NACS (Tesla adapter) versus CCS Megathread

[SFSOUNDGUY]

Why?

Because it's a reliable network. I've had EVs for ten years and nearly always have an EA issue. I just had one last weekend two chargers in a row failed me. If we want people to migrate to electric we need a reliable charging network, and currently that's only Tesla! The more manufacturers announce the switch to both the better and the more pressure it will put on EA and the government to make them fix their issues or go away

 

[Tâm]

I think it is pretty obvious CCS is dead.

No, not now, just yet. The Fed funding still requires a minimum of 4 CCS ports per station, and that money will run out in five years.

It's inconceivable to hope Volkswagen will switch because it still owns a majority stake in Electrify America (it sold a minority stake to Siemens).

 

[joec]

Because it's a reliable network. I've had EVs for ten years and nearly always have an EA issue. I just had one last weekend two chargers in a row failed me. If we want people to migrate to electric we need a reliable charging network, and currently that's only Tesla! The more manufacturers announce the switch to both the better and the more pressure it will put on EA and the government to make them fix their issues or go away

You're assuming the Tesla network will be reliable for non-Tesla cars. That's far from a given.

It's much easier to write reliable software when you know with 100% certaintly how the car on the other side of the transaction speaks. You have access to that source code and can alter it as needed to ensure that perfect handshake.

This will no longer be true when GM, Ford, Rivian, etc. all start talking to Tesla chargers. You could very well end up in the same situation EA is in now.

 

[gmglass]

@Bill55 We need to align with NACS, that much is very clear and will benefit everyone's experience. EA sucks and is the rate limiter for all non-tesla EVs until now.

 

[stratus]

Because it's a reliable network. I've had EVs for ten years and nearly always have an EA issue. I just had one last weekend two chargers in a row failed me. If we want people to migrate to electric we need a reliable charging network, and currently that's only Tesla! The more manufacturers announce the switch to both the better and the more pressure it will put on EA and the government to make them fix their issues or go away

Ideally, there will be a combination of Tesla 1000v superchargers and other vendors , that will probably switch over to NACS. As you stated, I truly hope this forces vendors like EA to produce more reliable experiences.

 

[joec]

@Bill55 We need to align with NACS, that much is very clear and will benefit everyone's experience. EA sucks and is the rate limiter for all non-tesla EVs until now.

Everyone is focusing on the connector, which is the least interesting part of this and far from the only thing that needs to happen in order for there to be a "standard."

The connector is just a piece of plastic. It does not magically solve the problem of dozens of car manufacturers writing software that is trying to communicate with dozens of different charging networks.

 

[gmglass]

@joec I hear ya, but if you had no other network other than the Tesla network, including superchargers, we're all way ahead of anything without Tesla for the for the next 10 years. No brainer.

 

[xponents]

I apologize for starting yet another NACS thread, but I wanted to see the general publics opinion on charging. These votes are anonymous.

 

[Bill55]

No, not now, just yet. The Fed funding still requires a minimum of 4 CCS ports per station, and that money will run out in five years.

It's inconceivable to hope Volkswagen will switch because it still owns a majority stake in Electrify America (it sold a minority stake to Siemens).

Yes, it will take awhile to be the de facto standard in USA.
As soon as both GM and Ford announced, CCS became a dead man walking, unfortunately, regulation/law changes take time, so millions more will be spent on CCS.
Would be money better spent to send every owner with CCS an adapter and accelerate NACS.

 

[SFSOUNDGUY]

You're assuming the Tesla network will be reliable for non-Tesla cars. That's far from a given.

It's much easier to write reliable software when you know with 100% certaintly how the car on the other side of the transaction speaks. You have access to that source code and can alter it as needed to ensure that perfect handshake.

This will no longer be true when GM, Ford, Rivian, etc. all start talking to Tesla chargers. You could very well end up in the same situation EA is in now.

I'm assuming Tesla will write the code and update the handshake better and faster, perhaps daily as this all rolls out and do better than EA has to date! Im also assuming GM, Ford Rivian, etc, will work together to write /correct the source code and manage the transition no one is saying this will be easy but it will be better in the end

 

[Bill55]

Everyone is focusing on the connector, which is the least interesting part of this and far from the only thing that needs to happen in order for there to be a "standard."

The connector is just a piece of plastic. It does not magically solve the problem of dozens of car manufacturers writing software that is trying to communicate with dozens of different charging networks.

