NACS Megathread

[joec]

The Tesla charging network is light years better than EA. I have used both. Tesla is just making serious $ income off the supercharging network. They brought the cart before the horse.

As discussed about 50,000 times on this very thread, Tesla's reliability is unproven. Until now, they've only ever had to charge their own cars, which is a cakewalk compared to what all the other charging networks are up against. It remains to be seen how reliable superchargers will be at charging EVs from dozens of different manufacturers at scale.

I suspect they will actually do better than EA. But that's far from guaranteed.

 

[Tesla2.0]

The Tesla charging network is light years better than EA. I have used both. Tesla is just making serious $ income off the supercharging network. They brought the cart before the horse.

Well… Tesla did have foresight to creating a network to service their cars. Nowaday, that network is probably subsidized to help them sell more cars where as EA, EVGo and CP had no such incentives to thrive for better maintenance. Rivian also maintain diligently their network for reputation of their brand. Mercedes is coming with their network as well. Eventually, Rivian, Tesla and others will monetize for their energy distribution service.

I think this is good thing generally for faster EV adoption. Tesla fan investors are concerned they may lose their competitive advantage because their better network is no longer a car sale draw. I think it’s a wash. Elon welcomes competition. Non-Tesla EVs have features Tesla doesn’t have that can showcase to them at supercharge stations while Tesla owners showcase their software features can push other companies to improve. This is all good.

 

[EXOTIC2]

As discussed about 50,000 times on this very thread, Tesla's reliability is unproven. Until now, they've only ever had to charge their own cars, which is a cakewalk compared to what all the other charging networks are up against. It remains to be seen how reliable superchargers will be at charging EVs from dozens of different manufacturers at scale.

I suspect they will actually do better than EA. But that's far from guaranteed.

Doesn’t the Tesla network already charge more vehicles than EA combined with all the other companies. Pretty sure they do. My personal experience with EA was awful and almost drove me away from EV purchases. Slow charge/ broken chargers/ charging interruptions etc

 

[Tesla2.0]

Lectron Tesla Supercharger (NACS) to CCS Adapter | Vortex Plug | 500A | 1000V

Shop our Lectron Vortex Plug Tesla Supercharger (NACS) to CCS Adapter. Get fast delivery and best prices.

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WOW! 500 amp, 1000V. $200, I’m not sure pulling the trigger at this point as who know how reliable they are. But I would pay for a Lucid brand adaptor.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Doesn’t the Tesla network already charge more vehicles than EA combined with all the other companies. Pretty sure they do. My personal experience with EA was awful and almost drove me away from EV purchases. Slow charge/ broken chargers/ charging interruptions etc

Tesla Supercharging Network only service their own brands unlike other charging brands have higher complexity to service different brands with different voltage and handshake. So @joec is correct. That aspect hasn’t been proven. It could be MagicDoc station is gathering information for further improvement.

 

[BACamster]

WOW! 500 amp, 1000V. $200, I’m not sure pulling the trigger at this point as who know how reliable they are. But I would pay for a Lucid brand adaptor.

Agreed, eventually the market will be saturated with NACS to CCS1 adapters.

 

[Tâm]

As discussed about 50,000 times on this very thread, Tesla's reliability is unproven. Until now, they've only ever had to charge their own cars, which is a cakewalk compared to what all the other charging networks are up against. It remains to be seen how reliable superchargers will be at charging EVs from dozens of different manufacturers at scale.

I suspect they will actually do better than EA. But that's far from guaranteed.

Small sample numbers of complaints about the unreliable Supercharger with Magic Dock:

1) Short cable

2) Hyundai/Kia cars kept requesting 800V that shut the 400V Supercharger down. It's resolved with the car's firmware update after a couple of months.

3) Too slow charge for Lucid owners: 50kW instead of 300kW.

Thus, with this deal, only the issue #2 was resolved but my guess is issue 1 and 3 will persist for some time.

Future potential unreliability might be the imperfections of the automatic registration process at the start of the implementation. Your car might not be identified as part of the deal so you have to call your car company to manually register yours to the system. However, that issue might not happen to Lucid in 2025 because Ford and others would go through that process first in 2024 and the registration process would be mature just in time for Lucid start.

 

[joec]

Tesla Supercharging Network only service their own brands unlike other charging brands have higher complexity to service different brands with different voltage and handshake. So @joec is correct. That aspect hasn’t been proven. It could be MagicDoc station is gathering information for further improvement.

