have not heard of any major failure due to the worse case of somehow the wrong type of current going the wrong path. Again, you can continue to say that is a flaw of the standard, but state it as such, no need to drop to name calling.

Yes you can like your standard. And to be clear I do wish that Type2 and CCS type 2 could have been everywhere. But Elon is elon, and he probably could have made that happen, but knowing the particulars of how he is he probably wanted to save money on the plastic used for the connectors and ports, haha.

 

[Chuq]

Tesla is using CCS2 in Chile, which IMHO heavily implies it will be the standard they use across all of South America:

Chile

One Chilean store is on the map! https://www.tesla.com/findus/location/store/424402 Article: Tesla Announces Pricing in Chile for Model 3, Model Y — More Affordable Than Expected! - CleanTechnica

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Earl]

And to be clear I do wish that Type2 and CCS type 2 could have been everywhere. But Elon is elon, and he probably could have made that happen, but knowing the particulars of how he is he probably wanted to save money on the plastic used for the connectors and ports, haha.

There was a whole lot that had happened before you came on the EV scene, about which you apparently are unaware.
When Tesla started delivering the Model S, the CCS standard organization (SAE) was dragging their feet, delaying to ratify it. Additionally, the draft of the standard at the time was limited at 50 KW and unable to go higher.
It wasn't either a Standard, nor was what there was on a path to be any good.
The SAE had already changed from the J-1772 draft making compatibility issues for Tesla's deployed Roadsters trying to charge at 70 KW with a simple mechanical adapter so Tesla knew that the Standards committee could only agree on one thing - block Tesla.
Tesla really had little chance but to make their own charging equipment or have EVs that sucked as badly as the compliance cars that the rest of the auto industry was dumping out in hopes that EVs would die again.
After the Model S was beating everything on wheels, Porsche pushed to enable faster charging in the final CCS standard so their Taycan could have a chance to be competitive against what Tesla was putting on the road despite all of the standards roadblocks they had been pushing.
Remember also that Tesla's original plan for the Model S was to adopt the signaling from the draft CCS standard so that the CCS adapter would be a simple mechanical one like the J-1772 one but CCS pulled the rug out on them by changing it to be non-compatible with what Tesla had deployed. Tesla just put their heads down and proceeded until recently when they were able to come up for air and build dual-protocols into their cars.
It was a very dirty battle but Tesla was not wrong. Neither was Musk.

 

[Vostok]

It was a very dirty battle but Tesla was not wrong. Neither was Musk.

Conspiracies only apply in the USA.

In most of the rest of the world, Tesla initially used a modified Type 2 connector because the Tesla Proprietary Connector doesn’t support 3-phase AC charging, which made it a non-starter in most of the rest of the world.

Tesla now uses CCS2 exclusively in all of those markets, including Australia, and we are very thankful for that. We can plug into any DC charger anywhere in the country without an adaptor.

 

[Chuq]

More context... when Tesla changed from modified Type 2 to CCS2, they had the benefit in that AC chargers didn't need to change! That means all public Tesla destination chargers, all private owned home Tesla wall chargers etc. would continue to work with either vehicle inlet.

Not so with (for example) changing NACS to anything else, as all those AC chargers with NACS connectors would be incompatible (unless they made cars with two different sockets). So it's understandable that a change would have been much more difficult. Of course, in hindsight it would have been a lot easier pre-Model 3 launch that today!

Tesla's overall preference for CCS2 is clear as they use it in 49 of the 55 countries, across five continents, that they serve with superchargers. They've used it in every new market they've entered since 2017.

I agree with @Vostok above, as an owner it's a much better result.

Updated map of Tesla's use of different connectors below.

 

[Earl]

Conspiracies only apply in the USA.

In most of the rest of the world, Tesla initially used a modified Type 2 connector because the Tesla Proprietary Connector doesn’t support 3-phase AC charging, which made it a non-starter in most of the rest of the world.

Tesla now uses CCS2 exclusively in all of those markets, including Australia, and we are very thankful for that. We can plug into any DC charger anywhere in the country without an adaptor.

The pioneers were in the USA too. Most of the rest were smugly thinking diesels would solve problems.

The rest of the world came much later (decades). I had been a Tesla customer for nearly a decade before they came to Australia. You had "2nd mouse" advantage (you know, the one who gets the cheese), it just isn't fair for @EfficientWatts to make up ignorant statements like:

But Elon is elon, and he probably could have made that happen, but knowing the particulars of how he is he probably wanted to save money on the plastic used for the connectors and ports, haha.