Not just plastic, there is a different pin configuration. Your not going to just cut off the CCS connector and put on a NACS.

I definitely agree the communication protocol standards need work.

I visited a EV charger company in Toronto and it was the first time they had connected to a Lucid. It took a software engineer less than 10 minutes to get it working. Unfortunately, there are not software engineers on stand by at every charging station ready to adjust for any new vehicle.

 

[SFSOUNDGUY]

Ideally, there will be a combination of Tesla 1000v superchargers and other vendors , that will probably switch over to NACS. As you stated, I truly hope this forces vendors like EA to produce more reliable experiences.

The problem with EA is they don't seem to care and they seem to fail to manage their network and update it. To date, there has been no penalty to EA for delivering a sub-power product but as the manufacturers begin to include Tesla charger access EAs days of doing nothing are surly limited....

 

[thecodingart]

I'm assuming Tesla will write the code and update the handshake better and faster, perhaps daily as this all rolls out and do better than EA has to date! Im also assuming GM, Ford Rivian, etc, will work together to write /correct the source code and manage the transition no one is saying this will be easy but it will be better in the end

This is the grass is greener outlook that flat out isn’t true. Prepare to have your bubble popped in the upcoming years.

 

[stratus]

This is the grass is greener outlook that flat out isn’t true. Prepare to have your bubble popped in the upcoming years.

As an obviously knowledgeable person in this area, where does most of your pessimism regarding this issue stem from?
I am just trying to increase my level of sophistication when it comes to understanding charging .

 

[joec]

This is the grass is greener outlook that flat out isn’t true. Prepare to have your bubble popped in the upcoming years.

Especially when you consider Tesla's motivation here. Once they get every manufacturer to switch to their plug, they won. There's no good reason for them to sweat the finer details of getting all those other cars to charge reliably on their chargers. There will effectively be no competition at that point, and thus all those cars will have nowhere else to go. Even if other charging networks all adopt NACS and survive, Tesla still got away with not having to change their own plugs on their own cars. Saving them billions in retrofitting their cars and chargers.

 

[thecodingart]

As an obviously knowledgeable person in this area, where does most of your pessimism regarding this issue stem from?
I am just trying to increase my level of sophistication when it comes to understanding charging .

Tesla has gone through great lengths to make their super chargers "repairable" in nature. Reliability wise, they have the same issues that ALL charging networks have, including major handshake/software issues that plague all networks.

Tesla's software "had" a slight advantage in delivering an end to end solution where they could have proprietary recovery mechanics and handshakes to initiate charging, but this is not the case when using an open CCS protocol (which they've adopted). Tesla is not going to impose proprietary communications with other vehicles, because that's not the direction any of this should move.. or even would be wise to move to.

Over the course of a decade, the Supercharger network has become a cornerstone of Tesla's business and they've had to scale up their SLAs on how quickly they address and identify "down" stations. This is great, but it just reduces the time for how long stations are down, it doesn't address how often they go down or how often they fail to handshake with vehicles at a software level.

With that being said, everyone here will experience the EXACT same CCS handshake issues on the super charger network as they will EA, EVgo, etc. There's no magic bullet for this other than hardening the stack to orient everything around making CCS communications with vehicles rock solid (which groups have formed around doing). Tesla isn't going to fix this issue, NACS isn't going to fix this issue. Time, money and scaling will fix this issue alongside regulations.

This transition is going to be super awkward for older Tesla's due to not having onboard hardware that can communicate with CCS, non-Tesla vehicles needing to support > 400v architecture, and superchargers are going to be put through the ringer with a very small portion of them being v3 or above and being able to even talk via CCS. Superchargers that support CCS isn't something that's been hardened ... at all.. This is ALL new at scale. Note that Tesla hasn't even entirely solved their own charge network issues yet... and they've had the longest amount of time (and least amount of friction) to do so.

Also, to be very clear, if you actually compare charging speeds with Superchargers... it's typically slower _for Tesla's_ in comparison to high voltage charge stations like EA or EVgo. When everyone gets a taste of this, the reputation will start to tarnish. There's a grass is greener look happening right now... and it's a false narrative.

What everyone _should_ appreciate is getting a nicer charge plug and having more available charge networks for competition and emergency/availability sake. That's a win win for everyone. I would not try to oversell Superchargers as they simply aren't that much better than the competition, just more available.