Yes. When your company writes the software for both the car and the charger, it's infinitely easier to get the two of them to talk to one another. You can literally see the source code of both the charger and the car.

EA has had to deal with software from many, many manufacturers. And those manufacturers have had to deal with whatever the EA charger dishes out. This is why you get the constant blame game going on whenever problems arise.

Tesla will run into those same issues. But like I said, I do think ultimately they will work it out. Doesn't mean there won't be growing pains, though.

 

[DeaneG]

Don't get too excited about buying a NACS->CCS adapter just yet. When you do, buy it from Tesla or the company you bought your car from (Lucid).
Network operators generally prohibit the use of unauthorized, third-party adapters. Legal language is already in EA's user agreement among others. Tesla will be the same. Why would they let you risk their charging equipment, or your life or car, on some half-baked adapter from "Gumavee" on Amazon?

 

[borski]

Well… Tesla did have foresight to creating a network to service their cars.

No, they didn’t. There were no other options then. That’s not foresight, but the market requiring it. Nobody would have bought a Tesla if there were no chargers, so they built chargers. That wasn’t really a choice or foresight.

By the time other companies started building EVs, EVGo and EA and others already existed.

Doesn’t the Tesla network already charge more vehicles than EA combined with all the other companies. Pretty sure they do.

Even if that’s true, they’re all the same car. I guarantee you if EA *only* had to charge Porsches, they’d have far fewer issues.

When you cater to everyone, you inherit everyone’s problems, not just your own

 

[EXOTIC2]

^^^
Would disagree with some of that however but you’re entitled to your opinion. Cart was always before the horse in the grand scheme of development. We can go on back-and-forth with this citing different philosophies but I’ll just leave it alone.

 

[HariK]

Yes. Indeed. It is one thing to have reliable charging with only Tesla vs with umpteen others. We will see more Tesla chargers down as a result and the overload too. I totally believe that Musk might be gloating about NACS becoming the US standard de-facto but he invited and enabled competition at many price points above and below his current models. His profit margins fell a lot with the price cut. Due to competition, he has to add sensors and lower the price of FSD too.
He lost his advantage of the charging network to sell Tesla.
I also hope to see a Tesla to CCS adapter from Lucid rather than take the risk of buying from a 3rd party. That said Lectron was one of the reputable Tesla to J1772 L2 adapters.

 

[kerplunk]

Fear of being stranded because EA can't keep their lights on has decreased. But what a mess to have to charge slower, for more money and add a check to musk column.

EA had their grant money, backing of major autos and the position of the only real nationwide player with a CCS standard and still dropped the ball.

 

[Lucken]

Musk is already poking fun at Lucid for signing on to the NAC standard, essentially saying they ate a large slice of humble pie in doing so. I would have been surprised if he didn’t say something like this.

 

[HariK]

BTW note that the Lecton Tesla to CCS DCFC adapter works only with Gen 3 1000V 500A Tesla super chargers and they will start shipping in Jan 2024. How many existing Gen 2 Tesla DCFCs are replaced with Gen 3 now?

 

[sk8ndad]

The key here is that you will have a choice. What I saw was that the adaptor for the Lucid will be available in 2025, so I'm not holding my breath. As more people buy electric cars, the charging networks (all of them) will improve and become more numerous. It will be interesting when the Toyota tech hits the street with much longer ranges and much shorter charging times.

 

[Lucken]

The key here is that you will have a choice. What I saw was that the adaptor for the Lucid will be available in 2025, so I'm not holding my breath. As more people buy electric cars, the charging networks (all of them) will improve and become more numerous. It will be interesting when the Toyota tech hits the street with much longer ranges and much shorter charging times.

I’m not holding my breath for Toyota’s tech either.

 

[BACamster]

The key here is that you will have a choice. What I saw was that the adaptor for the Lucid will be available in 2025, so I'm not holding my breath. As more people buy electric cars, the charging networks (all of them) will improve and become more numerous. It will be interesting when the Toyota tech hits the street with much longer ranges and much shorter charging times.

With their proposed solid state batteries, their cars wouldn't be cheap. Besides solid state batteries have yet to be proven to be reliable and durable.

 

[stratus]

Battery experts. How realistic is the idea of solid state batteries working for mass production?

 

[Adnillien]

Battery experts. How realistic is the idea of solid state batteries working for mass production?

Very real but will take multiple years to get there.