The battle was fought in the USA starting in about 1990. Actually, the Australian outback played a role in the motivation for the first solar powered car race that GM won.

As far as connectors: One can easily use a NACS connector with one leg of a 3-phase circuit. Most of the public ones in the US work that way. They may imbalance the 3-phase but they work.

 

[Mrbrock]

Tesla is not a standards organisation, therefore it cannot unilaterally decree something as a “standard”.

Get back to me when SAE has finished its work.

J3400 (WIP) North American Charging System (NACS) for Electric Vehicles - SAE International

This Recommended Practice covers the general physical, electrical, functional, safety, and performance requirements for conductive power transfer to an electric vehicle using a connector, which can be hand-mated and is capable of transferring either DC or AC single-phase power using two current-carr

www.sae.org

 

[EfficientWatts]

There was a whole lot that had happened before you came on the EV scene, about which you apparently are unaware.
When Tesla started delivering the Model S, the CCS standard organization (SAE) was dragging their feet, delaying to ratify it. Additionally, the draft of the standard at the time was limited at 50 KW and unable to go higher.
It wasn't either a Standard, nor was what there was on a path to be any good.
The SAE had already changed from the J-1772 draft making compatibility issues for Tesla's deployed Roadsters trying to charge at 70 KW with a simple mechanical adapter so Tesla knew that the Standards committee could only agree on one thing - block Tesla.
Tesla really had little chance but to make their own charging equipment or have EVs that sucked as badly as the compliance cars that the rest of the auto industry was dumping out in hopes that EVs would die again.
After the Model S was beating everything on wheels, Porsche pushed to enable faster charging in the final CCS standard so their Taycan could have a chance to be competitive against what Tesla was putting on the road despite all of the standards roadblocks they had been pushing.
Remember also that Tesla's original plan for the Model S was to adopt the signaling from the draft CCS standard so that the CCS adapter would be a simple mechanical one like the J-1772 one but CCS pulled the rug out on them by changing it to be non-compatible with what Tesla had deployed. Tesla just put their heads down and proceeded until recently when they were able to come up for air and build dual-protocols into their cars.
It was a very dirty battle but Tesla was not wrong. Neither was Musk.

Kinda presumptuous to assume that I was unaware of any of Tesla's early history with charging...

What I said does not contradict Tesla's early experience, as type 2 / 3 phase plugs is not something that could have been ever solved with the current NACS connector. Either they would have to provision for extra pins / space for the other 2 phases somewhere in a modified NACS connector or adopt the type 2 standard, which they did where they had to (eventually moving to CCS-2 for DCFC as well). The speculation of wanting to keep costs lower is not something out of the realm of possibility given Tesla's changes, so it wouldn't have made financial sense to use type 2 where it wouldn't be able to be used unless there was another reason to do so.

Even if somehow SAE and Tesla did align, that would only have solved the NA market, still leaving the other regions in question (and where my dream comes into play, which I already stated is really a when pigs fly thing for more reasons more than just people apparently hating Tesla).

As far as connectors: One can easily use a NACS connector with one leg of a 3-phase circuit. Most of the public ones in the US work that way. They may imbalance the 3-phase but they work.

There are regions in Europe where you cannot put more than a certain amount on 1 phase (16A from what I can see), so NACS on AC charging would not get very far there (plus more 3 phase being available in general). So a US centric solution would not work at all over there regardless.

 

[Earl]

There are regions in Europe where you cannot put more than a certain amount on 1 phase (16A from what I can see), so NACS on AC charging would not get very far there (plus more 3 phase being available in general).

European EVs were irrelevant until after Tesla was growing strong. As I mentioned before, they were smugly belching sulphur from their diesel microcars that cheated emissions tests and were breaking tall people's backs and necks. Many of us in the US were actually trying to solve the issues of the world.
Sure, supporting another AC connector for 3-phase might have been nice to get past these silly European regulations but it would have been totally useless in the USA and would have also required significantly more complex signalling (single-phase -vs- 3-phase). The original J-1772 committee wanted to make EVSEs as cheap as possible as they strove to make affordable EVSEs.
Changing that silly 16A rule and letting the European power grid deal with it, just as the USA has would have been another option as well.