 

[SFSOUNDGUY]

This is the grass is greener outlook that flat out isn’t true. Prepare to have your bubble popped in the upcoming years.

Only time will tell. As far as I'm concerned anything is better than the current situation. The more access we have to more chargers the lower the percentage of handshake failure & charge failure, so yes I guess the grass is greener

 

[thecodingart]

Only time will tell. As far as I'm concerned anything is better than the current situation. The more access we have to more chargers the lower the percentage of handshake failure & charge so yes I guess the grass is greener

The more charger availability for everyone is 100% a win for everyone.

 

[stratus]

Tesla has gone through great lengths to make their super chargers "repairable" in nature. Reliability wise, they have the same issues that ALL charging networks have, including major handshake/software issues that plague all networks.

Tesla's software "had" a slight advantage in delivering an end to end solution where they could have proprietary recovery mechanics and handshakes to initiate charging, but this is not the case when using an open CCS protocol (which they've adopted). Tesla is not going to impose proprietary communications with other vehicles, because that's not the direction any of this should move.. or even would be wise to move to.

Over the course of a decade, the Supercharger network has become a cornerstone of Tesla's business and they've had to scale up their SLAs on how quickly they address and identify "down" stations. This is great, but it just reduces the time for how long stations are down, it doesn't address how often they go down or how often they fail to handshake with vehicles at a software level.

With that being said, everyone here will experience the EXACT same CCS handshake issues on the super charger network as they will EA, EVgo, etc. There's no magic bullet for this other than hardening the stack to orient everything around making CCS communications with vehicles rock solid (which groups have formed around doing). Tesla isn't going to fix this issue, NACS isn't going to fix this issue. Time, money and scaling will fix this issue alongside regulations.

This transition is going to be super awkward for older Tesla's due to not having onboard hardware that can communicate with CCS, non-Tesla vehicles needing to support > 400v architecture, and superchargers are going to be put through the ringer with a very small portion of them being v3 or above and being able to even talk via CCS. Superchargers that support CCS isn't something that's been hardened ... at all.. This is ALL new at scale. Note that Tesla hasn't even entirely solved their own charge network issues yet... and they've had the longest amount of time (and least amount of friction) to do so.

Also, to be very clear, if you actually compare charging speeds with Superchargers... it's typically slower _for Tesla's_ in comparison to high voltage charge stations like EA or EVgo. When everyone gets a taste of this, the reputation will start to tarnish. There's a grass is greener look happening right now... and it's a false narrative.

What everyone _should_ appreciate is getting a nicer charge plug and having more available charge networks for competition and emergency/availability sake. That's a win win for everyone. I would not try to oversell Superchargers as they simply aren't that much better than the competition, just more available.

Many thanks for that explanation; very helpful in understanding the complexity of these issues. It is all a bit overwhelming, but these discussions are really valuable, especially for those of us who are still learning to grasp just how difficult all of this is to standardize.

 

[Tâm]

Especially when you consider Tesla's motivation here. Once they get every manufacturer to switch to their plug, they won. There's no good reason for them to sweat the finer details of getting all those other cars to charge reliably on their chargers. There will effectively be no competition at that point, and thus all those cars will have nowhere else to go. Even if other charging networks all adopt NACS and survive, Tesla still got away with not having to change their own plugs on their own cars. Saving them billions in retrofitting their cars and chargers.

Agreed. Monopoly is a genuine concern.

Tesla's motive is, unsurprisingly...MONEY!

When Tesla first opened up its patent, Xpeng took the offer, and it has been known as a "Tesla clone"

"Henry Xia, who founded Xpeng in 2014, admitted openly that he was influenced by Tesla and the automaker’s announcement that they were open-sourcing their patents.
It was reportedly the first company to actually take up Tesla on using their patents for free."

‘Tesla clone’ EV startup secures $350 million investment from Alibaba and Foxconn​

When Tesla opened up its NACS, that doesn't mean only Tesla can build NACS stations, others can too. Most independent charging stations have announced they are adopting NACS too.
Tesla hasn't built its stations everywhere so there are still lots of locations for its competitors to build NACS stations. For example, Rivian also plans for campgrounds and National Parks.
Just because Tesla opens up NACS, that doesn't mean there won't be any more competition.
Just because competition doesn't die, that doesn't mean Tesla can't make money and it doesn't mean Ford, GM, and Rivian don't profit from the deal.